Creating the right content.
In order to creating the right content start by clearly describing each person in your target audience. Marketers call these descriptions buyer personas. We use buyer personas and their buying cycle stages to create targeted content. Our Content Mapping Template will help you through this process, or we can guide you personally.
1) These are some of the questions you need to answer.
• What is their demographic information?
• What is their job and level of seniority?
• What does a day in their life look like?
• What are their pain points? What do you help them solve?
• What do they value most? What are their goals?
• Where do they go for information?
• What are their most common objections to your product/service?
Identify differences between the pain points, knowledge needs and buying behavior of each role
type.
2) Factor in the buying cycles with these questions.
• What are the persona’s issues and concerns at this stage?
• What questions does the persona need to answer at this stage?
• What topics and categories would answer these questions?
The answers you come up with will make it easier for you to tailor content to the specific needs, behaviors, and concerns of different groups.
3) Inventory your companies written and published resources. We call these assets. These might be brochures, case studies and white papers. These materials can be repurposed to create the digital content and resources that people want and need. A great benefit of the chart you create is to determine what solutions your company can offer and determine what content you might be missing.
4) Research where your prospects hang out. More information about this is on our Social Marketing page.
Buying Cycle Stages
Stage One is the early discovery stage of the buying cycle. Visitors are not ready to take action, but a simple content offer like an informative comparison chart might be useful, and it would keep you in mind.
Stage Two is awareness. These are people who have been shopping around, comparing a few companies, and they are looking for in-depth content that would position you as a problem-solving authority worthy of further consideration.
Stage Three is consideration. These are people who are ready to buy. Here you need a valuable lead generating offer. See many examples of offers on our Lead Generation page.
Content Marketing Distribution
Content distribution builds credibility and authority in the eyes of prospects as well as search engines. Distribution extends a companies web presence and drives traffic to their website. Different versions of content marketing materials need to be created to appeal to the culture and demographics of each social platform. The merit of each platform is described on our Social Marketing page. Of course, your choice for distribution is where your prospects are.
Your content needs to be where your prospects and customers are. People consume content in different places (yes, at the dinner table, in the airport and on the beach), in different ways, at different times and on different social platforms.
Part of the Content Marketing strategy is choosing paid or free distribution or a combination. Free/organic distribution includes:
• Social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest
• Content platforms like YouTube and Slideshare
You will find details on our Social Marketing page.
Paid distribution/advertising can jumpstart engagement when your content hasn’t been out there long or at the launch of a campaign. Paid advertising includes:
• Ad networks - pay to feature your ad content prominently in search engine results and banners
• Paid social promotion - promote your content on social networks
• Native advertising - partner with publishers to integrate branded content into the publisher’s site
For more information, download our Content Distribution Chart, which includes examples and best practices.
At Imagine, Inc. we guide our clients through the steps to create a Content Marketing strategy suitable for their target audience. This strategy includes distribution choices and guidance to create share-worthy content that will be optimized for search and conversion. Of course, the team at Imagine, Inc. is available to execute any part of the process.
