7 Steps On How To Write A Content Marketing Strategy

B2B content marketing strategy can be paralyzing.

There are hundreds of techniques, frameworks, processes, and tactics flying around.

This piece is for B2B content marketers yearning for a simple, effective, “evergreen” content marketing plan to follow…

This strategy will be particularly useful for you if:

• You’re publishing often but the lead generation just isn’t there.
• Content marketing creation is there. You have a ton of content but it isn’t optimized for SEO.
• You’re struggling to come up with effective B2B content marketing strategies for your company.
• You’ve tried unsuccessfully to implement blogging that delivers on your content marketing goals.
• You’re struggling to articulate the content strategy to senior executives in a way that makes them excited.
• You use email marketing automation systems, like HubSpot, Marketo, or Pardot, but don’t get enough ROI.
• You’re part of a small but mighty team that needs an efficient B2B content marketing strategy template to work from.
• You’ve read all the research, statistics, and ”best practices” for B2B lead generation but still don’t know where or how to start.

If this describes you, read on. Because the content marketing training you’re about to get was made just for you…

 

1. Why most B2B content marketing strategies fail (hint: there’s a lot of B.S.)

There are many reasons that B2B content strategies fail but they all come back to two areas:

FIRST, is FOCUS.

It’s not your fault.

There’s just SO much stuff in the modern marketer’s world.

There’s old stuff, new stuff, experimental stuff, technology stuff, and so on. It’s just a lot to handle.

We feel your pain.

There are TOO MANY content marketing frameworks to choose from. But results fail to meet expectations.

You end up trying a bunch of B2B content marketing strategies, only to get frustrated. Your C-level executives come asking about ROI and you have nothing to show for it.

SECOND, is “Blind Blogging.”

Wouldn’t it be nice to have one approach that just plain works (Instead of chasing a million different tactics)?

There’s a better way to create B2B content marketing strategies for professionals and after years of testing our marketing services, we’ve identified the culprit for mediocrity, Blind Blogging.

Read on to discover what this is…

2. Content marketing is the only king if you understand the subtle details

Everybody thinks content is king but it’s the most misunderstood, misused, and still largely misunderstood concept out there. Content is not king if you’re not writing about stuff your audience cares about.

But how are we choosing topics? Nobody has a good answer.

Here’s how it (unfortunately) goes for companies most of the time…

Dude 1: We should blog! What should we blog about?

Dude 2: I don’t know. Maybe XYZ? Someone asked me about XYZ.

Dude 3: No way, we should totally blog about ABC instead — it’s hot!

Result: Dude 3’s idea took 3 months to launch live and generated a whopping 12 page views. Well done, sir.

Boss: Damn these blogs. What’s the world come to?

This is Blind Blogging. Without first outlining your content marketing goals and getting a thorough view of the landscape of options, you’re taking a sporadic approach that will get you inconsistent results.

3. SEO in content marketing actually stands for self-effectiveness optimization

With SEO, you’re guessing a lot of time, not getting lots of feedback, and handling random requests with limited time and lots of stress.

It’s no longer an option for you to waste time; you must optimize your decisions by effectiveness.

Instead of running around like a chicken with his head cut off, work in project cycles using the Agile lean process.

Take a series of tasks and lump them into projects and themes.

It’s more effective because:

• • You’ll have more feedback.
  • You’ll be able to keep a backlog.
  • You’ll be more productive since you’re using sprints.
  • You can respond by adding certain things to the backlog.

4. B2B content marketing strategy

There are two components of Blogging that you don’t get from Blind Blogging. That’s right — there are only 2 vital content marketing steps others are missing:

1. Keyword research
2. Content theming

5. Keyword Research: the core of competitive content marketing

Rather than having a scattershot approach of targeting whatever keyword you prefer, think it through.

Build out a thorough keyword universe categorized by search volume and competition.

Decide what low-hanging fruit is worth the squeeze.

 

6. Why content theming helps your content marketing strategy

Theming of your content helps increase the authority of your site and the rankings of each of these blog posts.

This is because you are signaling to search engines what your site is about with consistent, relevant content wrapped around the same theme.

Without theming, Google can get confused about what your site is about.

Also, theming helps leverage sound internal linking.

It increases the opportunity for you to inter-link between related content, increase user engagement, reduce bounce rate, increase dwell time, and spread link equity — all great for SEO.

In addition, internal linking is a natural beacon for attracting external links, a key factor in high search rankings. By consistently producing content around a theme, you’re building your reputation and momentum around a vertical.

Finally, theming allows you to repurpose content in many ways.

For example, with a series of four blog posts published one right after the other week-by-week around a theme, you can package that up into an eBook to use as a lead-magnet with little effort.

Or you can re-package these as an email follow-up drip campaign or a full webinar presentation — the options are limitless.

In the presentation deck we offer at the end, we outline the keys to successful content theming.

7. Discover all the secrets of content marketing strategies for free

Content marketing doesn’t have to be complicated. These tips are timeless and will work no matter what content marketing trends occur.

While there is an additional opportunity with marketing automation, start simple with your B2B content marketing strategy.

Without a thoughtful B2B content marketing strategy, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table. We’ll help you save that money.

Let’s chat!