The Complete Content Marketing Guide To Increase Conversions

Are you aware that 81% of marketers view content as a core business strategy? This shows just how vital content marketing has become in the business and marketing world. In a way, it has cemented its position as a tried-and-tested marketing tool to increase reach and audience base. 

All businesses, big or small, are integrating a comprehensive B2B content marketing campaign into their business models. They are adding more content in marketing to leverage the effective marketing strategy. 

A question might arise in your mind – What is it exactly? Why is it gaining popularity? 

Well, don’t fret! You have come to the right place! In this content marketing guide, we will see the content marketing basics, the types, metrics to consider, how it works, steps involved in creating a B2B content marketing strategy, top strategies that work, examples, resources and the top marketers to follow.

What Is Content Marketing?

The Content Marketing Institute defines the term as, ‘Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.’

In simpler words, it is a content marketing strategy which involves building strong interpersonal relationships with your existing and potential clientele by creating and sharing innovative, useful, and relevant content. The content can be in the form of blog posts, interactive videos, newsletters, social media posts, podcasts, and more.

You will gain the prospects’ trust by sharing engaging and relevant content with your viewership periodically. As a result, they will want to buy from you, leaving your competitors behind. In fact, it has been proved statistically that 44% of prospective clients interact with and consume at least 3-5 pieces of content before making a purchase.

Content marketing efforts are usually lighter on your pockets. It is far more affordable to generate high-quality content than it is to create one-off, large-scale advertisements. 

What Are The Benefits of Content Marketing?

There are innumerable benefits of content marketing. If we were to list all of them, this would be one very long post. Instead, what we will do is provide you with some very compelling benefits of integrating a great strategy into your business – 

1. It Boosts Your Sales

The leads you get from the traffic to your content have a significantly higher chance of making a purchase. This is how powerful content marketing is. A prospective customer would generally engage with the content you post about your product before getting in touch with a rep to make a purchase.

2. It Helps Your Business Gain More Visibility 

Generating original and useful content regularly and posting it on the web will increase your business’s visibility and reach, thanks to search engine optimization (SEO). With consistent posting of content, your business will rank higher search results and bring the attention of more people to your platform.

3. It Cultivates Brand Loyalty

Customers who engage with your content daily and associate with it are more likely to stay loyal to your business. In fact, they can even recommend their near and dear ones to try out your products and services. This will result in more people finding out about you and your business.

4. It Is More Cost-Effective Than Other Marketing Strategies

Yes, this is 100% true! A well-developed content marketing campaign is more affordable and effective than paid advertisements. 

5. It Increases Brand Awareness

It is important to voice out what your company stands for. Creating informative content about your product or service will help prospective customers understand your brand better. Once their understanding increases, they will engage with your content further and buy from you.

6. It Increases Your ROI Massively

Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional advertising but is three times more effective in delivering leads or traffic.

Your ROI improves by leaps and bounds once you add cohesive content marketing into your strategy.

7. It Increases The Quality of Your Leads

For a whopping 74% of companies, content marketing seems a sure-shot way of enhancing the quality of their leads. Along with refining the quality, it also increases the number of leads companies get.

8. You Rank Higher in Search Engine Results

Integrating good quality content with optimized keywords makes you rank higher in search engine rankings. Companies that publish regular content get 67% more monthly leads than those that do not. Try building a solid content strategy for SEO.

9. It Helps To Increase Your Website Traffic

Want to look at an interesting statistic? If they play their cards right, companies can potentially increase their traffic by 843% from a single blog post. Execute a detailed content marketing strategy to achieve this feat. It happened before, and it can happen to you too.

10. It Gets Your Unique Viewer Count to Increase

According to studies, 65% of customers get exposed to a new brand or product via influencers in a week. Additionally, 40% of consumers bought something after the product was recommended through social media. This is the power of marketing your content right. 

Traits of Effective Content Marketing

After knowing the importance of content marketing, are you wondering what effective content marketing looks like? Here you go!

1. Provides value

Try not to stop with only sharing the features your product has to offer. Try to justify the time readers spend on your content by providing value that helps them learn and grow their business or increase their productivity. You must create content that fulfills the needs of the target audience. Also, don’t try to stuff your product name in the content; instead, use them as naturally as possible and only if needed.

2. Aligns with the buyer’s journey

Creating content around the customer’s stage in the buyer’s journey is essential. As you have seen, there are 3 phases – awareness, consideration, and decision and you have to create content that aligns with each of these.

3. Has consistent brand voice

Regardless of who is writing the content, there has to be a consistent writing style that echoes the brand voice. Even your design and visuals should have consistency so that the target audience can find out that the blog post or infographic is from your brand. Keep the same consistency when using a logo maker and working with UX designers.

