Content marketing
agency

101

Content marketing emerged from classical SEO and b2b companies claiming thought leadership via white papers and alike. First, it was just a competitive advantage and a source of more exceptional user experience, but as more and more companies do the shift, it became a pillar of inbound marketing.

Also, any automation of boosting text relevance and mindless link building en mass is now merely devoid of any meaning. For one reason only: there is no longer a direct correlation between the text relevance of the pages, the volume of the external link mass and positions in organic search rankings.

That is why focusing solely on SEO in its classic form does not yield an impressive ROI for modern business anymore. After all, internal optimization and the purchase of links do not provide you with the natural growth, do not allow you to establish contact with the target audience on social media, and do not turn casual site visitors into loyal customers. The time of website traffic growth due to the ever-increasing link budget has come to an end.

That’s why I claim SEO as the tool of digital marketing transformed in content marketing and technical things like on-site optimization became, well, just checklists. For specific size and niche companies technical SEO is flourishing of course and is just another tool alongside with content marketing. A recent example being Zapier & its branded content across 25 000 landing pages.

Content Marketing Strategy Team: The Role of Collaboration

Leaders of the digital marketing industry are organizations that are simultaneously involved in content production and content distribution.

But even the so-called “pure” content marketing should be comprehensive and sophisticated. I’d say there are three critical pillars of the content marketing world. Omissions in one of the areas are fraught with subsequent loss of traffic and cost overruns of the client’s budget:

• Auditing existing content and developing\adjusting a content strategy
• Content creation (for quite a while not limited to text only. That’s why we did a pre-launch of GRIN tech’s video production as a separate business unit. Unlike our core expertise, we can’t yet do on-site shooting globally, but promotional videos and video marketing are already viable solutions)
• Content distribution (and this does not just search engine marketing, but also blogs, social media marketing, media, email marketing, PPC systems, public relations, influencer marketing, etc.).

Quite obviously the successful implementation of content marketing projects is possible only with the integrated and simultaneous work of the whole team on each of the critical areas. Otherwise, you can develop a strategy and create high-quality content, but fail when you try to distribute it on social networks and blogs. What will you do if real users are not interested in your ideas and content? What will you do if the content, no matter how unique and useful it is, will not be ranked highly according to your needs?

So, we have concluded that strategists, SEO-optimizers, copywriters, experts in web analytics, buzz marketing, and SMM should work together on a project from the first day of its implementation. Teamwork reduces the likelihood of conceptual errors and increases the effectiveness of marketing activities.

So if that’s the case, what knowledge and skills should a team have to deliver projects in the field of e-commerce? In other words, what tasks are solved by organizations that provide comprehensive content marketing services?

Strategy development and content auditing

Responsibility for a marketing strategy is high, so content marketers in this field should have a whole set of knowledge and skills. What should these experts be capable of? Here is the skill set needed:

• Content audit – to evaluate the existing content on the website. The expert auditor should determine the purpose of content and its subject matter. The expert is also obliged to find out whether the existing content is still relevant, whether the texts and articles on the website correspond to your current goals and objectives. A content audit allows you to know whether you need to create new materials for the entire website or just some of its sections. Also, SEO specialists should also be involved in content auditing to evaluate the visibility of this page in organic search results, and conversion evaluation experts to assess how useful these texts are in terms of sales opportunities. A full-fledged content audit cannot be conducted without statistics. Therefore, it is necessary to acquire ranking data and conversions data, before you launch a content audit.
• Analysis of the market and primary competitors – to understand what other major players in your industry do and how they operate. The ultimate goal of this analysis is to provide existing and potential customers with answers to all the questions they have when they interact with your company. Analysis of the market and competitors allows you to identify the volume of traffic in the niche at the start (and indirectly, the market volume). Grade the semantic core (i.e., keyword research) should be done at least on a three-step scale: the most targeted/conversion requests, topical queries and adjacent/info requests.
• Creating an editorial content plan for the project will allow not to miss a single topic that must be covered. In our agency, a content plan is a file in Google Sheets, where editors, copywriters, content, and marketing managers working on the project can add their suggestions. And each group has a specific motive to do this. The editor communicates closely with the client and needs to know the client’s current needs. The copywriter working on the project may know topics that are relevant to the client, but which (for one reason or another) have not yet been covered. SEO-optimizer can recommend topics based on keywords.
• Content management guarantees a transparent implementation of your marketing strategy. The essence of content marketing is not limited to a one-time publication of a large number of texts, infographics, and other materials. The editorial calendar should include an action plan for 6-12 months. During this time, specialists will publish new texts on a schedule, maintain activity both on the website promoted and on third-party resources: forums, social networks, and blogs. Specialists will also edit user content according to your needs.

