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The best content marketing tips used by pros resemble strategies of successful investors. Think like an investor to maximize your results. Indeed, winning investors and marketers both:
You can apply these principles to optimize 10 of the best content marketing strategies used by successful marketers:
Learn how investment principles apply to these content marketing strategy tips and how to put them into practice.
Successful investors share a certain mindset. This mindset revolves around making investment decisions based on rational thinking rather than emotional sentiments. This commitment to rational thinking sets them apart from less successful investors who make bad decisions based on enthusiasm or panic. Successful content marketers take a similar approach. Let’s break down some of the qualities that characterize the mindset of successful investors and analyze how to improve content marketing strategy by applying them.
Successful investors pursue a well-designed investment strategy designed to achieve specific objectives.
Some investors pursue undervalued stocks that they anticipate will increase in value based on long-term market trends. Others invest in high-growth industries, trending stocks or stocks that average returns over time. Successful content marketers think strategically as well. They set goals such as building brand authority, driving traffic or increasing sales conversions. They then deploy strategies to achieve these goals. If your goal is to build brand authority, you may focus on developing content that establishes your company as a credible resource on subjects related to your product or service.
Top investors don’t rely on uninformed hunches to make decisions: They look at hard numbers such as stock prices, earnings per share, market research and economic-performance indicators. They let data drive their decisions.
Smart content marketers also look at numbers. They use tools such as keyword research, website analytics and social media analytics to gather data. They make content-planning decisions and adjustments based on this information.
Because successful investors look at investments in terms of numbers, they take calculated risks based on the laws of probability. They know that over time, the law of averages will tend to balance out short-term market fluctuations. They mathematically analyze the risks associated with different investment options and choose an investment portfolio that keeps risk within manageable levels. Content marketers also take calculated risks. They know that not all content campaigns will achieve equal results in terms of shares, traffic or conversions. But they use data such as keyword research and analytics to identify the most promising opportunities and pursue these. They also mitigate risk by tracking results and focusing on campaigns that are succeeding while reigning in ones that aren’t yielding results.
In keeping with taking calculated risks, winning investors don’t put all their eggs in one basket. They spread their investments out over different types of investments with varying degrees of risk, aiming for an optimized balance between risk and return. This increases the odds that even if one investment doesn’t perform as well as hoped, another investment will ensure a return. Successful content marketing strategies also take a diversified approach. They spread their content strategy out across different target markets, media channels and content campaigns. This helps ensure that even if one market, channel or campaign underperforms, the overall marketing mix will yield results.
Because successful investors take a mathematical approach to investing, they play to win by leveraging the long-term odds. They know that a decline in the market isn’t a permanent situation. They can afford to be patient because they know that in the long term, the law of averages wins. Successful content marketers think long-term, too. They don’t fret because a particular campaign didn’t perform as hoped. They pursue a patient strategy of consistent content output designed to promote long-term results.
Applying an investment mindset to content strategy principles gives you a strategic roadmap for achieving your marketing goals. Here’s a digital content strategy best practice guide based on applying investing principles:
In keeping with the investment principle of rational, mathematically informed decision-making, a smart marketing campaign should be driven by data. Sources that can help marketers make smarter decisions include:
You don’t necessarily need to utilize all these data sources or collect data for its own sake. Track, analyze and deploy the data most relevant to your goals.
Strategic marketing, such as strategic investing, revolves around well-defined goals. The goals you set for your marketing campaign will determine which strategies and tools are optimal for your purposes. The types of goals you can pursue include:
In keeping with the investment principle of diversification, you can invest in different types of content corresponding to different goals. For example, a white paper might be more useful for building brand authority, while a pay-per-click ad might be more strategic for increasing traffic.
Just as investing focuses on numbers, marketing goals should focus on measurable benchmarks. The best way to achieve this is by defining key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to your marketing goals. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness or website traffic, you might track unique visitors. Relevant KPIs can include:
Some goals are best approached in incremental benchmarks. For example, if you’re trying to reach a certain volume of traffic, you might track your progress toward that goal over quarterly intervals.
