More and more companies are adopting content marketing. This technique has become extremely important in the digital world.
So, what is content marketing? How do you implement it? We answer all these questions in the article below and highlight the key benefits of using content marketing.
What is content marketing and why is it important?
Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content to a targeted audience online. It is an integral part of inbound marketing and plays an important role in overall marketing strategies. Content marketing consists of producing and publishing informative content that enables a company to communicate with its audience and increase its visibility through different formats, such as:
- Blog articles
- Newsletters
- E-Books
- Case Studies
- Surveys
- Videos
- Infographics
- Webinars
- Podcasts
- Etc.
Indeed, a successful content marketing strategy, will help:
- Increase traffic to your website
- Generate new leads
- Improve the SEO of your website
- Improve your e-reputation, particularly through positive word-of-mouth as customers become brand “ambassadors“/ “advocates” by sharing and interacting with your content.
- Build brand trust between you and your customers
How do you create a style guide for your brand content?
What is a style guide?
A style guide is a document containing all the brand and communication guidelines for a company. This includes the tone of voice to be used, the overall editorial and typographical rules, the logo and its variations, the graphic design and overall aesthetic of the company.
Related : → How to build an effective content marketing strategy in the healthcare sector?
Why is it necessary to create a style guide?
A style guide is an effective tool to ensure that your brand has a coherent image and strong brand identity across all your digital channels. This is essential when it comes to building brand trust, you must ensure a harmonious use of your company’s brand codes and brand promises across all your communication channels.
A style guide is an essential document that enables you to share your branding in a clear and detailed way to your teams, the media and even your business partners.
How do you create a style guide?
- First, you must define your brand identity: establish your values, your mission, your company’s personality and the tone of voice you will adopt.
- Share your brand story: what’s behind the brand? What are your brand values and promises? What makes your company unique?
- Outline the rules for using your logo: specify the colors, formats, sizes, spacing, etc.
- Establish a clear graphical charter. Define your company’s color palette, font and overall design so that your brand image remains consistent.
- Identify the visual formats (catalogue ads, videos, images…) that best match your brand’s personality (catalogue ads, videos, images…).
Create an Editorial Calendar for your Content Marketing in 5 Steps
Step 1: Start by choosing a template for your editorial calendar
The main reason to have an editorial calendar is consolidate and organize all the different content in one place.
By planning ahead and organizing various campaigns, you reduce the risk of missing out on good opportunities to build relationships with your audience.
Creating and organizing an editorial calendar also streamlines teamwork (between graphic designers, editors, SEO experts, account managers, etc.). Everyone has an overview and can work to set deadlines.
For example, HubSpot’s Content Calendar Template is a great tool for operations when it comes to coordinating your company’s content marketing efforts. This solution is free of charge and it is available as a Google Sheet file, perfect for collaborating with your team in real time. Therefore, you can use it on Google Drive and add comments. You can also access relevant content directly from the interface.
Step 2: Determine the categories of your blog
An important part of content planning is making sure that you cover enough topics so that your readers are enthusiastic and return to your blog to read more.
When choosing general blog topics, it is important to think about your sales funnel and your search intent.
By offering content that appeals to your prospects, you create an opportunity to foster a relationship that could ultimately lead to a sale.
There are two main types of search intent to keep in mind when it comes to the sales process: informational intent and transactional intent.
- Informational Intent: This type of research intent is about learning. Internet users seek knowledge and information. Users want to know more about a subject, they are asking questions and seeking answers.
- Transactional intent: as its name suggests, transactional intent is linked to the act of purchasing. Users are ready to convert, they are now searching for the right page and the right place to convert. Keywords are very important here and must be specific because users are at the end of the conversion funnel. Ensure that you include transactional terms such as “buy“, “sell” and “price“.
To conclude, help your clients in their decision-making process by giving them the right information at the right time and remember to diversify the themes of your content.
Step 3: Search for the right keywords
Conduct a keyword search in advance in order to find topics of interest that appeal to your target audiences and improve your SEO. What is more, it is more difficult to write a blog article without researching keywords beforehand. You may find that the subject you have chosen is difficult to classify or that there is not enough search volume to justify its publication.
When you find potential keywords that will lead to blog topics, there are a few things to consider, including the following:
- Ensure that you use relevant keywords. Assess the relevance of your keywords, check the results offered by Google on the search page. If in the search results your competitors appear, you are on the right track.
- Strike a balance when it comes to your keyword search intention. Make sure that your keyword combination speaks to readers at different stages of the buying journey.
- Check your keyword search volume. The number of people who have looked for your keyword in search engines is important to consider. The aim is to choose keywords that have a good balance between search volume and relevance.
- Monitor the competition on your keywords. If a topic is popular, is important, you can think of different keywords to bypass the competition and be well referenced.
Step 4: Consolidate and establish a plan of action for each type of content
This step consists of creating a detailed brief for each planned topic.
Here are a few items to add to your editorial calendar:
- Clearly label your blog categories: if you are using a visual editorial calendar, consider assigning different colors to the different categories, so that you can quickly see how much content you have on each topic.
- Add a provisional title: Adding a title can help content creators to define the editorial direction and the main lines of communication of content.
- Include the primary and secondary keywords: if you want your content writer to use specific keywords make sure to include them in the brief.
- Include key references: in order to help your content creator, add reliable sources for quotes and statistics.
- Share examples of articles: To help the content creator write an article that includes your target keywords, you can include examples of articles that have already been published on the topic. In this way, they can use these articles as a reference guide.
Connect your marketing efforts with other media sources
While SEO content may be your primary goal behind creating an editorial calendar, it is certainly not the only way to use this tool. Indeed, the success of a content marketing strategy comes from the coordination of cross-promotional actions on different digital channels including:
- Social media posts
- Sponsored promotional campaigns
- E-mail campaigns
- Webinars
If you would like us to assist you in developing your marketing content strategy, do not hesitate to contact us by clicking the link here: https://eminence.ch/contact-agence-marketing-geneve
