Content marketing is undoubtedly one of the pillars of inbound marketing. This strategy consists of making informative content with high added value available to its prospects. And as with any marketing strategy, targeting is the keystone of content marketing! The content you offer must indeed be aimed specifically at your targets, in order to meet their needs and expectations. The goal? Increase traffic to your website, develop your notoriety or even improve your SEO… which remains to this day the most powerful acquisition lever.
The more your content will be interesting and relevant to your targets, the more your content marketing strategy will bear fruit! In addition to attracting potential customers, you retain your existing audience through the distribution of content: you are thus part of a logic of lead acquisition and engagement. The challenge is therefore to deliver the right message, in order to obtain quality traffic and generate a high conversion rate.
To obtain results, a minimum investment will be necessary. No worries, however: quality takes precedence over quantity, of course. No need to publish at all costs. The main thing is that your content performs, by providing your prospects with the information they are looking for. And if you have enough resources to post regularly, your content will only drive more traffic! Either way, relying on content in your inbound marketing strategy will only be beneficial: it will give you new sales opportunities.
Using content in your inbound marketing strategy: what steps?
1. Define the objectives
First, you need to precisely determine your goals. Ask yourself how content marketing fits into your overall digital strategy and your inbound marketing plan. Depending on your priorities, your content may aim to:
- Arouse the interest of your readers for your products and services,
- Increase your organic traffic or sales,
- Boost your SEO or your conversion rate,
- Fuel your lead nurturing campaigns,
- Position yourself as an expert in your sector, …
2. Adapt the topics to your SEO strategy
As you can imagine: the definition of your subjects is not a matter of chance or the simple goodwill of the editor. To guide your choices, it is particularly interesting to study keywords and semantics to establish your SEO strategy. What are the keywords related to your industry that are the most searched by users? Which of them do you want to position yourself on?
The challenge here is to define the subjects that interest your readers the most, in order to generate significant traffic to your site. Therefore, in addition to positioning your site on the keywords that correspond to your products and services, position it on the keywords sought by your targets, those which correspond to their needs and problems. Also, do not hesitate to take a look at what is happening with your competitors … if certain keywords generate many visitors, position yourself on them as well in order to redirect readers to you!
3. Offer specific content to your personas
In order for your content to fit seamlessly into your inbound marketing strategy, you need to identify your marketing personas. Once defined, these ideal buyer profiles allow you to identify in great detail the customers you are talking to. You are then able to adapt your speech to offer, to each target, the content most able to meet their needs: format, tone, style, vocabulary, issues …
A personalized content strategy that meets the characteristics of buyers personas is an excellent performance lever: you improve the engagement rate and reach your targets more effectively!
4. Adapt the content to the buyer journey
Just as the content varies according to the type of personas, it is advisable to offer different content according to the stage of the buyer’s journey. The buyer journey is divided into 3 phases:
- Discovery: your persona realizes that she is facing a problem, that she has a need, but she has not yet formulated it. She, therefore, does research to formalize her needs.
- Evaluation: your persona knows she has a problem, she has formulated it and is therefore looking for solutions to solve it. She is looking for all possible solutions.
- The decision: your persona is ready to deploy the solution to solve their problem. She, therefore, compares the different alternatives to find the one that best meets her needs.
When setting up your content strategy, keep in mind that the main goal is to speak most accurately to the right person, at the right time, and with the best content. Your persona is not in the same state of mind depending on the phase of the buyer journey in which it is, you must address it differently at each stage.
5. Vary the formats
To best adapt to your buyer personas and their buyer journey, do not hesitate to vary the formats. Blog articles, videos, podcasts, customer cases, newsletters, quizzes … all means are good to communicate information to your targets. Be careful, however, not to scatter yourself: your brand image must remain consistent! So always keep in mind your editorial line and your goals.
6. Share content on the right channels
In order to bring your content to life, you must share it on the appropriate channels, in order to create the best synergy! Depending on the format of your content, therefore study the distribution channels that are the most appropriate. How? ‘Or’ What? Align yourself with the information habits of your targets and choose the channels suited to the typology of your content.
7. Analyze performance
Feel free to readjust your content strategy based on what’s working best so far. To do this, analyze the performance of your publications. This will allow you to know which themes and formats to favor in order to generate the most organic traffic and conversions. This particularly powerful content will then serve as a benchmark for the development of your next content!
Note: you can easily decline your best content to continue to profit from it. Present them in a different format or approach them from a different angle in order to scan as many keywords as possible.
The different types of content depending on the nature of the intended target
We cannot repeat it enough: we must adapt the content to its target! And this rule is also true depending on whether you work in B2C or B2B. Consumers and professionals do not have the same expectations, the same requirements, or the same sources of information. You must therefore take these specificities into account to offer the typology of content that is most relevant to the nature of your target.
1. Content for B2C
- Of product descriptions, declinable product videos
- Of blog articles
- Advice sheets
- The content produced by and for consumers: opinion forums, caring community …
2. Content for B2B
- Of blog articles designed specifically for your target and adapted to their professional issues
- White papers to deepen a theme-driven by your company and show your expertise in this area
- Of customer case studies to reassure the lead-in phase decision on the relevance of your offer and your company’s reputation
- Of webinars, these online lectures and participatory, to educate your prospects and position your subject expert
- Powerful infographics and videos, to share on Linkedin
- Professional barometers or sectoral studies, to be at the forefront of the news that interests your prospects
- Encrypted data, to convince of the effectiveness of your solution
Tip: Some of this content must be freely available, in order to increase your website traffic. Others, with a higher degree of expertise (white papers, customer cases, etc.) can be accessed by download: this will allow you to collect data on your prospects!