Setting your goals for content marketing helps your business grow.
Well-defined content marketing goals help evaluate which strategies and tactics are working for your brand and which ones do not. Investing time in laying out the fundamental goals of content marketing for your brand makes you better understand their value.
You may have heard of the popular “content is king.” And there is a reason why it is so. Content is the core message which your website and social platforms contain. It is published and distributed to spread brand awareness, maintain visibility, engage people, and create a community. That is why you should pursue generating high-quality content that online users will take the time to read. It should be worthwhile and add value to your customers’ lives. Ultimately, this will help you hit your goals for content marketing.
Table of Contents
The Goals of Content Marketing
These are the goals of content marketing you should develop for your business:
Better Keyword Strategy
Ideally, your content team should develop a quarterly keyword strategy. This will more strongly support your content efforts. Narrow down the scope of your keywords list to 10 or 15 in a given quarter. And you will see its impact on your marketing metrics.
Low Bounce Rate
As part of the goals of content marketing, you will want to reduce the bounce rate on your blog posts. A high bounce rate can indicate that your content is not as engaging for your target audiences as you may have assumed. The reason may be the topic or the format. Either way, you need to find ways to enhance your web pages’ average bounce rate. A content style guide is a great place to start creating unique pieces that engage readers.
Off-Page SEO
Improving your website’s off-page SEO is built around your brand reputation and authority. When you achieve enhanced off-page SEO, you can help search engines understand what online users think of your web pages, products, and services. In turn, you boost the chances of your site ranking higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
On-Page SEO
The correct use and execution of on-page SEO determines the relevance and quality of your website. It helps deliver a better user experience.
Drawing in audiences through excellent on-page SEO is part of the top of the funnel (ToFu) phase of marketing. An effective ToFu campaign strategy can help generate high-quality leads and drive traffic to your content pieces.
Brand Presence
Showcase and sustain brand presence within your target markets. Earn your clients’ trust and establish your business’ credibility to make an impactful presence. This will increase traction and engagement, resulting in a higher ranking on target SERPs. You will find your website showing up in recommended website lists and arising in relevant online discussions.
Brand Awareness
Achieving consistent brand awareness among your target markets is another primary goal of content marketing.
Brand awareness is getting consumers to know you exist. Strong awareness is vital in winning more paying customers.
Raising brand awareness begins with figuring out your business's unique personality. The voice, tone, and trait shape who you are and what you represent. It makes you stand out in the crowd of a saturated and highly competitive market.
Here are the best practices for encouraging brand awareness:
- Tell the story that has given rise to your company.
- Use your storytelling as a compelling tactical step to evoke an emotional connection from your audience.
- Be present on online platforms where your target audience frequently hangs out.
- Make sharing user-generated content (UGC) a habit.
- Listen to what consumers want and need.
- Make your content marketing goals consumer-centric.
You know your content marketing for building awareness is working effectively when you hit these content marketing key performance indicators (KPIs):
- Brand mentions
- Engagement and reach
- Follower counts
- Branded search volume
- Website traffic
- Backlinks for SEO
Organic Traffic
Content marketing does not stop at creating valuable, evergreen content. Drive organic traffic to your site through constant content updates. Your pieces should be kept updated, too.
Increase your website's organic traffic by regularly optimizing existing content. This can significantly help with your long-term goals for content marketing and more significant revenues. Continue pushing for up-to-date keyword ranking and strong website traffic. These signify successful marketing methodologies.
Paid Ad Campaigns
Double down on your SEO campaigns by leveraging the power of paid ads. Enrich your website with landing pages and engaging blog entries. Then, ensure that all your other marketing channels, such as social networks, circle back to these content pieces.
Paid advertisements are a great website traffic source. These can assist with your marketing efforts by increasing unique page views and average time spent on your site.
Subscription List
Grow your newsletter and email subscriber list. While this may be easy, a high quantity of subscribers can only be effective when you produce excellent-quality content. You will not want to lose them because of subpar content.