4. Is engaging

It is essential that what you write engages the audience you want to target or else there is no point in creating content. You have to get the reader’s attention and drive them to take the desired action. 

Content Marketing Statistics

You can feel the power of content marketing with the help of the following content marketing statistics:

• 90% of marketers have content marketing as a part of their marketing strategy.
• 70% of marketers vigorously invest in content marketing.

• 60% of marketers say they publish a minimum of one content piece a day.
• Content marketing helps you close 3x more sales than outbound marketing.
• 92% of B2B marketers believe their content is one of their most prized assets.
• 49% of B2C marketers prefer outsourcing their content writing and marketing.
• It is possible to increase your page clicks and blog visits by 437% by renaming your current title with a search engine optimized one.
• B2B marketers reveal that businesses who post blogs get 67% more leads per month than those who don’t.
• SEO content strategy is behind the online growth and success of 61% of marketers.
• Infographics are the 3rd-most used type of content in marketing. 

Doesn’t investing in content marketing look like a lucrative option after seeing these content marketing stats? 

Types of Content Marketing

There are many types of content marketing. Take your pick from amongst them –

1. Social Media Content Marketing

As there’s an increase in social media users by leaps and bounds, it is no surprise that most brands and businesses prefer to market their content on those platforms. Social media content marketing takes advantage of social media platforms by posting information and content regarding your brand. It helps them gain more viewership and engagement.

2. Infographic Content Marketing 

Infographics are informational graphics. They deliver complex and important information in a simple, appealing, and engaging manner to the audience. Using infographics makes it easier for viewers to understand and take note of the information you present to them.

3. Blog Content Marketing

Blogs are an essential part of your business’ strategy for content marketing. You can engage with your audience regularly by posting frequent blog post updates. You can add infographics, links, and social media handles to your blog posts. It is one of the most important forms of long-form marketing content.

4. Podcast Content Marketing

Podcasts have gained a lot of traction nowadays people prefer them over other formats. Due to this, many businesses are incorporating podcasts into their strategies. Podcasts are, by all means, an effective way for you to connect with your target audience. You can also regulate what you’re sharing with your podcast listeners.

5. Video Content Marketing

69% of customers prefer to learn about a brand’s product or service through video. And this is why many businesses are switching to visual marketing strategies. Even on social media platforms, videos get more traffic than photos or written posts. Video content marketing allows you to leverage this growing popularity of videos and advertise your brand and products through video content.

6. Paid Ad Content Marketing

Paid ads are a favorite of many brands who market their content. It is a model where your business can pay to showcase your ad on a particular website or social media platform. Paid ads can help you land a broader audience and increase your visibility across the web.

Difference Between Inbound Marketing & Content Marketing

Inbound marketing is a broad term that encompasses content marketing. In other words, content marketing forms a part of inbound marketing. And at the same time, it is the foundation that holds your business’s marketing strategy upright.

So, what is inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing focuses on bringing in leads and potential customers rather than pitching and convincing them to buy your products. It attracts customers by adding value to them without using interruptive methods like sending cold emails or making cold calls. It involves making it easier for prospects to reach you through search engines, social media, and content as you have answers to the questions they are looking for. 

Content marketing involves creating and distributing content, typically in the form of blogs, articles, and social media posts designed to attract and engage customers to drive profitable action. It aims to add value to the target audience and facilitate the building of new relationships. 

It’s now time to look at the difference between the two terms in this content marketing guide,

• Content marketing is for a broad audience, while inbound marketing targets specific buyer personas.
• Inbound marketing focuses on website building and getting potential customers to convert. However, content marketing involves creating and distributing content across various channels.

Important Content Marketing Metrics

Even if you got the basics, a lot can go wrong if you don’t know how to use them properly to your advantage. Therefore, you must know how to measure content marketing ROI. There are important metrics that can measure how your content is performing. These content marketing KPIs will help you understand if your content marketing efforts are fruitful or not. 

Here are the metrics for measuring content marketing,

Website Traffic

Your website is a vital aspect of your marketing. Your website houses most of your content and that’s where most of your lead conversions happen. Therefore, it becomes important to know how many people engage with the content on your website. You can use this data to focus on the content stream that garners the most traffic.

Social Media Engagement 

Social media platforms have become hotspots for brand marketing. To leverage your business content marketing campaign, analyze social media campaigns that are doing great and take inspiration from them. Try to carefully curate your social media content after examining the posts that are getting maximum attention in your marketing campaign.

Conversion Rate and Sales Tracking

Conversion rate implies the number of visitors that turn into leads after engaging with your content. Additionally, it also keeps track of all the leads that eventually turn into paying customers. Conversion rate helps determine your overall ROI, making it one of the most important metrics. 

