Content Marketing Strategy: How to Create Content That Converts

With so much content out there, just hitting “publish” isn’t enough anymore. What makes a difference is content that speaks to the right people, with the right message, add the right time. If your goal is to turn readers into real customers, you need more than good writing- you need a clear, thoughtful strategy behind it. In this article, we will break down how to create a Content Marketing Strategy that not only gets noticed but also actually drives action and delivers results.

What Is Content Marketing Strategy? 

Content marketing is a strategy used to attract, engage, and retain an audience by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media. This approach establishes expertise, promotes brand awareness, and keeps your business top of mind when it’s time to buy what you sell. 

A content marketing strategy positions your brand as a thought leader, enhancing trust among your audience by creating and distributing content in various ways. Content marketing is a type of inbound marketing that attracts customers and builds loyalty, making it effective for customer retention.

Why Is a Content Marketing Strategy Important?

A content marketing strategy is important because it helps businesses:

1. Build Trust with Your Audience

Regularly providing valuable content establishes your brand as an industry leader.

2. Improve Brand Awareness 

Quality content can increase traffic to your site, exposing your brand to a wider audience.

3. Boost SEO Efforts

Search engines favor businesses that are consistently publishing high-quality content, as both are key ranking factors in SEO.

4. Generate Leads

Content marketing helps generate leads by providing potential customers with the information they need to make informed decisions.

How Does Content Marketing Work?

Content marketing works by offering readers informative and useful material that provides insight and value. Using blogs, eBooks, social media posts, graphics, and videos, content marketing attracts potential customers, keeps them engaged, and moves them further along the sales funnel. It’s a cornerstone of digital marketing, integrating seamlessly with strategies like social media marketing and B2B content marketing to create a comprehensive approach to online engagement.

In 2019, 76% of marketers took a strategic approach to managing content. In other words, they use an approach that formalizes the processes, people, and technologies needed to scale and deliver content. The top goals of a content marketing strategy are:

• Improving customer experience.
• Generating and nurturing business leads.
• Supporting the organization’s goals and criteria for success.

As more organizations use content marketing, a strategic approach is necessary to maximize return on investment.

Why use content marketing?

Because it works, compared to traditional marketing tactics, content marketing is better at creating value for consumers and brands alike. Some of the top benefits of content marketing include:

1. Customer engagement

Content like blogs and landing pages captures web traffic from organic search, social media networks, and other sources, such as live events.

2. Brand awareness and thought leadership

Thoughtful content can establish your brand as a recognized industry leader.

3. Lead generation and nurturing 

Content campaigns keep potential customers interested and engaged throughout the sales cycle.

4. Sales enablement

Content marketing efforts support sales conversations by providing potential customers with key knowledge and data.

These benefits can be translated to any type of industry, in any market. When you know your customers well, you can craft engaging content that supports your business goals.

Examples of content marketing that work

Identifying what type of content marketing is most relevant to your audience can be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be. When you take the time to understand your target customers and their needs, the ideas will flow.

Consider each of these tried-and-true content marketing channels to inspire your strategy:

1. Blogs

Search-optimized blog posts are simple yet powerful tools for engaging your target audience. These top-of-funnel assets capture web traffic and address customer pain points within a branded digital environment.

Content writers leverage advanced SEO tools to identify the right keywords, topics, trends, and perspectives. Then, they add industry subject-matter expertise to craft insightful pieces that provide readers with value. Interested customers will follow calls-to-action and internal links to learn more and eventually take action.

Once a blog is live, a strategist can monitor its performance using Google Analytics. If the data shows users bouncing (leaving the site) from the blog, it may indicate that the piece could use a stronger call to action.

2. eBooks and white papers

Mid-funnel content like eBooks and white papers provides readers with in-depth information and compelling research. As part of a larger content strategy, they help to pull readers further along the buyer’s journey.

Additionally, these longer pieces support lead generation when deployed as gated content. Readers can provide their name and email address in exchange for a free asset. To get these assets to rank in search, they should be accompanied by a supporting blog post.

