Content creation
Content is the glue that holds everything in marketing together. Without it, we would have nothing to share. Content brings everything to life. But content is so much more than what people think it is. It's not just written blog content. It's everything from top-of-funnel hero pieces (such as reports, whitepapers, and eBooks) through to case studies (written or video), website copy, social media posts, and design. Everything we share with the world is content.
Content across the funnel
Lead generation is harder than ever, which means that creating high-quality content is key when trying to engage individuals irrespective of where they sit on the sales funnel.
Did you know that 95% of individuals in the market at any given time are not actively looking to buy? With that in mind, it's more important than ever that every piece of content we produce positions us in the best possible light so that when an individual is actively looking for a new product, solution or partner, we're front of mind - or at least in consideration.
Content types
Hero content
Bigger pieces of content, such as whitepapers, research studies and eBooks. Typically, hero content is aimed at the awareness stage: positioning you as understanding the problems and challenges that your target market is facing.
Blogs
Engaging content pieces - typically somewhere between 800-1200 words. Blogs are primarily used at the awareness and consideration stages across the funnel.
Case studies
Bringing to life your exceptional client work. Case studies are business critical pieces of content - they show potential customers that you're credible and have experience either within a sector and/or tactic type - for example, campaign execution.
Practical content
Informative and practical content is a game-changer for businesses. Content such as checklists and infographics can bring to life your expertise in a way that the end-user can actually use in their day-to-day roles.
Video
Nothing brings something to life more than video: being able to see a person or process visually take shape. Video content is particularly impactful as it removes subjectivity or confusion, which can often happen with written content.
Measuring the success of content
Creating content without an eye on its performance is one of the most common flaws in marketing strategies. Too many teams spend hours upon hours creating quality content, yet absolutely no time is dedicated to reviewing how it performs to inform optimisations to it and future content.
Sample content marketing KPIs
We're big believers in full-funnel marketing. As such, we approach campaigns by creating purposeful content that engages our target audience each stage. We also monitor performance in this way too.
Social media
Impressions and reach only tell one part of the story. Depending on your objectives, you'll probably want to monitor KPIs and metrics such as clicks, engagements and clickthrough rate. How many people proceeded to the next step of the journey? I.e., visiting the website to find out more.
Blogs & web content
Rather than just focusing on the total number of visitors to a page, it's important that we dive much deeper. Page visitors are a great indication of our content creating awareness of an issue, but let's instead think about how our content is contributing to our sales targets. Think about things such as... How long are people staying on the page? How far down the page do they get? Are they engaging with our user journey as we had anticipated - i.e., are they using this page to move further through the funnel? And ultimately, is the page converting? If not, why not?