When using an Inbound Marketing methodology, the type of content you use and its quality are key to generating as many leads as possible. In fact, according to HubSpot, Content Marketing allows you to obtain three times more leads than paid search advertising. Writing content, whether on a blog, social media, or any other platform, should always be part of your strategy, and doing it the right way will guarantee the results you are looking for (or even surpass your expectations).
For many businesses, creating content can be difficult. In this post, we will share the top content marketing writing tips to ensure easy and effective content creation.
What does your audience do? What types of industries do they work in? What else do you know about them? Asking yourself these kinds of questions is going to be key so that the content you write is appropriate.
In Marketing, your Buyer Personas sum up the ins and outs of your target audience members. It is very important that you do a deep dive research on these people to discover what their wants and needs are and to generate content based on them. You also need to follow the different phases of the Buyer's Journey to create relevant content depending on the stage each lead is at.
A great idea is to take a look at the competition. See what market niches they are covering, what actions they are taking, and the tone, style, and length of their top-performing content. This will give you insights into the best types of content to reach your audience, and develop how you can cover those topics better.
After this, it's time to decide on the content you're going to create. You must have extensive knowledge of the topics you have chosen to be able to provide your leads with accurate information. To do this, try to provide facts, statistics, data, metrics, and interesting details that prove your content is expert, authentic, and personalized for them.
A blog, without question, is one of your most important content assets. According to a HubSpot study, Marketers who prioritize blogging initiatives are 13 times more likely to achieve a favorable ROI. Once you've set up your blog and finished your research from the previous step, it is time for you to make a content plan where you define:
A fundamental part of your content plan is setting the goals you want to achieve. To do this, you need to make sure your goals are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. Then, it is time to choose your KPIs, which will influence your content, results, and strategy. Depending on your KPI outcomes, you can continue on the path you're going or you must pivot accordingly.
Now you have everything you need to make the content you write the best it can be, so it's time to get down to it. Here are 3 of the top content marketing writing tips to help you out:
Your posts should revolve around one main idea or topic. It is important that you don't try to include too many topics in a single publication because it will only serve to confuse your readers; they won't get enough info about their problem or need, and they might feel that you don't know enough about the chosen topic.
Support your main topic with links to your own posts that explain the area in more detail, or any supporting links from useful websites. You want to give readers all the tools to solve their questions/doubts.
It is important to align the tone of your writing to your target. If your content is directed towards university students, for example, you should make sure to use words or slang that they know and relate to. Your tone might be more informal and friendly, depending on the context. However, if you are writing to a CEO of a Marketing company, you will want to use industry terms and a more formal style. It's all about creating a unique writing style for your brand, and tailoring that to each audience!
To stand out amongst the thousands of other pieces of online content, you must frame your posts in a creative and special way. There will probably be many companies who have written about your chosen topic. How can you differentiate yourself from them? What new approach or information do you offer?
When talking about content in the digital age, we cannot forget about SEO. Writing a good post is not an easy task in and of itself, but you have to go one step further by including relevant search terms. After all, is your content truly great if no one can read or find it? As we mentioned earlier, researching your successful competitors will give you an idea of the keywords they're using. Discover how you can improve your SEO positioning with Pillar Pages and Topic Clusters.
Once all the previous steps have been completed, your post is just about ready. But first, you should review all the content to see that it is correctly written and that the structure makes sense. If possible, have a teammate also take a look. Two pairs of eyes are better than one!
We also recommend that you review everything that may affect SEO: title, keywords, links, etc. In addition, take device type into account to make sure every visitor can correctly see your content. Good job, you've completed your first post!
Now the writing process is over and it's time to publish your post. But remember that the work does not end here; tracking your post is necessary to see if you are on the right path or you should change course and take other actions.
At mbudo, we are a full service Inbound agency that can take care of your Content Marketing strategy. Do not hesitate to get in contact with us for your content needs, as well as strategy, implementation, automation, and more.