Bounce Rate  

This is the number of people who come across your website content and promptly leave without engaging with any other content on your pages besides the one they initially landed on. Higher bounce rates generally indicate that the visitor is not interested in your content. This becomes necessary to determine which content works and which doesn’t.

Email Engagement Rates

Email engagement rates are an important part of your email marketing campaigns. This metric calculates the total number of emails opened by the members of your mailing list. It measures this amount against the total amount of emails you have sent to your mailing list as part of your email marketing campaign.

What Are The Common Problems That Content Marketing Solves?

Here are some common problems that content marketing solves for you –

• Provides Your Customers With Informative Content

Content marketing is a very effective way to share relevant information about your product or service to your target audience or clients. You can provide them with news about updates, corrections, or new avenues your brand might be heading into. 

• Provides A Platform For Your Customers To Communicate With You Better

Customer feedback is essential for every brand or business. It helps the business understand what their products or services lack from the customers’ point of view. Integrating social media, blog posts, and email marketing into your marketing strategy will provide you with various platforms to increase communication with your customers and connect with them better.

• Helps Increase Your Brand’s Awareness 

As you already saw above, you can increase brand awareness by working in the right direction towards content marketing. Putting out relevant and attractive content regularly will help you reach out to better and bigger audiences and generate more brand awareness. Many businesses take note of popular social media trends and create content revolving around it so that their posts get more exposure. 

• Supports Your Other Marketing Tactics

You can support other marketing campaigns by publishing content about them. As more people learn about your other tactics through your content, they will engage with them even more. Other marketing tactics might include sales goals, discount offers, or PR events. 

How Does Content Marketing Work?

Where does content marketing fit within the marketing funnel? Here’s the answer to the question –

There are three stages a customer goes through before buying a product. Marketers must understand all three stages and create content for each stage accordingly for maximum emphasis. The three stages are as follows-

• Awareness Stage

Awareness is the first stage in your content marketing funnel. The buyer becomes aware of their pain points and searches for results that might help fix their pain point. The prospective buyer becomes aware of your business and products in this stage if they are following your pain point. Content marketing is a powerful weapon which you can wield in this stage. Writing and publishing content that gives relevant information about your brand, product, or service will help pull more viewers into your traffic. They will show interest in what you are offering.

• Consideration Stage

The consideration stage is the second stage in the marketing funnel. In this stage, you market your products and services to your target audience. Make them consider your product or service a viable option for resolving their pain points. Create informative content that educates your audience. 

• Conversion Stage

Finally, we reach the last stage of the marketing funnel. This is the stage where your prospects turn into paying customers. And this is where you must push your content to outshine the crowd. This step is the make-or-break point of the marketing process. The better you can convince your audience, the more your conversion rate will soar.

Components of Content Marketing

It is now time to see the content marketing components in this content marketing guide. We have listed them here, 

1. Brand Guidelines

Establishing what you want your brand voice and brand messaging to be is one of the core components of drawing up your content marketing strategy. After all, you will represent your brand’s message in all the content pieces you write. 

2. Marketing Objectives

Try to align your organization’s content marketing objectives with your overall marketing objectives. You can promote your other marketing ventures through your content pieces. Your objectives should be relevant, attainable and focused on the main goals. 

3. Buyer Personas

Determining your target audience for your content pieces is an essential part of your content marketing process. Understand their interests, dislikes, and pain points and write your content accordingly. 

4. Data and Market Research

Researching ongoing market trends and incorporating them into your content will ensure that it reaches more unique viewers. You can fine-tune your content according to the market insights and improve it.

5. Customer Journey Map

As we have seen already, the customer journey map outlines the three marketing funnel stages – awareness, consideration, and closing. You can create an extensive customer journey map with your compiled data while determining your ideal buyer personas. Develop great content for each stage in this cycle, close more sales than ever!

6. Content Market-Fit

Content market-fit ensures that the content you put into the market is applicable and relevant to the audience you want to target. You need to look at successful content marketing examples from your competitors to gauge what kind of content appeals to the buyers. Tailor your content accordingly and post it at relevant times.

7. Relevancy

Relevant content is quite a necessary component of the process. Writing and publishing content relevant to your industry will help you rank higher in the search results. 

8. Content Promotion Techniques and Channels

You can use many potential channels to promote your content including platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Reddit, Quora, TikTok, and even LinkedIn! You just need to determine which channel will work best for you and post your content there.

9. KPIs

KPIs, or key performance indicators, are measurement metrics you can use to analyze and track the performance of your published content pieces. It helps you measure your ROI in statistical terms. They help make improvements and fix any issues in your content.

