Content Marketing Strategy | What is Content Marketing | Content Marketing Plan

July 20, 2012 By

July 20, 2012 by Jamshaid Hashmi

See our video below that explains – What is Content Marketing and how to devise content marketing strategy

Content Marketing Strategies | What is Content MarketingConsumers are accessing information online in ways they had never used before. Technology is playing an ever increasing and integral part of our daily lives. In today’s technology rich environment, consumers research information using Search Engines rather then relying on radio, newspapers, magazines and other forms of traditional media.

In the new normal, savvy consumers use online media such as websites, email, blogs, social networks and online tools, as part of an online marketing strategy, to communicate and share with their peers.

In order for businesses to leverage this opportunity, and keep in front of the new age consumer, they need to make changes to the way they are finding and communicating with their customers.

Some companies have started testing SEO, and others may be engaging in Social Media.  If you are publishing content, then you may be unknowingly producing content marketing.  What savvy marketers have figured out is that when these three commonly used tactics are executed together, on a consistent basis, they can produce tremendous results. This powerful combo is suitably named ‘Optimized Content Marketing’.

What is Content Marketing?

 

What is Content Marketing - By ClickTecs

Let’s begin by reviewing these 3 common marketing tactics in greater detail:

Content Marketing is the oldest and newest form of marketing – getting a lot of attention and bandwidth on its own, and is defined as:

“… the art of understanding exactly what your prospects and customers need to know then delivering that content to them in a relevant and compelling way to grow your business”.

[in other words, successful execution undoubtedly results in significant growth for your business]

                 –The Content Marketing Institute

Content Marketing Strategy

Search Engine Optimization can be thought of as optimizing each page to rank higher in the search engines. The perfectly optimized page is constructed according to Google’s webmaster guidelines. We create the page and focus on website usability and internal architecture. These pages also target “long tail” searches that will bring a steady stream of visitors looking for the relevant content that you are providing. Adding content regularly will create a huge asset within your website.

Last but not least is Social Media, which basically represents a dialogue between your business and prospects/consumers using the social networks.

When you combine these three commonly used marketing tactics (SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing), you can produce fantastic results.

Optimized Content consists of: web copy, press releases, blogs, case studies, white papers, how-to guides that have all been written and optimized for the keywords your prospects are using to try to find your business, and more importantly keywords that are driving traffic and conversions.

Therefore, Optimized Content Marketing can be thought of as:

“…the art of understanding exactly what your prospects and customers need to know and deliberately producing optimized content based on keywords that are driving organic search traffic and conversions.  Then delivering that optimized content in a relevant and compelling way to grow your business by socializing the content through your organization’s social networks.

                             –Krista LaRiviere, gShift Labs

This is a game-changing attitude shift.  Expect more businesses to change advertising spending away from “more and more” leads to focusing on reaching fewer, but more targeted and qualified lead pools.  Expect some companies to crack the code in how to use social media and targeted PR to drive traffic and improve search positions in order to fill their pipeline.  In addition, expect some to make more strategic investments in creating content to keep leads engaged throughout the process.

Content Marketing Plan

Where does one begin with Optimized Content Marketing?

I would suggest start with questions about your audience:

  • Who is the customer? What do they care about?
  • Where do they discover content?
  • What formats do they prefer?
  • What motivates them to act?
  • What stories will you need to tell to align brand & customer goals?

Next, figure out the keywords using a keyword research tool and remember you can filter the data and get to what a mobile searcher is looking for as well.  Obviously they search differently and expect different things.

Here is a handy process to follow:

Keywords: Broad & Category (even mobile keywords)

Content: Resource Center, Blogs, Social Content, Media

Optimize: Corp Site, Articles, Blogs, Digital Assets, Videos

Socialize: FB, LinkedIn, G+, Slideshare, Twitter, YouTube

Integration: Marketing & PR

Measure: Non-Brand Keyword, Traffic, Social KPIs, Leads, Conversions

Finally, Publish content and broadcast it on the social channels using your website or your blog as a hub.

Content Marketing Plan - By ClickTecs

Remember that SEO and Social Media work together.  Just adding pages and pages of content as an SEO strategy doesn’t cut it anymore.  Social Media is the new way to take your SEO strategy to the next level.  Social Media increases the number of high quality links and targeted traffic, and obviously social signals are playing a more and more significant role in Google’s algorithm.

Optimized Content Marketing just so happens to be what Google is looking for.

Did you hear the one about the 2 pandas and the penguin?

These are the recent updates that Google has done to its algorithm, in addition to 500 other minor changes in the last 12 months alone.  Optimized Content Marketing is the most natural way to produce non-spammy backlinks, social signals and fresh relevant content.

You may have heard the old adage, ‘Slow and Steady wins the race’.  Well this belief certainly doesn’t hold true in this day and age. Competition online is fierce and progress is made at a fast rate of speed. The slow and steady won’t win the race because ‘Fast and Consistent, always beats slow and steady’.

You need to get on with your optimized content marketing strategy today.  Keep in mind that others have been doing this for years, so you are actually playing catch up.

About the Author : Google

Jamshaid Hashmi - Founder and CEO of ClickTecsA serial entrepreneur with extensive background in franchising and interests in multiple online business channels, Jamshaid (Jam) Hashmi has played an instrumental role in the franchise development and success of a renowned international franchise company. His most recent entrepreneurial interests include launching ClickTecs, a Digital Marketing company specializing in Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing as well as Website and Mobile Application development. In 2007 he co-founded WSI Search Result, an online marketing company that supplies services to Internet Marketing Consultants. A sought after public speaker, Jam has been the featured keynote at many franchise conferences and international summits. He regularly trains ‘C’ Level Executives and supports both new and seasoned business owners on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization, Mobile Marketing, Brand Reputation Management and Conversion & Measurement through web analytics. When he’s not scaling the heights of the Internet world, Jam ‘unwinds’ on extreme thrill-seeking adventures from the jungles of the Amazon to the highest summits. His passions include working with NGOs on humanitarian missions to areas around the world affected by disasters and poverty.

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