Content Creation

• Qualified copywriters, journalists, translators and editors are the foundation of any successful content project. High-quality copywriter content has long become an essential tool for SEO and the implementation of marketing strategies of the company both online and offline. The ability to determine high-quality content (mainly based on behavioral metrics like involvement and activity on the page) is the main path of search engine development. They can already do a lot now — more than is customary to think about. Soon, they will know even more about the quality of the pages, and the ranking based on the quality of texts will develop more rapidly.
• What does “good copywriter” mean? A good copywriter specializing in content marketing should be able to “cling” to the audience, engage them in social activity and provide conditions for conversion. And the most critical indicator of the professionalism of a copywriter is the ability to give the readers useful expert information that will enhance the reputation of your website and business as a whole. If you are developing a content project dedicated to fishing and hunting, ask the best fishermen and hunters to write texts for this site. Or make your copywriters go fishing.

Since the quality of the content determines the success of the content marketing strategy, we attract highly qualified authors to create texts for our clients. Each of our copywriters is a specialist and has expertise in one or more areas. That guarantees the relevance of even highly specific content created to promote the project. Good texts will help you save a lot of money on contextual and banner ads. Cooperation with the best is beneficial for your wallet.

• The contribution of designers and video creation specialists to the success of content marketing campaigns is also significant. Some website visitors need articles written in a more scientific language, while others want to quickly see a presentation or a video to get a general idea of the subject matter. Therefore, we use different types of content for our clients’ marketing strategies.

Strive to catch the interest your target audience, be creative, and we will help you along. Do not be afraid to make mistakes and grab ideas that seem crazy at first glance, unless they threaten the reputation of your brand. Even if visitors do not appreciate new types of content on your website, you will gain vast experience and knowledge that will come in handy in the future. And if you find creative solutions, attractive to the audience, your project can be considered successful. So the key is to experiment with different types of content.

Integrated work with social networks and blogs

• Working with blogs is one of the essential elements of content marketing. Today, most Internet entrepreneurs already understand the role that content plays in the implementation of their marketing strategy. However, not all businessmen are aware of how relevant blogs are for content promotion.
• “Content is king” is a phrase sometimes attributed to Matt Katz, and sometimes to Bill Gates himself. It does not matter who said it first since what matters is you cannot question the truth of the statement and efficiency of great content.

How is it that your website has the best content in the world, but no one knows about it? Another task that your content marketing strategy should answer is: how will you drive targeted traffic to a page? Naturally, content marketing works (should work) in close conjunction with search engine promotion. But the Internet is not all about search engines. It is evident that it is worth attracting your audience through other channels: blogs, topical platforms, social networks, etc.

Today blogs are critical to the success of the content marketing campaign. You need to cater the content adequately so that it lives up to its full potential. The practical implementation of this principle is the active interaction with bloggers, building partnerships with the leading opinion makers of communities essential for you too. You should be working with key figures in both online and offline environments.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

Content marketing does not stand still. The directions and principles of work considered above are relevant for marketing strategies today. However, to remain the best in your field, you must always try new methods and ideas, look for alternative ways of communication with the audience.

We know for sure that teamwork brings the best results in the field of content marketing. The correct strategy, the creation of high-quality texts and communication in social networks are most effective when they are part of a single set of activities. The upcoming era in Internet marketing is, first of all, the era of editors and copywriters, but they can achieve results on a content marketing strategy only working in cooperation with SEO and SMM specialists.

Who is the target audience of content marketing?

A common pitfall is content production without a target audience (duh) in mind. E.g., in b2b segment content mostly should be targeted at decision makes, not for the joy of fellow professionals.

There are three groups of people:

• Those who pay: managers, owners of companies that allocate a budget for the implementation of content marketing. Immediately, I note: the budget for content marketing starts from $1,700. That is a minimum monthly budget. And services are usually paid for a year in advance. With such initial investments, the executive should seriously think and weigh the pros and cons. My text will help with this.
• Those who plan: marketers, marketing directors or supervisors. This target group is interested in details, cost of lead acquisition, coverage, case studies, detailed implementation instructions and understanding of possible pitfalls, which may double the budget.
• Those who implement: specialists of various profiles. SMM specialists, copywriters, webmasters, SEO experts, and link builders. As a rule, they do not order content marketing, but a) form public opinion, b) indirectly influence the management’s decision.

These people implement content marketing through a variety of interrelated practical tasks. They want a detailed analysis of narrowly focused topics: why (instead of how) promote blog posts on Facebook\LinkedIn, what to expect and how to make decisions based on analytics (instead of how to implement it).

The readers are the fourth group that sits outside of the target audience. They are always out there. It can be the director of the regional branch of the bank, who spends his leisure time to learn fresh ideas on marketing, an ordinary cubicle dweller with a couple of hours to kill. The line between untargeted and targeted visitors is barely noticeable. It is likely that yesterday’s reader will today act as a decision maker and select specialists to implement content creation. That is precisely the audience to consume unsophisticated entertainment material to reap likes.

GRIN tech’s portfolio

I am always surprised to see development companies that do not have their in-house products. It can be small products that live on GitHub, but their products. The same is true for content marketing agencies.

So I suggest you check out our Words & Deeds (digital marketing and development blog written from entrepreneurs perspective). As for exact traffic numbers and results – I will happily share it with you via personal chat.