“Evolve Your Marketing Strategy: How to Use Content Marketing” Webinar Recap

On Thursday, September 17th, Evolve Systems hosted the webinar, “Evolve Your Marketing Strategy: How to Use Content Marketing,” where Karlee Onstad, Marketing Coordinator and Copywriter, discussed the components and considerations of developing a content marketing plan.

Below is a recap of the webinar that highlights the main points, including additional resources discussed during the presentation. Watch the full webinar recording below!

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a type of marketing approach that encompasses the following characteristics:

Informative

• Provides relevant information to your audience

Valuable

• Is non-disruptive to your audience’s online interactions

Engaging

• Personal to your audience’s needs and encourages action

Authentic

• All the above points create content authenticity because it demonstrates that the content is developed to support your audience in a meaningful way

Building a Content Calendar

What is a content calendar?

A content calendar is a visual representation of your content marketing plan that provides an actionable outline of what, when, and where to execute your content.

Benefits of a content calendar

The mains benefits of using a content calendar to outline your content marketing plan are:

• Helps your business stay organized and save time
• Ensures your publishing consistent messaging across platforms that follow a predetermined strategy
• Supports brand recognition and connection with your audience
• Makes it easy for your business and marketing to remain flexible

Things to consider when planning your content calendar

When developing your content calendar there are four steps in planning the calendar. You should spend time focusing on these steps in order to develop a comprehensive calendar to implement your content marketing strategy. The three steps include:

Step 1: Evaluate business resources

• Who is able to contribute to your content marketing?
• What are your team/member’s capabilities and skills?
• How much time is available to allocate for marketing?

Step 2: Determine content type, focus, & goals

• What content marketing are you currently doing?
• What do you want to start doing?
• Any specific topics or events you want to focus on during this content calendar period?

Step 3: Establish content frequency

• Examine your resources in comparison to your content list to develop a realistic content frequency
• Examples:
  • How often will you post on your different social media channels?
  • How often will you publish a blog?
  • How often will you promote your event? And on what channels?

Step 4: Outline your calendar

• Transfer the frequency and content list to a calendar to build a visual representation of what, when, and where content will be published
• Suggested tool: Google Sheets has calendar templates

Learn more about why your business needs a content calendar.

Organic Marketing & Paid Advertising

What is organic marketing?

Organic marketing is an umbrella term for any type of marketing that is free and drives traffic to your website. Some examples include infographics, emails, webinars, etc.

What is paid advertising?

In comparison, paid advertising is a type of paid marketing effort that drives traffic to your website and/or your business.

Why they both need to be included in your content marketing plan

While paid advertising does not follow the authentic approach that is characteristic of content marketing, it still needs to align with your organic marketing efforts. As mentioned, your marketing needs to be supportive across different platforms, and this includes your paid advertising. In order to build a comprehensive content marketing strategy, you need to consider all aspects of your marketing to deliver consistent messaging.

When should your business use PPC?

PPC, pay-per-click, is a type of paid advertising; although these terms are often used interchangeably, PPC is rather a facet of paid advertising. PPC means businesses pay a fee every time their ad is clicked.

A common question we receive from clients is, “When should I use PPC?” So, we constructed the top 5 situations when using PPC is beneficial for businesses.

*It is important to note that while PPC allows your business to get in front of your targeted audience quicker, the most effective approach to PPC is using both organic and paid marketing to build your business’ online presence.

1. Local and Small Businesses

Oftentimes local or small businesses have limited resources to dedicate for building organic leads through content marketing and need a more direct approach for capturing leads. PPC provides that quick solution for immediate results while the business continues to improve their organic marketing.

PPC also allows local or small businesses to target audiences based on location. Since these businesses are often located in a physical location and therefore serve an audience more confined to that location, they can include geo-targeting to capture those searches.

Example industries:

• Automotive
• Restaurant and Beverage

2. High Customer Lifetime Values (CLV)

For businesses that have a high customer lifetime value (CLV), it means that capturing a single sale from a PPC will develop an ongoing client or customer partnership. This creates an increased ROI (return on investment) over time from the ad.

Example industries:

• Medical or dental
• Accountants
• Print and signage shops

3. High Margin-Based Companies

Similar to CLV, for businesses that receive a high margin from a single conversion, it allows them to quickly increase the ROI on the ad.

Example industries:

• Lawyers
• Home repair and services

4. Unique Services or Products

If your business offers unique services or products that target a very specific need, then PPC allows your business to capitalize on your niche by capturing relevant searches.

Example industries:

• Manufacturing
• Consulting

Importance of Copywriting

Copywriting is included in all aspects of content marketing creation and distribution. From writing relatively simple captions for social posts to writing complex downloads, copywriting is used to provide that informative and engaging content that your audience looks for in your content.

An important part of copywriting is writing for SEO (search engine optimization). SEO is implementing best practices that align with search engine algorithms, such as Google. By incorporating SEO practices, such as on our website or in your copy, it allows your business website to rank higher on SERPs (search engine results pages).

Writing for SEO means strategically incorporating SEO practices while providing valuable content to your targeted audience. It includes numerous considerations that must be balanced to align with search engines and your audience preferences, while also authentically representing your business.

Learn more about the 5-step process for implementing SEO copywriting that improves your website ranking.

Key Takeaways & Action Items

1. Build a content calendar

• Step 1: Evaluate business resources
• Step 2: Determine content type, focus, & goals
• Step 3: Establish content frequency
• Step 4: Outline your calendar
  • Tip: Start by using a doc then transfer to a calendar
  • Tip: Build a content calendar for each quarter (Q4 is here!)

2. Balance your organic and paid content efforts

• Would your business benefit from PPC?
  • Examine the 5 PPC situations
• Do your organic efforts and paid advertising support each other?

3. Focus on your copywriting

• What is your current process for writing your content?
• How can you improve that process?
  • Who? How much time? Reviews?

Thank you for participating in our webinar and we hope this information is valuable to you as you prepare your business content marketing plan. For more information about the topics covered during the webinar or if you would like to discuss the content marketing services Evolve Systems offers, please contact us using this form.