How To Create A Content Marketing Strategy That Converts

by Wuraola Ademola-Shanu

Apart from being a Copywriter, I also double as a Content Strategist. And having gained an experience of over 5 years in the field, I’ve always been asked certain content marketing questions by clients, potential customers, business owners and content marketing enthusiast. 

If you fall into any of the categories above or have heard about content marketing and would like to know more, I’ve curated this comprehensive guide to answer some of the most burning and common content marketing questions you might have. Lean in!

Content Marketing: Answers To Frequently Asked Questions & Answers

Question 1:  What is Content Marketing?

Answer: According to The Content Marketing Institute,  Content Marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

In lieu of this definition, we can say that Content Marketing is a long-term strategy that allows you to build a strong relationship with your customers via producing engaging, interesting and high-quality content that addresses your audience’s pain points and is relevant to them.

This, in turn, shows your customers that you care about their problems, establishes you as an authority, gives you credibility, help you achieve brand loyalty and makes your customers easily buy from you.

Question 2: What does A Content Marketer Do?

Answer: A content Marketer plans, creates and shares valuable content that attracts your potential customers, converts them into paying customers and become a brand ambassador.

Question 3: What Qualifies As Content?

Answer: Most times, a blog is what readily comes to people’s minds when they think of content. And while blogs are one of the easiest and amazing ways to implement content marketing, they aren’t the only forms of content that can be used for content marketing campaigns and strategies.

Simply, content is anything that provides valuable information and can be conveyed via various platforms. Other forms of contents are infographics, videos, games, eBooks, books, white papers, case studies, slide shares, PDFs, podcasts, webinars, swipe files, etc.

Question 4: What’s The First Thing To Do When Getting Started With Content Marketing?

Answer: While it’s tempting to jump right in and start posting on your blog without any thought, I’d recommend that you don’t do that. Rather, the first and most important step to take is to create a content strategy.

Content strategy involves the development, planning, creation, delivery and management of content. Without a solid content strategy in place, you might as well be wasting your time.

Question 5: What Are The Steps To Creating A Content Marketing Strategy?

Answer: First, identify your target audience. You can achieve this by creating your buyer persona to gain an insight into their lifestyle, spending amount and needs. After doing this, the next step is to identify your brand tone and the type of content you want to create.

Deciding your brand’s tone is important. For example, if your brand tone is warm and approachable and your content sounds conservative or frigid, it won’t convert because there’s a contrast between your brand’s tone and the tone in the content it is creating.

Additionally, your content must be informative, valuable as well as engaging and interesting to your target audience. Also, for every content you churn out; never forget to add a call-to-action. A CTA tells your audience what to do after reading your content and how to do the action you seek of them.

Question 6: Do I Need To Constantly Create Content?

Answer: Yes and no. While your target audience needs content from you consistently, you can simplify the process for your business. One of the easiest and most effective ways to achieve this is via content repurposing.

For example, if you’ve published previous posts in the past, you could republish them by tweaking some things and giving new opinions. Think of it as publishing a revised edition of a book that has been previously published. 

Or, it could be that you’ve published a checklist or an ebook. You could repurpose it by using points or tips in the book as carousels on Instagram, taking a chapter from the book and publishing it to spark a conversation or taking statistics from the ebook or checklist and transforming it into an infographic. Or you could do an IG Live or give a webinar discussing the content in the book.

Question 7: How Often Do I Post Fresh Content On My Site?

Answer:  There is still a lot of debate surrounding this. But, one thing I can tell you is that every business, industry and target audience demographics have different content consumption patterns.

For social media, nothing stops you from updating your social media platforms every day. For blogs, you must publish at least twice a week to drive organic traffic to your website and increase rankings on Google.

Question 8: Why Do I Need Content Marketing?

Answer: You need content marketing for the following reasons:

• It helps you improve brand reputation by building trust

• Great content helps influence conversions. According to the Content Marketing Institute, “After reading recommendations on a blog, 61% of online consumers in the U.S. then decided to make a purchase.”

• Creating great content is a cost-effective way to attract potential customers.

• Content enables your brand to showcase your subject matter expertise. Consumers want to know that they are dealing with experts who know the industry like the back of their hands. Content marketing allows your brand to demonstrate its expertise in the field while providing valuable knowledge that can help readers make a more educated purchasing decision.

• It allows you to build relationships with customers and convert them into loyal ones.

• Your potential and existing customers want to read great content. And if you’re thinking that people don’t want to spend time reading content from your brand, think again.

Question 9:  Is It Important To Share My Content On Social Media?

Answer: Not only is it essential but also important. Posting content on your blog and sitting back, relaxing and hoping that people would see it is funny. In fact, successful bloggers will tell you that 20% of your time should be dedicated to content creation with the other 80% spent on promoting your content on social media.  Therefore, I strongly suggest that you share your content on all of your social media platforms.

Question 10: Is Guest Blogging A Great Content Marketing Strategy?

