RESOURCE GUIDE
Content Development
Create and Deliver Content That Matters
ESTABLISH YOURSELF AS AN INDUSTRY LEADER
A Complete Guide To Content Development
Content is not just the king but also the backbone of your brand awareness, customer engagement and support, and pretty much all your marketing efforts. That is why you must ensure that everything you publish is of high quality, engaging, and relevant to your audience.
Content development is important regardless if you are just starting in the world of marketing or are looking to take your campaigns to the next level.
We prepared this must-read guide for the ins and outs of effective content development, sharing our expert tips and insights along the way. Learn how to create top-notch content that will drive results for your business.
Content Types By Goal
Content comes in different formats, from social media posts, blogs, and other text-based content to infographics, videos, and podcasts. But when you categorize them based on their functions, each one will fall into lead generation, information, or engagement.
Lead Generation Content
As its name suggests, lead generation content is about attracting and creating leads, which is the contact or demographic information of a customer interested in your product or service.
Lead generation content comes in many forms, such as emails, blogs, ebooks and other content offers, social media posts, etc. However, they all have one thing in common: They have a call-to-action (CTA) button or hyperlink that tells your audience to take the desired action.
As a general rule, the CTA is written as a command or action phrase such as “Buy Now,” “Join Us,” and “Sign Up.”Consumers will not give you their contact details and demographic information for “free.” However, you can encourage them to share their details when you provide engaging, helpful, or delightful content.
Educational and Informative Content
Content that provides valuable information works well with buyers at the awareness stage (or at the top of the sales funnel). These customers are trying to solve a problem or find an answer, which they can get from how-to videos, ebooks, social media posts, blogs, cheat sheets, educational webinars, kits or tools, etc.
While not everyone who consumes your educational content will continue their buyer’s journey with your brand, those who find it helpful may continue moving into your sales funnel.
Content for Engagement
This content encourages the target customers to interact with your brand (and other audiences) by leaving a comment, sharing a social media post, mentioning your product or company, creating user-generated content, and joining your surveys or polls.
These are some of the most common engagement-generating content marketing strategies you can use:
-Asking people to share their photos/videos while using your product
-Conducting polls or surveys
-Offering games
-Caping off your blog or social media posts with a message asking the readers to leave a comment or share the content
-Posting viral stories and recent news
You can turn any post into engagement-generating content if it’s relevant, helpful and interesting to your audience. In short, make sure that everything reflects your customers’ wants, needs and expectations.
Understanding What Kind of Content Fits Your Business Best
Content comes in different formats, including blogs, articles, press releases, social media posts, podcasts, infographics, photos, webinars, ebooks, and other free content offers.
Since each content format brings unique benefits and your target customers have their preferred way of “consuming” information, a robust content marketing strategy should include various forms.
As a general rule, you should mix the content up since people have their preferred way of consuming information, and different platforms favor specific content.
The Best Types of Content Formats for Brands
The best content is content that provides value or at least catches the interest of your audience.
If you’re wondering about which type of content best fits your business, the answer is that almost all brands can benefit from these content marketing strategies.
The list below shows the content formats that are almost always included in the digital marketing strategies used by brands across different industries.
Newsletter Campaigns
This content marketing strategy works for any type of business and across different industries, from business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer companies (B2C) to service providers, physical retailers, and digital product sellers.
Email newsletters are typically sent weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly and contain relevant news, product recommendations and promotional offers.
Buzzfeed is one of the companies known for its fantastic email marketing that uses memorable and witty headlines that deliver high open rates.
Blog Posts
Blogs are great for generating leads and increasing organic traffic to your website, provided that you use relevant keywords and topics that are helpful, relevant and interesting to your audience.They come in various forms, including FAQs, how-to guides, snippets of conversations, interviews, etc. Because they primarily consist of text, mixing in some relevant images and breaking up the content with subheadings are important.
HubSpot reigns supreme in the content marketing world; all thanks to its engaging and helpful blog posts and video courses.
Social Media Posts
Social media posts are usually in a text-based format, although you can spice things up by adding micro-videos and stunning images.
Videos
Human beings are visual creatures, and marketers should always remember this. Modern consumers generally prefer videos to text-based content when searching for products and services.
Did you know that consumers retain around 95% of a video’s message compared to only 10% when viewed in its text-based format? Another thing to keep in mind is that 69% of online users prefer videos to written content when learning about a product or service.
Lastly, studies indicate that videos can increase traffic by up to 300% and convince 88% of viewers to finalize their purchase.
Infographics
Infographics are visual representations that make it easy for consumers to quickly and clearly understand a topic. They convey a message quickly and clearly, making them a popular format for brands that need to explain complex data or information. They can also complement blog posts, white papers or text-based content.For this reason, digital marketing experts agree that infographics are worth a thousand words.