3. Infographics and visual design

Today’s consumers live in a world of constant stimulation. So, it shouldn’t surprise you to learn that 95% of marketers believe visual content is more effective than text alone.

4. Videos

Adults in the U.S. spend nearly six hours per day consuming video content. As a marketing tool, videos are highly engaging and capable of attracting a wide audience. Plus, B2B marketers report an average 73% ROI on their video content. These days, videos are appearing in more and more search engine results pages, which makes them great for attracting organic traffic.

5. Newsletters and emails

Email marketing is one of the most-used channels because it offers brands a direct line to their customers. The latest trends in email marketing, such as increasing use of visual elements and personalization, are making the channel even more attractive.

The best email campaigns combine high-quality written and visual content with intelligent marketing automation.

6. Social media

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat – the list of social media platforms seems to grow with each passing year. But does your brand need to have a presence on each one?

To gain the attention of your target audience and get them to convert, you have to understand where they exchange information online. Using knowledge of your industry verticals and the latest social media trends, you can pick the top two or three channels through which to promote your messages.

Social media campaigns often leverage user-generated content to promote greater levels of engagement. Likewise, influencer marketing can be an effective way to market to audiences who are generally resistant to advertisements.

This is a broad, yet non-exhaustive list of content types that may work for your brand. And who knows, additional content channels may emerge in the coming years. That’s why it’s important to stay on top of fast-moving trends and always have an eye for the future.

4 Ways Content Marketing Can Help Your Business

Companies with excellent content marketing strategies have an unfair advantage over their competitors for several reasons. Below, we’ll discuss just a few of them.

1. Reduce Customer Acquisition Costs

Quality content creation isn’t cheap, but you’ll see a stronger ROI from each piece of content you produce because your audience will grow.

It’s a snowball effect.

The first video, blog post, or social media post you publish might only be seen by a few people, but as more and more people find your content and become followers, each sequential piece of content you publish will be seen by more people and produce a stronger ROI.

So, unlike paid ads, where you and your competitors can earn roughly the same ROI for each dollar spent, brands with strong content marketing strategies and a large audience can earn significantly more for each piece of content published. 

2. Improve Lead Quality

Another benefit of content marketing is that you can filter the type of customers you attract based on the content you produce.

For example, if your target audience is exclusively CMOs, you can discuss only topics that a CMO would be interested in, like hiring great talent. You might also offer access to exclusive reports on industry benchmarks that would interest a CMO.

In contrast, paid ads force you to rely on the platforms to accurately identify your target audience. With privacy concerns on the rise and less accurate audience targeting, these platforms are producing lower returns.

3. Build a Stable Lead Pipeline

Content marketing has a flywheel effect and produces higher returns over time, especially if you produce evergreen content. 

With evergreen content (content that is relevant for years), you can continue to generate returns from it even years after it was published.

So even if you stop producing content for some time, you’ll still likely have a steady pipeline of leads thanks to your evergreen content. 

4. Increase Customer Retention and Loyalty

Content marketing is essentially a cheat code to build trust with your potential customers on a scale.

The more they become familiar with your brand’s viewpoints and identity, the easier it is to trust your brand and the more likely they are to continue purchasing from your brand.   

Content marketing and SEO

Content marketing makes it easy for good prospects to find your business. However, you can boost your efforts with search engine optimization (SEO).

Here are a few important best practices:

Keywords are the foundation of your SEO effort. These all-important words and phrases are the terms a prospect types into a search engine when they’re looking for a company, product, or service.

When you include the right keywords in your content, you’ll attract more traffic. The best keywords are:

1. Plain language 

language your audience uses to describe their pain points and needs

2. Relevant

Keywords that match the expertise, products, and services you provide

3. Specific

a combination of your focus, industry expertise, prospect pain points, and other relevant details

SEO has evolved so that search success depends in part on how well your content does what it says it’ll do. Search engines review content copy, assess its relevance, and determine whether it delivers on what the headline promises.