Answer: The truth is: content creation is content creation, irrespective of where your content appears and let’s not forget that guest blogging is an amazing source of outreach or digital PR. However, one key principle holds here: guest blogging or not, all content produced by you must give valuable information that will help your target audience.

Question 11: Do I Need An Editorial Calendar?

Answer: I’d say an editorial calendar can be likened to a building plan drawn up by an architect. Without a content calendar, there’s a high chance of running out of content to post, losing your brand tone and losing track of your overall content strategy.

And when this happens, your target audience begins to feel a disconnect and go to your competitors for solutions. See an editorial calendar as a reference guide that makes sure you never go off the tracks.

Question 12: How Do I Make My Content Engaging?

Answer: The answer to this depends on your target audience. For example, the type of content that millennials would like differs from the type of content you’d create for the oldies. Therefore, speak to your target audience’s pain points or challenges, let them see that you understand them and want to help them – and open up conversations. Ask them questions and invite them to respond. Their replies would give you an insight into the solutions they want from you. 

Question 13: How Can Content Marketing Establish My Business As An Expert/Leader?

Answer: Getting you known as an industry thought leader is one of the KPIs content marketing should help you achieve. Creating unique and valuable content consistently creates a sense of trust in your customers and allows them to buy easily from you without fear or force.

You can establish authority in your field by creating unique content that not only shows your expertise but also addresses customers’ challenges. In no time, you would become an industry leader.

Question 14: What’s The Difference Between B2B & B2C Content Marketing?

Answer: While B2B content tends to be more professional and businesslike in its tone because its target audience are businesses. And topics, most times, are always business-related. On the other hand, B2C content adopts a warm and conversational tone and topics have more fluidity than B2B.

Question 15: Which Is Better? Long-Form or Short-Form Content?

Answer: While studies seem to suggest that short and sweet is good, others say that long, comprehensive content is better at conversions. My advice? Find out what your audience likes via testing. Write some long posts and some short ones and see which type they interact with. When you are able to ascertain the length they like, revolve your content creation length around it.

Question 16: How Can I Create Content That Converts?

Answer: The first thing to note is that content marketing is just one step in the conversion funnel. You have to leverage other strategies like SEO, social media marketing, mobile marketing, email marketing, PR and website design alongside content marketing to get ROI on investment.

That said, this doesn’t mean that content marketing isn’t important. After all, every content on your website, right down from the About Page to the FAQ needs to be informative and connect with your target audience. Also, every content you write must be crafted with each step of the conversion funnel in mind and add a compelling CTA at the end.

Question 17: What Are Some of The Common Content Marketing Mistakes?

Answer:  Writing blog posts or content that are extremely salesy and overly promotes your business and its products is a no-no. You’d only end up putting your audience off. The first rule of content creation is giving value before sales.

Secondly, all content or sales copy you create must follow the following 5 C’s: Clear, Concise, Compelling, Credible and have a Call-To-Action. You cannot use some and discard some. All five must be used together to create a powerful synergy.

Question 18: How Do I Get My Content In Front Of My Target Audience?

Answer: While posting your content on social media is great, never underestimate the power of email marketing. However, whatever channel you choose, make sure the headline of your content is catchy and informative. It should hook people and want to make them read the body of the text.

Question 19: How Do I Measure The Success Of My Content Marketing Campaigns?

Answer: Ultimately, the success of a content marketing plan can be seen in the number of conversions it creates. But it can be difficult to track exact results, as a consumer needs several “touches” before finally deciding to purchase. A visitor may read a blog post, and then see an update on social media, and then read a few emails, before finally deciding to convert.

While the blog post wasn’t the immediate cause of the purchase, it was that all-important first touch. So, give your new content marketing efforts some time to take effect, and then look for an overall uptick in sales. That’s how you’ll know if things are working as planned.

Question 20: Should I outsource my content marketing, or handle it in-house? 

Answer: It depends. If you have the time and resources available to you, then, by all means, create that content in-house. But, if you don’t feel that you have the ability to create enough quality content in-house, then hiring an expert is a great choice. They can help you develop a strategy, implement it, and then continually tweak it for the best possible results. If you’d like help with your content marketing strategy, send me an email or contact me via Instagram today! 

---

Wuraola Ademola-Shanu is a copywriter, content strategist & creator who helps professionals, consultants, and business owners align their stories with their ideal clients, refine their sales funnels, and expand their online reputations. That can take the form of a great bio, article, or other marketing material that puts the client’s best foot forward, and connects magnetically with the people whom they can help the most. As a freelance consultant, her creative marketing efforts are focused on small businesses and individuals. Wuraola is also a copyeditor and proofreader. She has edited and proofread novels, short stories, infographics, website copies, web content, and journal articles. This job requires her to bring a fresh eye to a writer's work. Wuraola uses what she learns about a writer's manuscript to assist in transforming the book into a tightly written piece. You can connect with her via email at Omobolanleshanu@gmail.com and on Instagram (TheCopywritingChick).

More articles by Wuraola