Steps To Create A Content Marketing Strategy

As we have already seen, adding content in marketing is such an essential part of your marketing campaign that it needs a well-thought-out marketing strategy. 

If you are confused as to how you can draw up an effective strategy, don’t worry! We have helpfully compiled a list of 7 steps you can take to make an effective marketing strategy –

1. Define Your Goals

Write and define the goals you want your content pieces to accomplish. This will give you a rough idea of how you should plan your content. All the objectives or goals you list in this stage should be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. Drawing up a list of these objectives will streamline the rest of the content marketing efforts.

2. Establish Your Target Audience

Creating seemingly random pieces of content and publishing them will get you nowhere. You need to first establish who you’re targeting. Do adequate market research and determine the buyer personas you want to market your content to. Once you complete this step, you will find it easier to map and develop relevant content. 

3. Identify And Compile A List of Relevant Keywords 

The right keywords will make your content rank higher in SERPs. The higher your rank is, the more the audience you want to target will find you. Identify the primary keywords and phrases you want to include in your content and draft how these words and phrases will tie into your main piece.

4. Run A Content Audit

This is the step where you analyze the performance of your content pieces. This process helps you know how your content is doing and whether it needs improvement. Auditing helps you improve your existing content and increase your SEO ranking and website traffic. 

5. Define The Type Of Content You Will Use

You have drawn up what type of content you will write, who you will target, and what objectives your content will accomplish. The next step would be identifying the types of content you will create. You can create blog posts, infographics, social media posts, podcasts, or run email campaigns. 

6. Create a Content Calendar

Content calendars help organize your content appropriately and set the schedule for when to publish your content. Content calendars help streamline your workflow and ensure you stay on track.

7. Measure Your Results

Finally, analyze and understand whether your content is holding up well in the market or not. A thorough analysis will tell you what type of content your audience finds appealing and what makes them drift away from your posts. You can use tools like Google Analytics and CRMs to measure your content against appropriate metrics. 

Content Marketing Strategies That Work

Here are a few content marketing strategies you can incorporate in your plan,

1. Create thought-provoking content

One of the most effective ways to engage your audience and drive traffic to your site or content is to provide them with valuable information they can’t get anywhere else. If you’re looking to grow your business, developing content that will make your audience think or even act is the best course of action.

Your content should give your target audience value and solve a problem they’re facing. The more exciting and engaging your content is, the more likely are readers to like and share it.

The key is always providing your audience with useful and engaging information they can’t get anywhere else. You want to become the go-to source for your niche. Doing this will not only make you more trustworthy, but it also means more people will want to come back for more.

2. Establish yourself as an expert

In today’s world, everyone’s an ‘expert’ in something. Whether it’s social media, digital marketing, or content strategy — people have an opinion on almost everything. As a content marketer, establishing yourself as an expert in your niche is one of the best ways to grow the size of your audience and become highly influential in your industry.

• By appearing to be an expert, you give your audience weight. They’re not just getting a sales pitch but also information from someone they trust.
• People love being able to choose what they want from a variety of sources, and having more than one option gives them greater confidence.
• Having an expert weigh-in gives your content the edge over others. 

To establish yourself as an expert, you need to do the following:

• Create as much content as you can.
• Take the time to develop excellent, high-quality content that is both informative and engaging.
• Post frequently on social media so your audience knows you’re always keeping up with the latest industry news.
• Develop an authoritative voice that is clear, simple, and trustworthy.

The more you do, the more people will notice you. It may be time-consuming, but eventually, you’ll find your name mentioned alongside well-known and successful industry figures.

3. Curate content regularly

Another way to engage with your target audience and gain credibility is to post high-quality content related to your niche regularly. The aim is to consistently provide helpful information that is both engaging and worth reading. Even better, you want to do this regularly and prove to your audience that you’re a reliable and trustworthy source of information.

Here’s what you should do:

• Curate content from a variety of sources.
• Develop new content ideas and pitch stories to a group of trusted journalists (Try HARO).
• Practice proper social media etiquette — never overpost, never engage in spam, and always be mindful of what you’re posting.

By regularly posting interesting and informative content, you show your audience that you’re always looking for ways to improve and that you have the knowledge to back up your claims. Plus, you’re giving them something valuable — free content!

4. Measure the success of your strategy

At the end of the day, you’ll need to measure the success of your strategy to determine whether it is worthy of continued effort. Consider the metrics we saw above to gauge the performance of your campaign so that you know what course of action to take in upcoming content campaigns. 

5. Build a community

Last but not least, you should consider building a community. If you’re passionate about your industry, reach out to people who share the same interests as you. 

Start a blog or a podcast that will engage your audience so that they feel like they’re an important part of a community. If possible, host or attend events that will help you meet and connect with other people in your industry. In addition to this, be active on social media platforms to stay in touch with your target audience and let them know when you’ve got new content published. 

