The new year is less than two months away, and by now companies should already have a contract with a growth marketing forward HubSpot agency, and a clear path forward with their content direction.
But some organizations wait up to the last minute to form a relationship with a digital marketing agency capable of creating growth-driven content. And if companies have opted to use an internal team to produce their content, they usually wait until December to lay out a strategy for the upcoming year, and 9 out of 10 times their strategy is flawed.
This article is intended to help organizations and brands learn how to create content using a growth mindset, or what to look for in a content approach pitched by a digital marketing agency.
Understanding Types of Content and Their Purpose
Before you can create growth-driven content you must first identify the types of content you intend to use, as well as the role it plays in driving growth. Not all companies will necessarily be using the same types of content because a growth marketing strategy is unique to an individual organization’s goals and their customer’s needs. But, generally, these are the types of content you can expect content-wise when investing in a custom growth marketing approach:
Blogs
These bring SEO value and also help nurture leads at every stage of the conversion funnel. They also support inbound marketing campaigns, educate your customers, and promote brand loyalty and trust.
Email Content
Short, concise content to help qualify leads, as well as nurturing SQLs (sales qualified leads) and MQLs (marketing qualified leads).
Guides and Assets
Downloadable, long-form content that offers value to customers. These can target people at every stage of the buyer’s journey. From helping customers learn more about their needs, to serving as a buyer’s guide for a specific product solution, guides educate people and play critical roles in the conversion process.
Website Content
Often, growth driven content will live on the website with two main purposes: to make the site SEO-friendly, and to improve the user experience. The important thing to focus on is to ensure the website content is consistent with all other types of content that customers engage.
CTAs and Ad Copy
This content is what ultimately motivates people to make an action, whether it is filling out a form, downloading a guide, or making a purchase.
If you are investing in SEO, paid media and inbound marketing then you will likely need all of the above mentioned types of content. Just make sure they are aligned to work together to get the same target result, and that each speaks to its target audience appropriately.
For example, a group of blogs that are intended to be shared on Facebook to help support a campaign will need to speak to the buyer types that are on Facebook, while blogs intended for B2B that will be shared on LinkedIn will take a totally different tone and cover topics using a completely different angle.
Understand Your Buyers Before Carving Out a Content Strategy
In order for content to generate sales and drive growth, you must first know who your buyer personas are, and how they make purchasing decisions while engaging with content. Then write accordingly.
Start by interviewing the sales team; discover what the common needs are that your customers have, the top products or services they invest in to serve as solutions, and the average sales cycle timeframe. Also, find out what the common objections are, as well as the commonalities that reside in conversions. This will help marketers optimize audience targeting through purposeful content.
You can also use CRM technology to segment your leads, analyze their journey from first touch point to conversion, and get valuable data that helps create high-quality buyer personas that can be used in optimizing content across the board.
For example, HubSpot not only shows every step taken in an engagement, it also reveals the names of leads, their job titles, and where they work. In addition to optimizing content, this type of information also allows team members to market directly to individuals directly touching on their unique needs.
However, most companies don’t have CRMs like HubSpot, nor do they have the skills and trained team members to run strategies and manage the technology. This need alone is responsible for driving brands to sign up with HubSpot partner growth marketing agencies, as the ROI is measurable and the investment cost is significantly less than running such a strategy internally.
Content for SEO
SEO is likely the most valuable strategy you can invest in. 9 out of 10 people turn to Google to search for products and services, so ranking well for key search terms is a critical first step to converting sales from organic traffic.
However, the ultimate focus should not be on rankings but instead conversion rate. This means the SEO strategy needs to rank the right content for the right buyers, while addressing their needs and presenting a solution.
This is a process that takes significantly more time than say a paid media approach, but if done correctly, your ability to rank well and convert traffic can live on in the SERPs for years.
Look for a growth marketing agency that uses data on your customers to create pillar pages and blog clusters. A pillar page is usually a main product or service page designed to rank, and it almost always has a CTA to convert traffic.
The page is long form, and designed to both rank well and speak to buyers. A blog cluster is the fuel that allows the page to rank well; each blog speaks on the same general topic, but takes a unique approach and sub-topic while boasting an original title.
These blogs can also speak to specific buyer personas, and while they all link to one another to demonstrate context, that also individually link back to the pillar page to increase its authority by sending valuable search juice. To do this successfully you need to be savvy at technical writing, marketing psychology, and be hyper creative going into 2020.
Contact a HubSpot partner growth marketing agency today. Ask if they do a free audit, and discover your best option for generating growth and hitting your high revenue targets in the new year to come.