Because of the importance of search engines place on copy, using keywords throughout your content is important. Use the following guidelines:

• Focus on 1 to 2 keywords. Avoid “keyword stuffing” by writing about what matters to your prospects with a focus on just a few keyword phrases.
• Use keywords in the title. Make what the article is about clear and explicit.
• Use keywords throughout. Find a way of naturally incorporating your keywords into your content.
• Stay on topic. Good-quality content that provides advice related to a headline will perform best.

Social media and content marketing

Once you have content, it’s time to get the word out about it. Social media—Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Medium, Instagram, and others—is a proven and easy way to promote your content. You write a post and link to your content, and then voila! People are engaged. You can do this through 3 steps:

1. Focus on high-potential channels

The best social media outlets for you are the ones frequented by your audience. Consider the big, popular channels, as well as smaller, industry-focused ones that are likely to connect you with good prospects. Ask your audience what channels they favor and build a manageable list based on their preferences.

2. Craft your copy to fit the channel

Each social media channel has a level of professionalism versus fun, an accepted voice, and other details all its own. Before you write posts for a channel, spend some time reviewing posts to familiarize yourself with these details. Then, give your posts some of your company spirit.

3. Test and modify your approach

A winning social media promotion effort involves trial and error. Track responses from the various channels for quantity and quality. Fewer high-potential engagements may mean a channel is a good fit, as opposed to a slew of clicks that never turn into an audience.

You might also be interested in: What is UX Writing and Why Your Digital Products Need It?

Do I need to create a content marketing strategy?

Yes! As we’ve learned through our annual research, not only do you need a strategy, but you also need to document it. Those with a documented content marketing strategy:

• They are far more likely to consider themselves effective at content marketing
• Feeling significantly less challenged with every aspect of content marketing
• Generally, consider themselves more effective in their use of all content marketing tactics and social media channels
• They were able to justify spending a higher percentage of their marketing budget on content marketing

What should my content marketing strategy include?

Think of a content marketing strategy as an outline of your key business and customer needs, plus a detailed plan for how you will use content to address them.

While there are no definitive “templates” for building a content marketing strategy — each one will be unique to the business that creates it — there are five components that they commonly include:

1. Your business case for innovating with content marketing

By communicating your reasons for creating content, the risks involved, and your vision of what success will look like, you are much more likely to gain executive support for your strategy — and to get permission to make a mistake here and there as you figure out what works best for your business.

2. Your operations plan for content marketing

This covers how you’ll govern, manage, and measure the impact of your content efforts. Operations planning helps you clearly define your content purpose, mission, and objectives, so you can put the right team resources, processes, and systems in place to execute your program successfully.

3. Your audience personas and customer journey maps

This is where you describe the specific audiences for whom you will create content, what their needs are, and what their content engagement cycle might look like. You may also want to map out content you can deliver throughout their buyer’s journey to move them closer to their goals.

4. Your brand story

Here, you characterize your content marketing in terms of what ideas and messages you want to communicate, how those messages differ from the competition, and how you see the landscape evolving once you have shared them with your audience.

5. Your channel plan

This should include the platforms you will use to tell your story; what your criteria, processes, and objectives are for each one; and how you will connect them so that they create a cohesive brand conversation.

3 critical steps for creating content that converts

All too often, content is created solely to get clicks, views, and likes. It’s all about the call to action (CTA), the asset download, the form fill, or the registration sign-up. Most of the time, this is to the detriment of getting real, valuable engagement. 

While these numbers might look great on a stat sheet, they don’t always translate into actual conversions. Here’s the thing: Clicks aren’t valuable. A real conversion is when someone replies to your email, sends you a message on social media, or engages with your brand meaningfully, not just mindlessly clicking a button because you’ve nudged them to.

If you want to create content that converts, stop fixating on easy-to-track engagement. Focus on the best way to get your audience to engage without all the friction. Here’s how.