Webinars
They are great for educating your audience, especially those who want to know how to use your product or service or overcome a problem. In general, webinars are long content pieces that last 30 minutes or longer since they need to contain enough information to be helpful and relevant to the viewers.
Podcasts
They are similar to webinars because they also lean toward longer content, although the main difference is that they require less time and investment (since you don’t have to do video editing). You’ll only need a quality audio recorder/mic, a quiet room, and a well-written script.
White Papers And Ebooks
These content formats can help you position yourself as an industry/thought leader, allowing you to gain your audience’s trust.
Fyi, brand trust delivers loyalty.
A 2019 research on brand trust that surveyed 16, 000 consumers across eight global markets
reported that more than half are willing to pay a higher price for products and services from a trusted brand (59% worldwide & 63% in the US). Additionally, they will continue to purchase products from a brand they trust, even if a competitor has better reviews (69% globally & 75% in the US).
Case Studies
They area form of of social proof, demonstrating your brand’s ability to help people solve their problems. In addition, they are great at generating leads because potential customers can read the positive experiences of others with the same pain points.
Customer Testimonial, Success Stories, And Reviews
Posting customer testimonials on your social media channels, video marketing campaigns, websites, and other platforms is a great way to showcase how your brand makes every effort to deliver value to your customers’ lives.
Developing Different Kinds Of Content
Blogging is one of the most important content marketing strategies because of its ability to drive traffic to your website, improve brand awareness and recognition, and position your brand as a thought leader.
Blogs vs Articles
Sometimes, the term blog is used interchangeably with articles, although these two text-based content have noticeable differences in writing style and length.
In a nutshell, blogs typically range between 300 and 1,000 words, whereas articles are often longer as they delve deeper into a subject—depending on the publication, they are usually 1,500 to 5,000 words.
Another difference is the writing style, with blogs having a more casual tone and typically using the second person. By contrast, articles adhere to stricter writing rules and follow a more professional tone, similar to journalism.
Lead Magnets
Aside from blogs and other text-based content, lead magnets also play an important role in your content marketing strategy. Also called content offers, they are free items or services given to potential customers in exchange for their contact details (emails, name, job position, etc.).
These are some of the most common lead magnets brands use to generate leads and, ultimately, increase sales:
-Whitepaper
-Ebook
-Webinar
-Product samples
-Service trials
-Templates
-Calculator or evaluator
-Case studies
-Training videos
-Surveys, quizzes, and polls
The Importance Of Lead Magnets
Lead magnets are important lead-generation sources, turning your site visitors into actual contacts. Consequently, it’s easier for you to nurture leads, which is the key to boosting your sales. After all, consumers respond better if you provide valuable and free content demonstrating your expertise or your product’s value.
In addition, content offers can help you position yourself as a thought leader, which is especially important if you need to target consumers at the top of the sales funnel–i.e., those who are looking for educational content that explains some solutions to address their pain points. For this reason, these people prefer how-to guides, videos, checklists, cheat sheets and templates.
You can also use content offers to target middle-of-the-funnel buyers who have already recognized their pain points and some possible solutions but require content with more detailed information. These consumers typically respond well to case studies and webinar series.And lastly, the bottom-of-the-funnel buyers–i.e., they generally require just a little nudge before they turn into an actual customer–are more interested in discounts, consultations and service/product demos.
Making Content For Your Audience
Even though the content is king, the king must communicate with the people. That’s why successful brands are good at communicating with their audience because they use a “language” (i.e., tone of voice, mood, colors, lingo, etc.) that reflects their customers’ demographics.
The Tone of Voice
Your tone of voice refers to how your brand communicates with your target audience, including emotional tone, word choice, and communication style.
Don’t confuse the tone of voice with brand voice (it’s not uncommon for people to think they’re the same).
Remember, the tone of voice changes depending on the situation. For instance, a brand can use a quirky social media post celebrating International Friendship Day.
However, using this same voice when extending condolences and support to people after a tragedy can lead to a PR nightmare.
By contrast, your brand voice represents your company’s unique values and perspective. Think of it as your brand’s core personality.
Coca-Cola is one of the most successful companies with a clear and memorable brand voice. After more than 130 years in the industry, they have consistently used a brand voice that is positive, happy, and friendly.
Learning From Your Audience
People expect brands to meet and understand their needs, wants and expectations.
Consequently, you must get to know your audience, especially how they interact with them, what platforms and lingo they use, and when they’re likely to consume your content.
Social media platforms are a treasure trove of information if you want to get to know your audience better. Simply go to the source (e.g., Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, etc.) and type your company name in the search box.
Another option is to use the Google “site search” method. The Google “site search” method looks like this: your company name and the social media platform you want to examine (e.g., LOJO Marketing: reddit.com).
Once you identify where your target customers hang out, pay attention to their vocabulary and communication style with one another. Facebook groups are excellent channels if you want to learn your audience’s “language.”