Social media presence will help you establish yourself as an expert in your industry. If you want to become a thought leader in your industry, ensure that your social media strategy is consistent and builds upon your content strategy.

Content Marketing Tips

Take a look at the top content marketing tactics & tips that work,

1. Prioritize Long-Form Content

When people talk about content marketing, they often refer to short-form articles that are very targeted and have a low production value. While nothing is wrong with those kinds of articles, they don’t offer the reader as much value as an in-depth piece that takes several hours to read. Long-form content is, therefore, very much relevant and has a charm of its own in providing readers with value.  

2. Find Your Voice

A significant part of content marketing is figuring out your voice. But what does that mean? It means that you’re not just writing about topics that you think will appeal to your target audience but also creating content that will resonate with them. To do this, you must use words/phrases that they’ll understand and relate to.

For example, if you’re writing about technology, you might want to write in a way that someone familiar with technology will understand what you’re saying.

Finding your voice is a process that will take some time but will ensure that you connect with your target audience on a more personal level and make them feel like you’re talking directly to them.

3. Use Storytelling To Engage With Your Audience

You can use storytelling to engage with your target audience to create genuine interest and build credibility. There is no prize for guessing that the most compelling stories are those that are relatable. Moreover, if you can use your own story to illustrate a point, even better! This will make your audience connect better with you. 

For example, if you’re writing content to promote a weight loss product or service, you could start by sharing a story about how you struggled with your weight as a teen. The more you can connect with your target audience on a personal level, the more likely they’ll be to connect with your brand and take your advice.

When using stories, ensure they are consistent with your strategy for content marketing. This will help establish your credibility as a source of authority on your chosen topic and help make your audience feel as though your story is relevant to them.

4. Add Elements Of Personalization

Personalizing content adds a dynamic to your blog that is unparalleled by any other tactic. Invest time in knowing your target audience and use that information to tailor your content accordingly. When you write content with a personal touch, you’re not simply providing information; you’re engaging with your target audience and encouraging them to interact with you.

5. Use Video

Video is one of the most effective forms of content at present.Thanks to technology like smartphones, video is now accessible to everyone. Moreover, people love watching videos making the content format more conducive to attracting an audience. 

6. Use Case Studies

Case studies are extremely useful for proving your point. When someone is reading a case study, they are more likely to understand and remember what they are reading as opposed to a summary or an overview.

Moreover, case studies give you the opportunity to dive into the subject matter in-depth, explaining the theory and providing examples that your audience can use. 

7. Use Statistics And Numbers Wisely

When you’re arguing your case for a topic you’ve researched, it’s important to use statistics and figures to back up your claims. People like proof and are more likely to trust you if you are successful in providing it. Moreover, by linking to credible resources, you’re demonstrating that you’ve done your research and what you’re presenting is indeed valuable information.

8. Incorporate Testimonials Into Your Content

Start asking happy clients to leave a testimonial about your service, product, or website. However, be sure to choose your testimonials wisely and make sure that they’re echoing the right message. 

The more unique and varied the testimonials you place on your content (for example: web pages), the more valuable it will be. Don’t just choose anyone – choose individuals who’ll compliment your product and service but who don’t have a connection with your brand in any way. You can add this to your ecommerce content marketing tactics.

So we come to the end of content marketing tips for startups.

How to Write High-Ranking Content?

Here’s what you should do to rank your content on Google,

1. Find a keyword to write content on

Your content piece should focus on one main keyword if you want to optimize your content for search engines. The best way out is to add 3 to 5 closely related keywords to the content piece. There are several tools to help you with the same such as Google keyword planner, WriterZen, Ubersuggest and the like. 

Quick hack: Try creating content around keywords that have lower competition.

2. Know the search intent before you start writing

Once you have the target keywords, you must analyze the search intent. If you don’t do so, your page will not rank in the SERPs. Only those results that truly match the user’s needs rank on top of the results. Therefore, you should search for your keywords on Google to see what kind of content the top-ranking pages have written. Try to find the pattern and create your content based on the format matching the user search intent.

3. Keep titles unique

The page title, the meta title, and the meta description are very important for both Google and readers. Unless your page title is not catchy, you can’t attract more clicks to your content. Make sure you create unique titles for every piece of content and describe what the page has to offer. Also, try to place the main keyword in the beginning of the title and use secondary keywords in the body in the most natural way possible. You can even add numbers or emojis in your title to increase clicks.

4. Write meta descriptions thoughtfully

Google uses your meta description as a snippet in the search results. It is a summary of the content, which helps the user know what it is about most often. However, Google will not use what you have written in the meta description every time. It may pick a relevant section of your content if it explains your content piece better.

