How to Develop a Content Marketing Strategy, Part Four: What Marketing Content Should You Create?

In developing a content marketing strategy, you’ve looked at what makes your company unique, set goals for the marketing content, and become familiar with your audience.

So is it finally time to start creating that content?

Hold up—what kind of content are we talking about here?

That’s step four in your content marketing strategy: Choose content that suits your goals, your audience, and your company.

So what should you choose? If you’ve done the previous steps, this should be easy.

Here are a few common types of content marketing and what they’re for:

• Email is good for keeping in touch with your customers and audience, sharing news (including other types of marketing content), and generating interest for new deals
• Blogs and articles are highly customizable, ranging from 300 to 2,000 words, ghostwritten or guest written, and can be hosted on your company’s website or another platform, like Medium or LinkedIn. Blogs are good for building SEO and thought leadership.
• Social media can help build a brand, share information about the company, and engage with customers. The specific platform you should choose (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc.) will depend on your business, but you should generally pick only one or two platforms and commit to it.
• Video can serve a variety of purposes and be shared on websites, in emails, and on social media. You can provide overviews of a company or specific service, demonstrate products, answer questions, share events, and highlight individual team members. Plus, video transcripts are easily repurposed for other types of content.
• Lead magnets, or lead generation content, can be provided in exchange for contact information and used to help potential customers make decisions. This type of content should be fairly long and detailed, and may take the form of an ebook, white paper or special report, case study, guides, or FAQ page.
• Podcasts are story-driven and can help demonstrate thought leadership and promote products or services, but are time-consuming and require significant commitment. Like video, podcast transcripts can be repurposed into other types of content.

Start by choosing one or two types of marketing content to focus on. For example, you may choose a one-time piece of content, such as a new video to highlight a customer success story, and a more long-term type of content, such as building a social media presence.

Go back and review your marketing goals and apply them to your content choice. For example:

• If you want to close more sales or increase brand awareness, video content may be a good option.
• If you want to boost loyalty among existing customers, try an email campaign or newsletter.
• If you want to draw more traffic to your website, then focus on creating desirable, helpful content, such as authoritative, informative blog posts.

Don’t forget to consider your audience, what they are looking for, and what problems your content can help solve. If your audience includes executives and decision-makers, then white papers and case studies are good options. If you are consumer-focused, then consider engaging content on social media.

Whatever content you choose, it should keep both your audience’s needs and your marketing goals in mind.

Looking to develop a content marketing strategy? Need help creating content to execute your existing strategy? That’s what I’m here for!

I help healthcare organizations and medical professionals produce marketing content and sales copy to help them tell their stories, keep customers updated, and share information more effectively. Visit emjwriter.com or email me to learn more about how we can work together to improve your sales leads, reputation, and revenue.