Go to Facebook and type your keywords in the search bar. Once you get results, you can see a list of “Groups” and join anything you deem relevant to your audience research.
By mirroring your audience’s tone of voice and vocabulary, you can create content that is more relatable and engaging to them.
Steps To Developing Content
Since content marketing and SEO are a long-term game, your content development is an ever-evolving process that aims to provide valuable, relevant, or interesting content to your audience.
Whether you’re starting your content development from the ground up or auditing and optimizing your existing content, our 6-step strategy can help you set yourself up for success.
Establish Your Content Goals
What do you want to accomplish with your content?
Do you want to boost your brand awareness and online visibility?
Are you planning to improve your customer experience and maintain your existing clients happy and engaged?
Do you wish to position yourself as a thought leader?
Or do you want to achieve all these things?
By establishing your goals, you can determine which key metrics you should pay attention to, such as:
-Site traffic
-Lead generation
-Conversion rates
-Social shares
-SERP rankings
Gather Information
Pay close attention to your audience’s demographics, direct competitors, relevant keywords (and anything related to your customers’ online activities and behavior) and past site performance.Use these tools to analyze your content development process:
-Semrush: Great for keyword research and analysis.
-Google Analytics and Search Console: Excellent tools to analyze on-site data.
-Moz: Ideal for analyzing your site’s domain authority.
-Ahrefs: Great for in-depth backlink analysis.
Conduct Audience Research
The principle of modern content development is simple–create user-centric content. Remember, today’s consumers want to be informed rather than sold to.
One way to conduct audience research is through “social listening.” To start, type your company name in the search box or use hashtags with keywords relevant to your brand and target customers.
For example, a Sacramento-based restaurant selling authentic Mexican food can type in the search box #sacramentomexicanfood or #sacramentomexicanresturant to learn about their target customers, especially how they interact with one another and what lingo and communication style they use (friendly, quirky, serious, etc.).
Other things you need to know about your audience include:
-their preferred platforms and formats
-relevant demographics (job position, location, age, etc.)
-pain points
Establish Your Content Strategy
Your content strategy should cover research, planning, execution, and optimization of your materials.Furthermore, you should decide which platforms and formats to focus on (social media, blog, paid ads, videos, long articles, ebooks, and other content offers, etc.).
You should also create a content calendar, a style guide on your brand voice, and content briefs as part of your content strategy.
Create and Optimize the Content
With blogs, articles, and other text-based content, you must adhere to SEO best practices, such as incorporating relevant keywords into your title, URL, and meta description; using subheads to break down complex ideas; and providing content that your audience will find valuable and easy-to-understand.
The use of SEO best practices is even more important when you post videos, images, and infographics. Since the search engines can’t “read” these content pieces, you need to add text descriptions, use strong call-to-action phrases, and incorporate keywords into your meta title, URL, and meta description.
Publish and Distribute
Publish your content on the appropriate platform and promote it on your other channels. Next, make sure that you track its performance to optimize it if needed.
Pro tip: Get the most out of your content by repurposing it. For example, you can turn a long article post into infographics or combine ideas from multiple blog posts to create an ebook.
LOJO's Content Development Process
At LOJO Marketing, we treat content as king. That’s why working with us means you can always expect high-quality and unique blogs, email newsletters, social media posts, ad copy and website content.
Content marketing, SEO, and inbound marketing always go hand in hand; this is especially true after Google released “smarter” algorithms that put a high value on user-centric, excellent content.
On the other hand, keyword stuffing, irrelevant backlinks and inbound links, and other practices that only serve SEO at the expense of user experience are now penalized by Google.
LOJO's Content Marketing Plans
Our plans are designed to give you high-quality, unique, and engaging content–from catchy ad copy and social media posts to interesting blogs and articles. In addition, every piece reflects your overall branding message and tone of voice to ensure consistency across different platforms.
And with consistency comes improved brand awareness and recognition, which can help you stand out in today’s competitive and saturated market.
When you sign up for our content marketing plans, you don’t have to worry about hiring your own content development team or second-guessing yourself if your posts reflect your brand and speak with your audience. Thus, you and your team will have more time to focus on your core business operations.
Here are the features included in our content development plans:
1. Content Strategy And Ideation
We conduct keyword and topic research and audience and competitive analysis to create a solid plan that moves your target customers through the sales funnel.
2. Content Creation
Our content strategy, from blogs and articles to social media posts to ad copy, aims to serve both the reader and the SEO algorithm.
3. Content Promotion
At LOJO Marketing, we’re not just focused on creating high-quality, unique content but also on making sure that it gets seen by the right audience.
4. Content Repurposing
We can help you maximize your “assets” by repurposing existing content. For example, we can turn a long article into a FAQ blog, a cheat sheet, a listicle, or a social media post.
5. Monthly Content Strategy Report
We keep you up-to-date with your progress and show you key metrics whenever you ask for this data. After all, transparency is at the heart of our client-centric service.
