12 Unique Techniques for the Best Content Marketing Strategy

How do you make your business stand out amid all the competition? It starts with a well-executed content marketing strategy. Content marketing is the art of creating and distributing valuable and relevant content, not only to attract and grow your audience but also to engage and retain them.

According to SEMrush’s State of Content Marketing Global Report 2022, 78 percent of marketers who believed their content marketing strategy generated excellent results had a documented content marketing strategy.

So, what does it take to develop a content marketing strategy that will help you achieve outstanding results?

12 Techniques for the Best Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is one of the most effective ways to drive new traffic to your site. It increases your reach, offers value to your customers, and increases sales. If done correctly, content marketing can give you amazing ROI.

Here are tactics that break down the entire planning and development of a content marketing strategy.

1. Create a blog strategy

Blogging is an effective way to bring new, organic traffic to your site. When it comes to content marketing, consistency matters more than frequency. Say you publish every day but the content is of poor quality. You won’t arouse your readers’ interest, and you won’t convert any leads. So, take your time to create quality content that offers value.

Publishing your content on consistent days and at consistent times makes it easier for your readers to know when to check back and read your latest offering. To ensure you stick to this consistency, plan your content and create an editorial calendar.

A content calendar shows you exactly what type of content you’ll produce, when, and where you’ll post it.

Your blog strategy should also include guest posting, which campaigns you’ll focus on first, and the different channels that will fit your sales plan.

Here’s an idea of how to approach your blog strategy:

• Know your audience. What are their pain points? How do they research their problems? Where do they look for answers?
• Research relevant topics. Researching your audience allows you to identify relevant topics that relate directly to them. You want to find and generate a list of themes that will stay relevant long-term.
• Perform keyword research for each of the topics you created. Once you profile your buyer persona, you’ll understand the language your audience uses and come up with relevant primary and secondary keywords.
• Create topic clusters, that is, a group of content pieces that fall under the same theme. Creating topic clusters is one of SEO’s best practices that can help you build authority on a specific topic.
• Research your competitors to find the topics and keywords that work best for them and replicate their success.
• Design your content marketing funnel to address the different stages of your customer’s journey.
• Develop a content production cycle. Map out the approximate timeline and estimate how long each project will take.

2. Share case studies

A successful business owner follows these three tried and tested steps:

• Closes a deal with a new customer
• The customer has a great experience with the product or service
• Convinces the customer to share their success story as a case study or testimonial

Case studies are excellent marketing assets. Customers don’t like being the first ones to test the waters with a new product or service. That’s why before they buy, they’ll usually ask their friends or family if they’ve tried your product/service and if they have, whether they’d recommend it.

Case studies share stories of real companies and real people who have actually used your products or services to solve their challenges.

There are multiple ways you can use to share your case studies:

• Create PDFs for email or downloads
• Create a dedicated page for publishing case studies on your website
• Place your case studies on your homepage so all your visitors can stumble upon them
• Put case studies on your landing page
• Share a post with a link to a case study on social media
• Email your case studies to the appropriate contacts

3. Use the waterfall approach

Wondering how some marketers seem to have a never-ending stream of content flowing from their websites and social media pages? They use what’s called the “Waterfall Content Strategy.”

Even with the most solid content marketing strategy, there will be times when the creative juices aren’t just flowing. The waterfall approach ensures a constant flow of relevant and useful information.

There are three major steps involved in the content waterfall approach:

• Creating core content
• Repurposing content
• Distributing and promoting content

Here’s a good example:

• Find your source material. This could be a podcast or an interview with an expert in your industry discussing a relevant topic. The interview provides a ton of great content for your blog.
• Expand the content into various formats. Say the interview appeared on your Podcast. You can promote it on your YouTube channel, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Next, create a blog post based on the interview and publish it on LinkedIn and other relevant platforms.
• Distribute your content. Choose where you want to distribute your content, including publishing it as an eBook or turning it into an infographic.

The waterfall content strategy provides a systematic approach that will ensure consistent production of quality content.

4. Focus on bringing value

Don’t approach your content marketing strategy with the mindset of selling your brand to customers. Instead, focus on creating valuable content for your audience. What do they want to learn, and why would they subscribe to your channel?