5. Focus on E-A-T

Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness is the key to making your content rank higher in SERPs. Use the author bio to prove that you are trustworthy by listing your credentials and qualifications.

6. Add links

To provide a great user experience, you should add internal links to your blogs and web pages. Doing so will make visitors visit more of your pages which will eventually help you rank higher. Similarly, external links will also help search engines understand that your web pages are of high quality. Whenever you add a statistic, link back to the source website. That way, you seem more credible as you show that other websites also relate to what you are mentioning on your page. 

Content Marketing Examples

We will now give you some excellent content marketing strategy examples to show how successful marketing campaigns work.

Canva’s Design Challenge Campaign

Canva trended all over social media with their Design Challenge campaign. This marketing campaign worked as follows: 

• Canva released a theme for the week
• Graphic designers created an artwork on the theme by using Canva and post it on social media with #canvadesignchallenge
• And then Canva proceeded to post its favorite designs on its social media channel. 
• All the campaign winners received a one-year subscription to Canva Pro, along with a $50 Canva print voucher.

This Campaign gained so much traction because it was a great way for artists to showcase their artworks to a larger audience.

Indeed’s ‘New Beginning’ Commercial

Indeed proved to be a true LGTBQIA+ ally with its “New Beginning” commercial. The advertisement shows Taylor, a non-binary individual, for a job interview. When Taylor finally gets called for the interview, they meet the interviewer. The interviewer introduces himself with his pronouns and then asks Taylor for their preferred pronoun usage. 

This is a strong message showing how people can be allies at their workplaces. In addition to this advertisement, Indeed has articles on their site promoting inclusivity and allyship at work. This commercial was for their #EmpathyAtWork program. This program highlights underrepresented and minority groups in terms of workplace settings. 

Apple’s ‘Shot on an iPhone’ Campaign

This Campaign is similar to Canva’s Design Challenge. In this marketing strategy, Apply encourages its iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Max users to click amazing images with their devices and upload them on social media with the hashtags #shotonaniPhone and #iPhonemacrochallenge.

This Campaign successfully promoted its newly-launched products and encouraged its users to experiment with their photography skills. This was a fun, light-hearted campaign that worked for the users and business alike. 

Adobe’s #CreativityForAll Campaign

This Campaign mainly targeted the Twitter platform. Using the #CreativityForAll hashtag, Adobe tweeted about various things which might be helpful to all the users who utilize Adobe to design their projects. 

Posts relating to that hashtag featured designing tips for creators, colorful brand messages, and artworks by their users for inspiration. This Campaign increased their site engagement and traffic explosively. This was a very successful campaign targeted toward their B2B customers.

How To Create A Content Marketing Calendar?

As you already saw above in this content marketing guide, creating a content marketing calendar is a must. 

Let’s see how to do it,

1. Decide the platforms you want to publish to

The first step is to finalize the list of channels you want to publish content to, and it would be better if you matched it with the preference of your target audience. When you know where their interest lies, you can focus only on those channels. Usually, marketers use one calendar for all the platforms but creating different calendars for social media and publishing blog content is advisable.

2. Add deadlines

It is advisable to have deadlines for all the tasks you add to the calendar. This helps in minimizing confusion and ensuring that content gets published consistently. However, at the same time, you have to plan your deadlines in such a way that you can achieve them. It will also help your team know that they have to complete the task so that everything is well organized.

3. Mention the business goal 

As every content campaign has a different business goal, it will be better if you mention that in the calendar. For example, you may publish blogs to engage your audience and post paid advertisements on social media to convert. Clearly mentioning the goal in the calendar can help the team stay in the know.

4. Add links to content pieces

Every content brief should have the links added to it in the calendar. The URL will help everyone in the team to find the content piece without having to search for them in folders. For example, you can add the link of the Google doc where you have saved the content. It will help you keep everything organized.

5. Choose the tools 

There are several tools to help you create your content calendar. You can start from something as basic as a Google sheet as well. This free cloud-based tool is helpful in creating a calendar in the form of a spreadsheet from scratch without purchasing a tool. It works pretty well and you can share it with your team members effortlessly.

When you have the option of choosing tools that organize your calendar in the form of Kanban boards. The tools that offer this are Trello, CoSchedule, and more. You can organize everything into different stages and get an overview of what is getting published in one place.

Common Content Marketing Mistakes

Here are a few content marketing mistakes that commonly occur and how you can avoid them,

1. Not Having A Strategy

This is the big one. Most marketers don’t have a clear idea of what to do and where to focus their efforts. However, you need a plan and strategy to succeed where the latter is more important. You cannot start creating content without a plan, but you will never finish if you don’t have a strategy.

