Content Marketing, 10 tips for a winning strategy

During the last Kansas City Digital Summit, only 10% of people were satisfied with the goals achieved in terms of content marketing. You can plan carefully, read e-books and manuals, listen to webinars, but if you do not implement your traffic, do not increase leads and conversions and all your efforts turn into a massive failure. How can all this be avoided? With our 10 tips for a winning strategy of content marketing!

Clear objectives

The fundamental question you need to ask is why you are creating that particular content. Writing without first setting clear objectives to achieve is the prerequisite of any failure, it is like darts thrown at random because you do not know where your personal dartboard is. The objectives can be numerous: customer loyalty, upselling, making your brand known or generating leads. Each of these sectors requires a different strategy and a targeted content. Whatever your target, do not forget to outline it from the beginning!

One of the greatest young American marketers says "You cannot manage what you can not measure". To find out if your strategic approach is effective or if your strategy is aligned with the goal to be achieved, you must use metrics. These units of measurement are not all the same. For example, you can choose between brand mentions and searches, social media reach, average time spent on a page, frequency of return or bounces. The key thing is that you choose the metric based on the purpose that you have given to your content marketing.

Marketing and the funnel

The customer arrives on your site, sees the item and buys it. If sales worked this way, content marketing would have no reason to exist. In reality, a user, before buying a service or an object, needs to collect a lot of information that you will have to offer them following precise patterns. The sale is the result of a series of consequential actions. The concept is simple: start with a wide base of potential buyers and, through content targeted marketing, reduce their number up to ensure customer only actually interested in what you sell. In technical terms, this is the famous funnel, in other words a Sales Analyser that we can portray as a funnel formed by: 

• a lower part consisting of few interactions but of great quality. 
• And in the middle, there are the famous digital touch points where, through a series of targeted content, you must demonstrate your ability to inform, attract, seduce and persuade your prospective customer. 

Planning is also critical within the funnel in the path leading from the top to the bottom. You should not think of creating a text for just one type of buyer. You must attract those who do not know your brand through a series of brilliant and credible content. Likewise, you have to consider those who are "midway" through your site or a user who has passed the entrance but has not yet made a purchase. It is perhaps the most delicate step because your customer is halfway along the path and you have to convince them that putting that item in the cart is the best thing they can do. In the final part of the funnel you find the customer who is about to buy. Here "Content is king", you are reaching your goal, the buyer needs accurate, timely, informative content.

Do not rush

Recent statistics have shown that at least 6 months are needed to see the first results of a content marketing campaign while the best results are obtained after at least a year. This is the rather large range you need to consider before implementing your strategy. The timeframe we talked about is obviously influenced by various factors such as budget, goal and brand popularity. Make Tolstoy's famous maxim your own: time and patience are two invincible warriors. Digital marketing works, but it's not a magic wand!

SEO or not SEO?

There is no SEO without content and there is no content without SEO. They are two sides of the same coin that fit together perfectly, blend and lead you straight to the result. One of the most popular metrics to measure the effectiveness of a marketing strategy is the analysis of site visits data. To get traffic you need to be seen by search engines. Quality content is not enough, it must also be optimised to allow Mr. Google to find it among billions of texts and index it.

It has been calculated that only 28% of small businesses optimise their texts, a disconcerting fact that explains why many strategies fail even before they start. Optimising means using the tools offered by SEO appropriately. Quality content must be written for users and contain a key element, keywords. The famous main keyword reveals the target audience to Google, to which you are referring. It must be placed in the text in a strategic but intelligent way and above all it must have its own logic, otherwise Google will penalise you. Do you want to be sure you're not making mistakes? Use our service CMS Keys!

Improve your workflow!

A well-organised workflow lets you optimise your time and resources. In the case of content marketing, the authors of the "Content strategy for the web" manual have identified three basic steps to organise a successful workflow:

• Create new content.
• Keep existing content
• Evaluate the effectiveness of content

These 3 steps must be carefully documented in your content marketing strategy and shared with all of your employees.

Become a manager of yourself!

Content marketing works best when it is considered a corporate philosophy because it is a fairly risky investment as it produces long-term results. Without a fervent supporter in the famous C-Suite, the group of the most important managers of your company, the project can jump, be postponed or even cancelled. The solution? If nobody supports you, become the most convincing sponsor of yourself, organise a workshop within your company to convince others to give you a chance.

Verba volant 

Marketers who develop a documented strategy have 5 times the chance of success. Get your ideas on paper immediately, no matter if they are still imperfect, you will have time to change them. A step by step process of your content marketing plan allows you to work smarter, more effectively and efficiently. The written word also aligns and puts you on the same wavelength with your stakeholders, strengthening common objectives, making them clearer and more comprehensible.

I publish therefore I am

Unless you are Brian Dean from Backlinko, to keep your readers loyal and be on the web, you need to publish at regular intervals, preferably once a week or more. All you need is a short web search to see that the marketing professionals who get excellent results are those who write (and publish) on a regular basis.

Regular and well

It is not enough to publish at regular intervals, you must also know how to write high quality content. Speaking the same language as your readers, teaching something without selling anything, adding something new to the sea of ​​often repetitive information found on the web. Add to this the need for a readable and clear format thanks to the use of titles, subtitles, lists, italics and bold. Do not overlook images. A beautiful photo, chosen with criteria is a great business card for your article.

Advertising is the soul of content marketing

Content promotion is as important as creating it. Use social media and newsletters to let the public know about your articles. If you do not share what you write, you are suffocating any content that is likely to remain there, without being read by anyone.


This is the list of the 10 most important steps to build a strategy of successful content marketing. Now, it's over to you. Are you ready to build your own hall of fame?