Always strive to keep your content fresh and beneficial to readers. Most importantly, strive to make your content unique. You can do so by enriching them with:

• videos and images
• infographics
• original content
• content that answers customers’ questions

5. Create a workflow for consistency

A content workflow gives you an overview of your project’s progress. To create a workflow, break down each content format you plan to create into stages. This makes it easier to manage each stage of production.

A content workflow also allows you to define who will be involved in the various stages, including content creation, search engine optimization, link building, and so on. Essentially, creating a content workflow will ensure consistency and streamline the entire process of content creation, from production to distribution.

6. Consider your branding

If you want a deeper connection with your readers and customers, ensure you have strong brand awareness. Keep in mind that 59 percent of shoppers prefer buying from familiar brands.

To create content that reflects your brand’s voice, ask yourself:

• What does the tone say about my business?
• Does my writing style reflect my company’s values?

Developing your brand voice can help you refine your message and provide your audience with a consistent tone in your content. You can structure this by creating your brand voice guidelines and style guide to point the way for your teams.

7. Automate the processes

During the course of implementing your content marketing strategies, you’ll realize that there are repetitive tasks that can be automated, such as newsletters and tracking progress. Content marketing automation helps you improve the overall effectiveness of your content marketing strategies.

For instance, instead of manually sharing a post on various social media platforms, automation lets you post on your preferred channels simultaneously. This saves you time to focus on other aspects of your business.

So, what can you automate?

• Bulk email campaigns. Automation can use the available customer data, personalize different content elements, like greetings and subjects, for each prospect, and send out content at pre-defined periods of time.
• Content curation can be automated to generate a ready list of engaging content in your preferred category.
• Content workflow.
• Tracking sales conversions.
• Sending out weekly newsletters.
• Brand monitoring.
• Lead nurturing and sales.
• Content analytics.

8. Quality first

To boost your online visibility, you need to create high-quality content that your audience will find useful. Focusing on content that’s relevant to your niche can improve Google search ranking and boost your authority. The best way to create quality content is to develop a customer-centric approach. Answer questions your customers might have and give them the true value of what you have to offer.

You also want to work on organizing your content to help users find information faster. A well-organized blog page will also favor you by enabling Google crawlers to locate and index your content material under the appropriate keywords.

Lastly, your content must be easily readable if you want people to actually read it. Therefore, avoid huge paragraphs, long sentences, and industry jargon. Keep in mind that most readers skim online material, and the simpler it is to read, the better. Leverage tools like Grammarly and Hemmingway to improve your writing and fix common grammar errors. 

9. Entertain your readers

Apart from creating valuable content, you should incorporate humor while at the same time providing solutions. Users will be more interested in reading and sharing content they find amusing and insightful. 

This is where videos can prove helpful in increasing your conversion rates. As this research shows, 93 percent of consumers say watching videos helps them make buying decisions. Consumers find it more entertaining to learn about a new product by watching a video rather than reading about it or looking at photos.

10. Focus on longer content

Several studies show that content with around 2,000 words ranks highest in Google search results. Google favors long content because it considers it to cover a wide range of topics and subtopics within the same post. It means a user can find all the relevant information from just one post instead of continuing their research elsewhere.

Use Google’s “Related searches” and “People also ask” sections to generate ideas for longer content that answers consumer-specific questions.

11. Audit your existing content

Content audit means organizing, analyzing, and improving existing content. This means you can use what you’ve already published to boost traffic. Once you analyze your current content, figure out what’s worth keeping and what needs updating.

Content auditing can benefit you in several ways, including to:

• generate more organic traffic
• boost engagement
• get a better understanding of the topics that resonate with your target audience

12. Monitor your content performance

Even after doing everything right, you still need to constantly analyze how your content is performing and adjust accordingly. It’s the only way to determine if your content marketing efforts are successful. The analysis will also help you create better marketing goals.

Measure the content performance against the KPIs you outlined to determine what your benchmark for success is. Google Analytics is a great place to start.

Takeaways on Techniques for the Best Content Marketing Strategy

An effective content marketing strategy provides value beyond your product offerings, targets your prospect’s specific buying journey stage, and demonstrates your brand’s voice and image. It’s also timely, engaging, and entertaining.

Content marketing can increase your brand’s reputation and help your business grow. Therefore, focus on developing a superb content marketing strategy that will give your business the attention it deserves.