If you want to work on your inbound marketing to generate more traffic and sales, you need to plan and document your marketing strategy carefully.
Although this will involve more work at the outset, it will provide you with a clear sense of direction, and it can help you to save a lot of time and effort over the following months and years. Here are a few ways to take advantage of document-driven content.
Plan your time better
None of us have enough time in the day, and you have to plan it carefully. Trying to fit content creation and publishing into your daily schedule can be difficult as there is always something more important to do.
You don’t want to waste time creating content that you later find has no place in your overall strategy, and it is a much better idea to start by going over your strategy and coming up with content ideas that are in line with your strategy to ensure you are spending time on the right type of content.
Research the content topics you want to create
Spend time researching your market and find out what they want to know. You can do this by carrying out interviews with customers either by email or over the phone, and even a few good emails can provide a lot of excellent information. Or you can create surveys using a tool like SurveyMonkey.
Look at your competitors’ sites, and spend time looking at their most popular blog posts to get an idea about the sort of content that your audience might want. You can also use social media to find out which topics are the most popular for your audience.
Create an editorial schedule
A useful way to document content is to plan your publishing schedule with a content calendar for the year ahead. Whether you write one blog a week or one a month, plan your schedule so you know which content to publish in advance.
Think especially about seasonal issues. For example, if you have a travel insurance product, you could plan particular content for Christmas or the summer holidays.
Also keep spaces free that you can use to create content based around news stories that you will not know yet but which you can find out nearer the time.
Carry out research that you plan to release at a certain time of year. For example, for a home insurance company, you could research how many people fail to insure their home contents insurance to the right level after Christmas when they have lots of new presents.
Explore a wide range of content formats
You do not need to stick to written content, so plan other forms of content as well. What could work for you and your business and the types of products and services you sell? You may be able to engage with more people if you use different forms of content, including:
- presentations;
- videos;
- infographics;
- ebooks;
- images;
- podcasts.
This will give you a greater reach and allow you to attract customers who might otherwise not want to read your articles.
Planning and documenting your strategy is essential
Content marketing is so effective for many businesses including those in the insurance industry. If you want to boost the amount of lead enquiries you receive, driving traffic to your site through content is a great idea.
But don’t just jump head first into it without spending time thinking it over and coming up with a strategy. A documented content strategy should be seen as an essential starting point. It will give you far more control and, eventually, get you more leads. So spend time on planning your campaign to enjoy better results.