Build your subscriber list and make sure you create value-adding content. These will keep your audience engaged and willing to maintain their subscription to your emails and newsletters.
Website Conversion
Up your website’s conversion rate. Your products and services evolve. Your clients have ever-changing demands, too. So, your web copy, design, and navigation flow should go with these changes and developments.
You should invest in building a powerful and efficient content publication and distribution engine. Apply the 80/20 marketer’s golden rule in content creation and distribution. 80% of your time is allocated for disseminating educational and informative content, while 20% of your efforts go to content production.
This distribution engine will surely help skyrocket your marketing success.
Qualified Leads
An outstanding lead generation method involves directing a stream of quality leads to your web pages. You will have to nurture and turn these leads into buyers.
Listed here are samples of lead gen tactics:
- Regular send-out of email newsletters without spamming
- Using retargeting advertisements and promotional projects
- Social media marketing
Customer Acquisition
Retain existing customers and gain new ones by expanding your reach. Having solid goals for content marketing is a sustainable strategy for business expansion and scaling.
Execute your style guide on the right marketing channels most suitable for your brand, business model, product line, or range of services.
Remain flexible in your customer acquisition tactics. These are the considerations when measuring the effectiveness of your acquisition methodologies:
- Customer acquisition costs (CAC)
- Total new customers within a specific target period
- Churn rate
- Successful purchases
- Service sign-ups and subscriptions
Industry Authority
Position your company as a thought-leader and leading authority in your industry. Being an expert in your field is essential in proving your high level of credibility and knowledge in the business.
Industry authority is about people recognizing your enterprise as one of the best and most trustworthy on the market.
One of the goals of content marketing is speaking with your target audience and letting them know that you acknowledge their pain points. Tell them through high-value content that it is your business to serve, address, and alleviate these pain points. Sharing relevant, digestible, and relatable content that informs and inspires is a way to build and maintain authority and thought leadership.
Build a community that looks up to your company as a leader in the business. The main ways to do so are:
- Utilizing partner networks to reach a larger audience
- Leveraging outreach and guest blogging
- Working with other reputable brands
- Consistency in content creation and publication
- Preparing forward-thinking, awe-inspiring content
- Hosting free webinars and online workshops
- Sparking a conversation among online users
Revenue
Increasing revenue and getting your targeted return on investment (ROI) are crucial goals of content marketing. Running marketing programs and projects aims to boost profits. And content plays a substantial role in hitting this goal.
There are several stages in the marketing funnel. They include the top of the funnel (ToFu), the middle of the funnel (MoFu), the bottom of the funnel (BoFu), and the after-sales phase. Each of these requires varying strategies:
- ToFu: Creating a robust digital presence through an optimized website and use of the right social platforms
- MoFu: Determining signifiers that covert prospective buyers into marketing-qualified leads (MQLs), automating lead-generating emails, and retargeting promotional campaigns
- BoFu: Sharing product tutorials, offering service demos, exhibiting stellar company reviews, and recounting consumer success stories
- After-purchase: Fortifying your consumer loyalty program
You can use these metrics to monitor your revenues:
- Annual recurring revenue
- Average earnings per client
- Quota attainment
- Win rate
Wrap-Up: Why Set Goals for Content Marketing
The ultimate goal of content marketing is high ROI. Taking the time to put effort in content development proves to be worth your while.
Well-developed content is a critical touchpoint where your brand and your potential customers start a dialogue, build rapport, establish trust, develop a relationship, and eventually do transactions. Harnessing this purpose of content marketing is central to your brand’s success and staying power.
The objectives of content marketing do not stop at making and circulating content pieces. It is a continuous process that covers the generation of new topics and information for your client’s consumption. Also, it involves methodical and steady updates to keep up with the dynamic practices in content optimization.
Professionalcontent marketing companies can also help you with this process, so we advise looking for the right agency to partner with for your project.