2.  Not thinking about the big-picture 

In addition to having a clear goal in mind, it’s also essential to look at the bigger picture. Just because you’ve set a goal for your content marketing campaign doesn’t mean you should limit yourself.

The problem with many content marketers is that they get so absorbed in content creation that they forget about the bigger picture. Your content should always aim at bringing in new, quality customers to boost your bottom line. Don’t get so focused on the ‘how’ that you forget about the ‘why’.

3. Not Determining The Audience

Once you have established your strategy and plan, you can determine your audience. Start identifying your audience, what they want, and how you can provide it to them. Establishing this relationship takes time, but it is vital to the success of your campaign. 

4. Not Tailoring Content For Different Platforms

Don’t just stick to one platform, try exploring others as well. If you’re already producing blog content, consider turning them into videos for YouTube and infographics for Pinterest and Instagram. This way, you can experiment with different media while reaching a wider audience.

5. Not Optimizing For Mobile

Audiences are increasingly becoming mobile, and it’s essential they enjoy your content wherever they are. Therefore, you have to optimize your content for mobile devices so that your images look in proportion and your text doesn’t get cut off on smaller screens. 

6. Creating Too Much Content

This is another common mistake marketers make. When you are just getting started, it’s easy to be overwhelmed and create lots of content constantly without evaluating it or planning what’s next. Don’t be under the impression that you must create content daily. The only thing that matters is creating quality content. 

7. Ignoring the power of social media

The biggest mistake you can commit is to ignore social media. Needless to say, the time you invest in social media can be incredibly valuable. From gaining followers to engaging with existing customers, your social media presence can help you gain credibility and build your brand. If you’re looking to grow your business, make yourself present on social media & begin engaging with your future audience.

8. Not Measuring Performance

It’s important to measure the success of your content, whether you’re a journalist, blogger, or content marketer. But, many creators get so absorbed in writing and promoting content that they don’t have the time to figure out how readers engage with their content and what they’re gaining from it. So, if you want to see how your content is performing, consider using the right tools.

7 Best Content Marketing Tools

In this content marketing guide we have enlisted the top content marketing tools to help you start your journey –

1. WordPress

WordPress is one of the most renowned tools out there. It is a free and open-source content management system (CMS) that helps you easily design your website, blog site, or online platform. You can use the multiple templates and plugins it provides as well.. 

WordPress offers you two packages – Starter ($5/month) and Pro ($12/month).

2. Grammarly

Grammarly is a popular content writing tool. It checks your grammar and also corrects your writing errors. Moreover, Grammarly helps make your text more concise, straightforward, and engaging. In a way, it improves your content pieces. 

The paid version comes with a plagiarism checker too. 

Grammarly starts at $12/month.

4. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a helpful tool developed by Google as a part of its Google Marketing Platform brand. It is an analytics tool which offers extensive reports on your website traffic, reach, engagement, and ROI. 

You can use this tool for free!

5. Yoast

Yoast is a web plugin for CMS like WordPress. It gives you unique keyword suggestions to rank higher for SEO purposes. It enhances your content and edits it, so the readability score increases. This ensures that most of your viewership can easily understand your content due to ease of reading. 

Yoast’s plans start at $99/year. It also has a free option which you can use.

6. Visually

Visually (visual.ly) was launched by ScribbleLive as a community platform for infographics and data visualization. You only need to fill in a creative brief, and Visually will pair you up with a digital content creator who best fits your needs. You can work with the artist on your project on your terms. 

7. Buzzsumo

Buzzsumo is a content research tool that gives you resources from across the web to research for your content. It lists out all the trending articles that fit your niche or requirements. It also updates you about the type of content your competitors publish on the internet.

The paid plans for this platform start at $99/month.

8. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a tool widely known for its accurate backlink checks. It is also popular for its SEO keyword generator and data analyzer. Ahrefs also audits your website for you and brings your attention to any improvements your site might need. 

The tool offers paid plans starting from $99/month.

9. Canva

Canva is a content design and video tool. Graphic designers widely prefer it all over the world due to the ease of editing it provides. Canva has many pre-made templates you can choose from. These templates are of different genres of visual content pieces and are easy to use. 

Canva offers you a free version, but if you want a paid plan, you can get it for $6/month.

With that we come to the end of the top content marketing tools!

Valuable Content Marketing Resources

You obviously need to learn concepts well to make a mark in the content marketing world. Here are resources worth going through if you want to become an ace content marketer who knows working in which direction would be lucrative for your business. 

1. Is Content Marketing Right for My Business?

This blog post by Moz discusses the most popular ways to do content marketing without breaking the bank or having a huge team. There is a detailed look at the content marketing funnel, and how to go about building a strategy. Along with that, you have ways to handle content planning, ideation, creation, and promotion effectively. It is definitely your go-to guide for every content marketer.