1. Make your offer frictionless and part of their everyday activity

Let’s be honest: Too much marketing is disruptive. We’re constantly asking people to stop what they’re doing, go to a new page, fill out a long form, or complete an action that pulls them away from their current task. It’s no wonder people drop off before completing the journey. The key to higher conversions is making your offer frictionless.

Examples of frictionless engagement:

• In-email conversions. Instead of linking to a landing page and asking users to fill out a form, ask them to simply hit “reply” to an email if they’re interested. You remove the friction of clicking through and filling out more information.
• In-app purchases or conversations. If your audience spends most of their time on Instagram or Facebook, don’t send them to a different website. Use in-app messaging to have direct conversations with them or utilize the “Shop Now” buttons that allow people to purchase without leaving the app.
• SMS offers. If your customers are busy professionals, consider sending SMS offers or reminders that let them respond with a simple “yes” to claim a deal or schedule an appointment. No forms, no new pages. Just a simple response from their phone.
• Messenger boots for immediate replies. Instead of directing traffic away from the page they are on, use a chatbot or Messenger that can handle inquiries instantly. People are already on the website or landing page, so the experience feels seamless.

The more friction you remove, the easier it is for your audience to say “yes” and engage with you.

2. Make the ask doable and manageable.

Another common marketing mistake is asking questions that are too broad. We want our audience to read long whitepapers, watch hour-long webinars, or download extensive case studies. But most people don’t have the time or energy to commit to something that requires too much up front.

If you want to drive conversions, make the ask manageable. This doesn’t mean you can’t have in-depth, long-form content — it just means you need to offer bite-sized options that lower the barrier for your audience.

Examples of manageable asks:

• Short vs. long-form content options. Give your audience a choice. For example, with your hour-long webinar, offer a 5-minute highlight video summarizing the key takeaways. Or, if you’re promoting a whitepaper, offer an executive summary that’s easier to skim for key insights.
• “Single-click” or “no-click” strategies. Rather than asking your audience to click through to a landing page and fill out a form, give them a one-click option — like a direct download link within an email or a single-click RSVP button for event invites. Better yet, include all the content in the email itself, allowing them to consume it without leaving their inbox.
• Quick surveys and polls. If you want feedback or input from your audience, consider quick surveys or polls that can be completed in 30 seconds or less. People are far more likely to engage when the ask feels quick and manageable.

By making your content or offer easy to consume in small chunks, you lower the commitment required from your audience, making them far more likely to engage.

3. Make the trade-off worth it

Even if you’ve made your offer frictionless and manageable, there’s one more key to driving conversions: Make the tradeoff worth it. Your audience is trading their time, attention, or personal information in exchange for something from you, so make sure that something is valuable enough to justify the effort.

Many marketers fall short here. They ask for too much (like a long-form or lengthy commitment) in exchange for too little (like a single PDF download). If you want your audience to engage, you need to overdeliver on value.

Examples of high-value tradeoffs:

• Bundled content offers. Instead of offering just one whitepaper, bundle several resources into a single, high-value offer. For example, alongside your whitepaper, include an infographic, a checklist, and a video that covers related content.
• Exclusive access. If you’re promoting a webinar or event, offer exclusive perks for attendees, such as downloadable resources, direct access to experts for Q&A, or an invitation to a private online group where they can network with industry leaders.
• Instant gratification. Instead of promising something they’ll receive later (like a PDF that gets emailed later), they offer instant access to a downloadable guide, checklist, or template right after they engage. People are more likely to engage when the reward is immediate.

When the tradeoff feels worth it — when the value far exceeds the effort your audience must put in — they’ll be much more excited to engage with your content and your brand.

At the end of the day, great content doesn’t just inform- it inspires, engages, and converts. But without a solid strategy, even the best content can go unnoticed. That’s where Marketing Chiefs come in.

We don’t just create content; we craft stories that speak to your audience, drive results, and elevate your brand. Whether you are starting from scratch or looking to refine your existing strategy, we are here to guide you every step of the way.

Ready to turn content into real business growth? Let’s build your winning strategy together. Reach out to Marketing Chiefs today– you have got a story worth telling.