Planning a great content campaign

Engaging and informative content campaigns build your target audiences' understanding of the benefits of your business, ultimately leading you to reach your company goals. Knowing what to write about is half the battle when it comes to getting your messages out there. The other half is making sure that your content is informative and relevant to your audience and in places where your audience will find it.

How do I create an effective content campaign?

Consider the level of information and knowledge that you want to share with your audience. Many types of content will be relevant for different situations. Ensuring that you have a mix of different reading lengths will engage your audience in different ways.

Whitepapers or articles are a great way to demonstrate your knowledge of a particular topic, especially for more complex subjects using lots of data or information. Blogs are a more informal way of sharing knowledge with your audience; these are also typically much shorter. Social media posts provide a more regular and instant connection to your followers, aiding relationship building.

However, you should always bear in mind the lowest possible knowledge base of your target audience. For example, in an article on the impact of ESG ratings on investment strategies, the likelihood is that your audience understands investment management and that ESG means Environmental Social and Governance. Conversely, for a blog on the effectiveness of ECO-cleaning products, it is more likely that readers are searching for information and therefore have minimal knowledge of the subject.

What should I write?

Focus on what your goals are for the year. Aside from the obvious, which might be to earn more money than last year, think of a relevant topic for your space. For example, say you have created an app that tracks fitness. Your business goal for the year might be to increase subscriptions to your service, but your business mission is to help people get out and about. Now think of a theme that links to your goal and mission. For this example, your feature post could be "Get hiking", which can then break into sections that connect to the service that the app provides.

Using subjects that can be split out into sections, means that you can grow people’s interest over time. Additionally, segmenting longer pieces of content allows you to refer back to it over time through social media posts. Referring back to longer content in this way also means that you get the best return on the time that you have invested.

Where should I post my content?

This is very dependent on your business sector. Consider the amount of time and the media your target audience typically uses when they are susceptible to your message. Finance sectors targeting business clients would typically focus more on LinkedIn, whilst beauticians would reach their audiences via Social sites like Instagram.

Although post length and placements will change, a good rule of thumb is to make sure that your post on social media links to a theme or topic as well as your website.

Using the same example of a fitness tracker, your longer website article or blog "Get Hiking" could include; planning a walk, what to take with you, country-side codes and a 'how to' on the benefits of using the app to help plan or track the route. Your social posts would then link back to each of these sections. The frequency of your social posts, whether daily, weekly or monthly, depends on the longevity of your content. Continually directing people to your site builds brand awareness, providing data capture opportunities to generate leads.

Should I hide my content behind forms?

This depends on the value of the content that you are creating. In most cases, the best practice would be not to hide behind forms. Instead, provide plenty of places for people to sign up for newsletters, follow you on social media or get in touch directly.

However, this might not be the case if the information you provide uses premium data or content that your existing customer base pays for. In that instance, you may want to consider having high-level blogs and social media posts to drive website traffic that link back to a more in-depth whitepaper or article that is behind a form. Always make sure that readers understand what they are getting in return for handing over their contact details.

These days, people are warier than ever about handing over their email addresses and could be deterred if everything is hidden behind forms. Having a range of content that allows people to build trust and interest followed by more selective content will enable you to build out your leads funnel more effectively and has the added benefit of ensuring that those who do complete download forms are already that much closer to the 'buy' stage.

What are Keywords? Why should I use them?

Keywords are phrases or individual words that people input into search engines to find the information that they are after. Using phrases and words that are relevant to your content strategy enables you to grow your readership base over those who already visit your site or have signed up to receive your content either via newsletter or social media.

Make sure that you think about what people may be searching for when your content would be relevant. In the "Get hiking" example, keywords and phrases could include; hiking route, plan a walk, track my hike. Once you have these phrases in mind, ensure that you use them several times within your content. This will build the ranking of your content on the search criteria and help it to feature higher on search engines.

That sounds like a lot!

Where can I get some help?

Thankfully you are already in the right place! Reach out! I'm more than happy to help you create an effective content campaign that will build your market presence.