14 Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy

What good is a content marketing strategy if it's not driving results?

Your business needs content marketing, but it won’t matter if your strategy doesn’t produce results. Without quality leads, your business will struggle. By taking a few simple steps, you can improve your content and make sure it generates more leads and conversions.

14 Steps to Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing focuses on creating and sharing valuable content to attract and keep customers. However, producing high-quality content is not always easy. To help you begin, we prepared a list of 14 steps that can help improve your content marketing.

1. Create Personas

You'll need to understand your target audience. Buyer personas are semi-fictional profiles of your ideal customers based on real data and market research. When you create detailed buyer personas, it becomes easier to know what kind of content to make and how to deliver it to the right audience.

2. Define the Purpose of Your Content

You’ve likely heard that having a blog and posting on social media is important, but have you ever asked yourself why? Consider these questions:

• Does your content match your business model?
• Does the content format fit your business goals?
• How can storytelling help teach people about your brand?
• Do you have enough resources to maintain a blog consistently?

Content marketing requires a lot of effort, and it becomes even more challenging if you don’t follow basic best practices — such as building buyer personas and creating content for different stages of the marketing funnel.

3. Decide on Keyword Targets

Find the keywords, phrases, and terms that fit your business. Try to think like your customers to understand what they are searching for and what they expect to find from your company.

4. Use input From Across Departments

Your marketing team understands the buyer journey and can help to map out content that will guide prospects through each stage, while your product team can provide insights on what type of content will be most helpful in selling your product or service.)

Your content marketing strategy should be a joint effort between the sales, marketing, and product teams. Each team has useful knowledge that can help improve your content. The sales team works directly with customers, so they can share which content works well and which does not. The marketing team understands the buyer’s journey and can plan content that guides prospects through every stage, while the product team can suggest what kind of content best explains and promotes your product or service.

5. Research Competitors

Improving your content marketing also means knowing what kind of content your competitors are producing and how they reach their audience. This doesn’t mean you should copy what they do — instead, use their content as inspiration to create your own unique content marketing strategy.

6. Curate Industry News

Your audience is probably interested in industry news and trends, but they don’t have the time to sort through all the information to find what really matters. This is where you can help by selecting and sharing the most useful industry updates. Doing this will position you as a thought leader and build your brand’s reputation as a trusted source.

7. Showcase Thought Leadership

Thought leadership content is an effective way to strengthen your content marketing strategy. It highlights your company’s expertise and helps build trust with your audience. When creating this type of content, focus on solving common problems and offering helpful solutions for your target market.

8. Be Empathetic to Your Client's Needs

The 12th Annual Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends: Insights for 2022 report shows that around half of the respondents said it became harder to get their audience’s attention in 2021.

One solution is to change your marketing tone. Using empathetic content helps your business build stronger relationships with customers by focusing on what truly matters to them.

Your content should always center on your target audience and their needs. Take time to see things from their perspective and understand what kind of content will be most useful for them.

9. Utilize Educational Content

Educational content is a powerful tool for enhancing your content marketing. It positions your brand as an authority in your industry and can attract new customers. When planning educational content, focus on topics that matter to your audience and provide practical, useful information they can apply.

10. Establish Clear Content KPI’s

Content marketing can boost your business, but only if you set clear KPIs. Without them, it’s hard to track the success of your strategy or make improvements. When defining your KPIs, focus on metrics that align with your business objectives.

11. Create a Content Calendar

To make your content marketing more efficient and effective, it’s important to use a content calendar. This tool helps you organize your content strategy, plan upcoming topics, and ensure your content is timely and relevant.

When building your content calendar, consider:

• Your target audience
• Your business goals
• Your content strategy
• Your available resources

A carefully planned content calendar can help your business attract and retain customers.

12. License Content From World-Renowned Publications

Outsourcing content creation can be beneficial for businesses of any size. The biggest challenge for 65% of marketers who outsource is ensuring topical expertise.

One way to strengthen your cross-platform content strategy and access expert insights is by licensing content from reputable publications like The New York Times. This approach can enhance your brand’s credibility and establish you as a thought leader in your industry.

When licensing content, consider:

• The publication’s reputation
• The quality of the content
• Licensing costs
• The rights included

By carefully selecting high-quality licensed content, you can enhance your content marketing strategy and set your brand up for success.

13. Use Social Media to Your Advantage

It’s important to understand the difference between social media marketing and content marketing. While they complement each other, social media focuses on engagement across platforms, whereas content marketing centers on the content itself. Quality content can drive social engagement, and social media helps ensure that content reaches the right audience.

Choose the social platforms that fit your content. For example, industry-specific articles that are easily shareable perform well on Facebook and Twitter, while platforms like Instagram and Pinterest are ideal for licensed or original visual content to attract visitors to your site.

14. Don’t Be Afraid to Make Adjustments

Finally, be open to updating your content marketing strategy. As your business evolves, your strategy should evolve with it. Staying flexible allows you to keep your content marketing aligned with your business objectives.

Final Thoughts

Like most businesses, you probably know the value of a strong marketing strategy — but your strategy is only as effective as your content. That’s why it’s important to work with a content provider that offers the tools and support you need to stay on track.