Imagine you create just one blog post that ranks high on the front page of search results for a term relevant to what you do... that page will drive a steady stream of traffic to your page (and site) which, with the right offer, can become new leads and customers.

Assuming you’ve already absorbed the cost of creating that content and the offer, these leads are free!

And, assuming that the amount of traffic and leads the page generates is fairly predictable, this gives you a foundation on which to build your promotional and tactical activity. Not only do you know what content is resonating with your audience, you are generating more awareness for your business and brand, and freeing up budget for paid advertising.

1 in 10 blog posts are compounding, meaning organic search increases their traffic over time.
(HubSpot, 2016, source)

Creating your strategy

Content can cater to the needs of potential customers at any stage of the buyer’s journey, and you’ll want to ensure your strategy covers all of them!

Your strategy should incorporate all the media you create and own (whether written, visual, interactive or other) and your content creation should have a well-planned purpose.

When developing your content strategy, you need to consider:

• Who the content is for
• The problem it's going to solve for them
• How it will be unique
• The formats you'll focus on
• The channels where it will be published
• Processes and responsibilities for scheduling, creating and publishing  

Here are 7 steps for creating a great content strategy:

1. Set your content strategy goals
2. Select your target persona/s
3. Complete an audit of your current content assets
4. Define the key topics you will create content around and do keyword research
5. Brainstorm content around your topic clusters
6. Create a content schedule which outlines
• Topic
• Sub-topic
• Title
• Format
• Target keywords
• Target persona
• Offer/CTA
7. Create and publish your content

That’s it for now! I’ll leave you with a few stats that will hopefully help to convince you that content creation (as part of a solid strategy) is a worthwhile endeavour. There is a lot of content out there, so make sure yours is of the highest quality, and proves genuinely useful for your intended audience!

53% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority.
(HubSpot, 2017, source)

On average, B2B marketers allocate 28% of their total marketing budget to content marketing.
(Content Marketing Institute, 2015, source)

96% of B2B buyers want content with more input
from industry thought leaders.
(Demand Gen Report, 2016, source)

OK, so we are generating leads through our campaigns and content, job done? Well actually no. You've got to close those leads if you want to actually get a return from all this activity. I'll leave it to the expert, Ryan Watkins, to talk you through how to do that in the last part of our course.  

Alex