2. Seth Godin’s Blog

There’s nothing better than hearing it all from the horse’s mouth, which is why the knowledge you can gain from the best-selling author Seth Godin is unmatched. His website has links to his best blog posts courses, workshops and seminars on marketing that are worth giving a try.

3. Content Repurposing Ideas: The Periodic Table of Content

This blog post is a smaller version of the book Content Chemistry by Andy Crestodina. In this book, the author compares content to chemistry by comparing each content asset with the elements of the periodic table we have in chemistry.

The author breaks down content into smaller pieces resembling the elements of the periodic table and how you can combine them to make larger compounds. It discusses the different content pieces in the content universe like social media posts, blog posts, newsletters, podcasts and much more. Overall, it is an interesting concept that will add immense knowledge about repurposing content. 

4. Content Marketing Institute 

You already know that the Content Marketing Institute can be your go-to website to learn about the latest trends and statistics related to content marketing. In this resource page, you can find links to several helpful articles with checklists, worksheets, and more to help you know how to go ahead with your campaigns. It is a must for every content marketer who wants to stand out. 

5. 95 Creative Content Marketing Ideas (With Details, Examples, and Links)

This blog post boasts of 95 creative content marketing ideas that can help even non-creative people create amazing content for their blogs. You can easily pick a few and start implementing them rather than being a jack of all trades and the master of none! It also helps you with ideas to repurpose existing content so that you get the maximum ROI. 

Top Content Marketers to Follow

In every field, there are people who hold the torch and forge ahead with the crowd following their footsteps. That’s how some content marketers are paving the way for enthusiasts helping them get closer to their goals one step at a time. Here’s a list of the most famous marketers you should look up to.

Neil Patel

Neil Patel is undoubtedly the first name to appear in this list. His website is one of the best sources of SEO education and content marketing. Even Forbes has listed him in the list of the top digital marketers. His biggest achievement is Ex-President Obama honoring him as one of the top entrepreneurs under 30. 

The USP is that he tries all the tactics and methods before he presents them in his blog post and videos making them look more convincing. Moreover, he works as a consultant for MNCs, which means his methods and practices bear fruit. In short, if you want to master content marketing, you must follow Neil Patel. 

Ann Handley

Ann Handley is another top marketer you should follow as she is the world’s first chief content officer and has won the title of the ‘Most Influential Woman In Social Media’ by Forbes. She is a digital marketing pioneer and best-selling author. Her book ‘Everybody Writes’ is a must-read for every professional who wants to write copies that sell. She offers realistic advice with insights into the current trends in the industry that are immensely helpful for all writers. 

Joe Pulizzi 

Joe is a marketing speaker, podcaster, author, and entrepreneur. He is the founder of the well-known Content Marketing Institute that helps businesses attract clients through effective storytelling. Along with that, he has founded several startups. He is the author of 7 best-selling books, including Epic Content Marketing which was recognized as the ‘Must-read business book’ by Fortune Magazine. You can listen to him in his two weekly podcast Content Inc. podcast and This Old Marketing with Robert Rose.

Mark Schaefer

He is one of the top marketing futurists and keynote speakers. Mark’s blog is one of the best marketing blogs available to date. With 30 years of experience in global sales and marketing, he is the main highlight of industry and corporate conferences. 

He has successfully developed corporate marketing strategies and conducted workshops. Companies like Adidas and Johnson & Johnson are a few brands that consult him. His 9 best-selling books have made their way into 70 universities which is an achievement on its own. You can also listen to him in his podcast, The Marketing Companion.

Rand Fishkin

Rand Fishkin was MOZ’s CEO previously and is the author of Lost and Founder that delves deeper into the world of startups. If you know about MOZ, you probably know why he is one of the most influential people in SEO and marketing. He began his journey in 2003 as a blogger. Later, he started a consulting business, which he later turned into a software company that caters to providing the best tools for SEO. You should definitely follow him if you want to learn SEO techniques and grow your business. 

With this we come to an end to this content marketing guide. 

Reach New Levels With Content Marketing!

This content marketing guide has revealed what it takes to get content marketing right and what you must ensure from your end. You can work on the different kinds of content formats to see spectacular results and, at the same time, be wary of the marketing funnel. Make sure you go through the top resources we mentioned and follow the marketers who know their craft well. 

Touch new horizons and grow your business to exponential levels by using our content marketing inputs. Start now, do not put off your plans anymore. 

Content marketing can be a powerful tool for anyone who wields it. Be like the vast majority of successful brands and businesses that create a content marketing plan to attract and retain a wide audience to meet marketing goals.

Hope you found this complete content marketing guide useful.

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