Have you been persistently using social media for nurturing your customer base?
Are you confused as which content strategy would suit your clientele and amplify the conversion rates?
The idea here is to understand the social sales funnel which comprises of several levels. Your content strategy must align with each level of the buying funnel in order to make a statement. Adaptability is the key and a content marketing strategy must vary according to the concerned social media platform.
In this post, we will be addressing 5 ways to create, amplify and even repurpose content which can then reach or cater to every stage of your sales module.
#1. Outline Content Based on the Level
The first step towards a perfect content marketing strategy has to be ideation. Creating impactful content isn’t possible unless you nail the ideation plan in advance. Overabundance of content is a problem as every other marketer is looking to make a mark without even worrying about the concerned stages.
It all starts with mapping audience based on psychographic inputs and demographics. Other details include pain points and mutual interests. Once the audience is defined, it is necessary to create a step-pronged approach, based on the varied buying personas. Three stages form the core of any social buying funnel and we will be looking into the content strategies for each.
Awareness Stage or the Topmost Portion of the Buying Funnel
At this stage, you must concentrate on building meaningful relationships with the buyers. This should be in the form of permissions, requests, email newsletters and even the RSS feed. The content, at this stage, must be strictly informational and shall work towards solving queries.
Consideration Stage or the Middle Portion
Now when the impressions have been made, the next step should be towards delivering targeted content in the form of newsletter embeds. This stage should comprise of approaches which will make buyers like your product and readily convince them towards the final portion of the sales funnel.
Decision Stage or the Bottom Portion
This section should close deals for the marketer, provided the first two stages have been perfected, in terms of content. By this stage, you must be selling products or services to the educated and loyal buyers. In terms of content creation, it is advisable to be specific— throwing in testimonials, product guides and even eBooks related to your business. Having a chart with all the three stages linked together will be a bonus.
Once you have perfected content ideas for the entire buying funnel, the next step is to bring forth a mind map, concerning varied buyer personas. This will be the last step towards a perfect editorial strategy coupled with themes, content ideas and even a calendar which will be discussed in the subsequent sections.
#2. Identify Foundational Themes
The next step urges marketers to be more granular with the content ideas and techniques. Before starting off with a full-fledged editorial plan, you must plan a foundational piece which must be extensive and in-depth— envisioning your content plan in the best possible way. However, creating a foundational content is tough and comprises of several strategies.
It all starts with keyword research and trickles down to identifying competitors, via the searches. You can use Ahrefs for the same and even analyze the list of keywords for which the competitor ranks.
Upon combining researched keywords with those generated from the ‘Google Keyword Planner’, you are bound to get a wide-array of foundational themes to work with. For example, if your competitor is ranking well for Snapchat filters or Instagram followers, you must create content focused around the same but with newer ideas, revelations and even hidden tricks. For photo sharing platforms and other social channels like Twitter and LinkedIn, you need to be creative with the content strategy, regardless of the keyword research.
Moving on, you need to visualize themes and sub-themes while brainstorming content specifics for the given job. You must understand the content type, product outreach, upcoming events and even industry specific news for getting an idea of the foundational piece.
Lastly, content sources need to be checked for uniqueness. If you are looking to create something new and out-of-the box, resorting to interviews, how-to drafts and even statistical content is important.
#3. Create an Exhaustive Editorial Calendar
The editorial calendar is a very important step towards creating the best editorial plan. It should be concrete and must take care of amplification methods, content themes, creation tools and almost everything that concerns content marketing.
The idea here is to choose a tool that covers everything. The best choices include Google Sheets and even Podio. These tools help marketers keep a track of the author, client status, due date and even the concerned themes.
Lastly, you must schedule the content based on the timeframe. For example, if you are covering social channels for hidden tricks and hacks, it is advisable to start with the likes of Facebook and Snapchat before moving on to Instagram, Twitter and other channels. This is what the editorial calendar can keep a track of.
Apart from that, an editorial calendar can help segregate topics based on quarters.
#4. Repurpose the Identified Content
We have already discussed the concept of foundational content in the previous sections. The idea here is to repurpose that foundational content over a period of months or even years. You must identify the asset or content type beforehand which can be leveraged for handing multiple initiatives.
The key factor in this case has to be planning. You must analyze the foundational content and schedule the same based on the editorial calendar. This idea isn’t hard to execute and only requires a strategic outline of sorts.
#5. Amplify Content Based on Preferences
This is the final step towards preparing the perfect editorial strategy for the sales funnel. By now, I presume that you have already taken care of repurposing, editorial calendar and other mentioned hacks. Amplification is the final technique which needs to be undertaken in order to reach perfection. The first step towards amplifying repurposed content includes content promotion via influencer outreach and blogposts.
The next idea is paid amplification over social channels. Apart from that, you can also opt for email amplification and retargeting— both of which can readily drive traffic right into the funnel.
The last alternative is syndication and amplification via partnered channels.
Bottom Line
If you are striving for that perfect content marketing strategy, these 5 pointers can be of some serious help. Content creation is important but the likes of foundational pieces, repurposing and even amplification can actually beef up the content prowess for the aspiring marketers.
Most of us are looking to target customers and the idea here should be towards identifying the specific sections of the social sales funnel rather than handling everything at once.