7 Easy Steps of How to Use Content Marketing to Grow your Business?
Have you ever wondered what content marketing is all about and why it’s considered so important? Or maybe you’re curious about how spending hours crafting long blog posts can actually generate income for your business? Well, stick around because I’m going to break it all down for you. I’ll explain why investing your time and resources into content marketing is incredibly valuable and, more importantly, how to use content marketing to grow your business.
You’ve probably heard the term “content marketing” thrown around a lot, especially over the last decade. But what exactly does it mean?
In a nutshell, content marketing involves creating and sharing online material to boost your traffic through organic search engines like Google and Bing.
From a business perspective, it’s pretty straightforward: more traffic means more potential customers, and more customers can eventually lead to increased revenue and profits.
Content marketing has become so prominent these days because organic search traffic holds significant value for your business compared to other acquisition channels like social media, email marketing, paid search, or referrals.
The main goal for any digital marketer today is to earn high rankings on Google and drive sustainable customer acquisition and business growth.
But let’s be honest, nothing worth having comes easy, and content marketing is no exception.
Getting your website to rank high requires time and effort, and maintaining those rankings with constant site optimization and link building is an ongoing process. But trust me, it’s worth it!
Now that you understand the purpose of content marketing, let’s break it down into seven steps to help you create and promote content that will quickly deliver value to your business.
How to Use Content Marketing to Grow your Business
Step 1: Identify Your Target Audience
When it comes to content marketing, many people skip the most basic step: identifying their target audience.
Skipping this step is like trying to sell steak at a vegan restaurant—you’re completely missing the mark.
Your content marketing efforts should always start with identifying your target market. This is where customer personas come in handy.
If you haven’t already created customer personas, start by analyzing both quantitative data (like Google Analytics) and qualitative data (such as feedback and surveys).
By combining these data sources, you can build a clear picture of who your customers are, including:
- Demographics
- Psychographics
- Motivations
- Site Behavior
- Purchase Propensity
- Average Order Value
- Lifetime Customer Value
This information will help you create content that’s useful, topical, and relevant to your audience. It will also guide you in developing the right writing tone and brand personality to maximize the impact of your content.
Step 2: Carry Out Keyword Research
Once you know who your customers are, the next step is figuring out what content will be relevant and useful to them, and how it can help your business.
This involves conducting keyword research.
Keyword research is all about understanding the keywords and topics people search for.
Take our vegan restaurant example again—without keyword research, you might end up creating content that nobody is interested in.
Use the information from your customer personas to brainstorm content ideas that would be both relevant and useful to your audience.
The success of your content marketing strategy depends on meeting these criteria.
After brainstorming, start identifying the keywords and phrases associated with these ideas that your audience is searching for.
I recommend using two main tools for this:
- Free Tool: Google Keyword Planner
- Premium Tool: SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool
Using both tools helps you gather robust information on what people are searching for. Enter your content ideas into each tool separately and analyze the results.
Key metrics to look for include:
- Keyword Volume: Average monthly search volume
- Trend: Whether the keyword is consistently searched, increasing, or decreasing
- Competition: How likely you will be able to rank for this keyword
As you compile data from these tools, the best keyword opportunities will become obvious.
Focus on targeting broad topics identified from your keyword research and then break them down into specific sections using keywords. This approach helps you cast a wider net with your content while still being specific, enhancing your chances of ranking for a wider range of terms.
Step 3: Identify and Allocate Resources
Now that you have your customer personas and content ideas, it’s time to figure out who will create the content.
If you have a marketing or content team, great! If not, don’t worry—you have options.
If writing isn’t your strong suit or you don’t have the time, consider outsourcing to freelancers. Platforms like Fiverr or Upwork are great places to find skilled writers with expertise in on-page SEO.
Whether you’re creating content in-house or outsourcing, ensure you have a process that includes:
- A content creation manager
- Necessary tools and documentation
- Resource time and costs (if outsourcing)
- Content publishing workflow (creation, publishing, promoting)
- Additional assets (images, infographics, videos)
Step 4: Create a Content Calendar
Creating a content calendar is a simple yet effective way to organize and spread out your content promotion. It helps you take advantage of key dates, times, and trends.
There are two main benefits to this approach:
- Audience Engagement: Regularly promoting content shows your audience that you’re active and relevant, making them more engaged with your brand.
- Google’s Favor: Google loves to see websites continuously producing and updating content. Regularly refreshed content can lead to more favorable search rankings.
A content calendar doesn’t have to be complicated. It just needs to map out when you will publish and promote your content.
Step 5: Create Content
Creating content might seem obvious, but there’s a difference between simply writing and setting it up correctly for on-page SEO.
First and foremost, write for people, not search engines.
Focus on making your content engaging, relevant, and useful for the reader. Structure your content logically and ensure every section adds value.
Once your content is written, go through every on-page element to set it up for SEO success. Use your keyword and topic research to create engaging and compelling content that’s obvious to both readers and search engines.
Before publishing, read through your content multiple times and, if possible, have a colleague quality check it. Reading it out loud can also help ensure the tone and style are spot on.
Step 6: Promote to Your Target Market
Congratulations! Your content is written, relevant, and useful. Now it’s time to promote it to the right audience.
Use a mix of digital marketing methods to amplify your content’s visibility, such as:
- Organic Social Media Posts
- Paid Social Media Posts (depending on your budget)
- Email Marketing (newsletters, DRIP campaigns)
- Influencer Promotions
The goal is to drive traffic to your content and convert that traffic into customers. Here are two methods to help you do this:
- Nurturing Users:
- Employ advertising or social media pixels on your content and high conversion pages.
- Use these pixels to re-engage users with retargeted ads across multiple platforms.
- This method helps drive conversions by targeting users who are more likely to become customers.
- Gated Content:
- Require users to enter their details (like name and email address) to access your content.
- This helps build mailing lists and gather prospects.
- Use email DRIP campaigns to nurture these prospects before promoting products or services.
Step 7: Measure Results
No marketing strategy is complete without measuring its success. Set key performance indicators (KPIs) and benchmarks to evaluate your content marketing efforts.
The main metrics to focus on include:
- Google Analytics:
- Pageviews
- Average Time on Page
- Bounce Rate
- Exit Rate
- Social Media Analytics: Track the performance of your content on social media to understand its reach and engagement.
Over time, compare and measure the impact of different channels driving traffic to your content. Organic search should be your primary goal, but be prepared to wait for results.
Initially, you might see spikes from social media and email promotions. As your content proves its worth, organic search traffic will grow, driving steady, long-term results.
In conclusion, using content marketing to grow your business involves understanding your audience, conducting thorough keyword research, creating engaging content, and promoting it effectively. By following these steps and measuring your results, you can drive sustainable business growth through content marketing.