Just as investors focus on stocks that promise high returns, a strategic marketing approach prioritizes the most promising opportunities. Your market and keyword research will lend insight into which demographics and search terms represent your biggest potential markets and best niche opportunities. By focusing your budget and content production on these, you can increase your odds of generating a high return on your marketing investment.
Successful investments generate profits partly because their companies produce products that meet the needs of their markets. In a similar way, effective content needs to address your target audience’s needs as expressed through their search intent. Search-engine users can enter keyword terms for several major purposes, including:
You can identify search intent through keywords that indicate purpose. For instance, “how” tends to indicate a search for information, whereas “best” may indicate comparative product research and “buy” normally indicates a readiness to purchase. You also can research search intent by using Google snippets or specialized keyword tools and filters.
Smart investors allocate funds to maximize profits. After you’ve invested time and money developing content, you can maximize your return by putting your content to its highest and best use. You can rank your content in terms of your top target markets and your best keyword opportunities. Content that connects with these audiences and niches can generate more traffic and conversions. Make sure this type of content appears in prominent locations on your website. For instance, a how-to guide designed to attract visitors from a particular industry might be featured in a resources section on your site. In a similar way, leverage your social media profiles and email subscriber lists to showcase your best content.
When a successful investor hits on a winning strategy or profitable investment, they rinse and repeat. One of the most important content strategy trends of 2020 has seen is content remarketing, also called content retargeting. What’s Remarketing? Content that attracts visitors to your site once can be deployed more than once if you tag visitors so that you can display banner ads or social media ads to them after they leave your site. This builds brand awareness and helps you increase conversions from visitors who would otherwise become lost opportunities. You can deploy remarketing by using resources such as Google Display Network, Google’s remarketing platform.
Just as winning investors go by the numbers, successful marketers track performance. When you invest in content, it’s critical to monitor the return on your investment.If a piece of content or an ad campaign is performing well, it should be prioritized and leveraged to generate maximum results. On the other hand, underperforming content campaigns should be modified or pulled. Testing alternative wordings of an ad (known as “split testing”) can help you improve content so that it generates better results.For instance, you may find that the same piece of content or the same ad gets better results when you use a different title or headline.
After you’ve invested in developing content, you can maximize your returns by repurposing it. Repurposing content typically involves presenting it in a new format.You can use a number of methods to repurpose content:
You also can repurpose content by giving it a new slant. For instance, you might take a how-to guide and use it to create a blog that applies the information to a specific industry.
Another efficient way to repurpose content is to reuse winning titles headlines. If a title is generating high traffic as a blog post or video, chances are that it may also generate good results as the headline of a pay-per-click ad. You can use split testing to see if a title pulls results as a headline. By the same token, a title that works well for a blog post also may serve as a template for repurposing in another format such as a video or a podcast or a tweet. You can also apply this technique in reverse. If one of your ad campaign headlines is pulling good results, consider using it as the title of a piece of content. You can even use this tactic to research effective headlines from competitors and create a file of headline templates you can modify for your own use. Professional copywriters call this creating a “swipe file.”
When you think like an investor, you can approach your content marketing as an investment designed to yield a return.You can increase your return on your content marketing investment by using the proven principles and strategies outlined above. Start by implementing one tactic at a time in order to gradually grow your results and lay a foundation for further progress. If you need help developing a content marketing strategy, a marketing agency can assist you. Kantaloupe can help you develop a customized strategy to build your brand and multiply your profits.
Roie Raitses is Kantaloupe's founder and CEO. Roie combines his passion and tenacity for digital marketing with more than 20 years of experience founding and scaling successful businesses. When he's not growing great companies faster, Roie enjoys mountain biking and spending time with his wife and two daughters.
