It’s not always easy creating a killer content marketing campaign.
Most of the time, it requires months of trial and error. You’ll write one great blog, maybe two, and then you’ll wonder why your site traffic dipped all of a sudden. Or maybe your infographics share well on social media, but your blogs fall by the wayside. No one says it’s easy. But there are certain steps that every marketer can take to ensure their content stays at the top of its game.
A great marketing campaign is all about momentum. To meet your unique business objectives, your content needs to work for you – not against you.
To take the pain out of content planning, we have come up with a short list of the best and most useful resources available online. All of these guides feature tried and tested methods – so you know you’re in good hands.
1. The Ultimate Guide to Kickstart Your Content Marketing Machine
By Jacob Marovt
This resource is great if you are struggling with: determining your target audience
This is an excellent resource for content marketing beginners who need a complete A-Z to plan, implement, and evaluate their content campaign. The guide includes plenty of useful information, such as how to discover who influences your target market and which content types are best suited to achieving specific business objectives.
Exhaustive, engaging, and endlessly useful, this is the perfect content marketing resource for beginners and experts alike.
2. The Advanced Content Marketing Guide
by Neil Patel & Kathryn Aragon
This resource is great if you are struggling with: maximising productivity
Make no mistakes. The Advanced Content Marketing Guide isn’t just for experts.
Beautifully designed and equally engaging, this is a fantastic step-by-step post that tackles many of the problems marketers commonly face – such as:
- Overcoming writer’s block
- Optimising your content for search engines
- Maximising site traffic and audience engagement
But that really makes this piece stand out is its commitment to strategising content that drives business – not just something that looks good.
3. 16 Actionable SEO Copywriting Secrets That Will Drive More Traffic To Your Site
By Brian Dean
This resource is great if you are struggling with: increasing site traffic
In an industry where seemingly everyone bashes on that ‘content is king’, it’s easy for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to fall by the sidelines.
But thanks to Brian Dean, and his incredible post on SEO copywriting, there are no excuses left for failing to attract site visitors.
His expert advice covers a range of informative topics, including everything from how to embed adwords to achieving organic results and attract more site visitors.
4. The Definitive Guide To Engaging Content Marketing
By Marketo
This resource is great if you are struggling with: defining your buyer persona
Marketo are experts in creating fantastic brand publishing and eBooks, so it’s no surprise that they’ve also produced an excellent guide to content marketing.
Perfect sales and marketing teams alike, this digital resource provides expert guidance on creating and mapping buyer personas – whilst also paying close attention to optimising your content for maximum reach.
There is also a handy section about how to align your content strategy with upcoming industry events.
5. B2B Content Marketing Best Practice Guide
By James Gurd
This resource is great if you are struggling with: finding the right KPIs
Created by Econsultancy, this in-depth and persuasive guide focuses on how best to utilise content marketing for B2B practitioners – but still has universal relevance amongst B2C organisations too.
Some of the main areas of focus include:
- Choosing the right content formats
- Creating and evaluating an effective content distribution strategy
- Using the right KPIs to assess your content performance
So, if you’re looking for a one-stop guide to content marketing, you’ll be hard pushed to find a better resource than this.
6. Content Marketing Strategy: An A-Z Guide To Success
By Chris Lake
This resource is great if you are struggling with: branding your content
With great pieces of advice – such as ‘Think about audiences, rather than customers’ and ‘Reblogging sucks’ – this is a powerful and informative resource for content marketers.
But what we really like about the A-Z Guide to Success is its advice on how to align sales and marketing departments together. From a marketing perspective, this resource contains plenty of information regarding how to generate qualified leads for sales teams. There is also an excellent summary regarding which KPIs are best suited to helping you achieve your business objectives.
7. 4 Ways to Keep Your Content From Fading Into Oblivion
By Kevin Lee
This resource is great if you are struggling with: increasing social shares
This particular content marketing resource is slightly shorter than the rest, but is a must-read for businesses that want a content strategy with momentum.
Rather than focussing on how to create the perfect blog, Kevin Lee has written a fantastic evaluation about what marketing departments should do after their content has been published.
Some of the main pieces of advice include:
- Making it easy for audiences to share your content – and using these metrics to improve your performance
- Using paid promotion to increase audience reach
- Developing evergreen content that can be reused based on an inbound marketing model
- Planning for guest blogging
So, if you want to build a content strategy with longevity, look no further than this excellent guide.
8. How To Leverage Your Best Content To Meet Your Marketing Goals
By Nathan Ellering
This resource is great if you are struggling with: identifying your content strengths and weaknesses
A lot of the guides included in this blog, so far, have focussed on building a content strategy from scratch.
But what happens if you already have a content plan in place?
Then you need to leverage that content and gather data to improve your future performance. Luckily, Nathan Ellering has written about 8 different ways that businesses can use ‘big data’ to meet their marketing objectives.
This is an excellent resource and features an abundance of information on the following important issues:
- Defining what your ‘best content’ actually is
- Evaluating your post’s performance by focussing on page views, bounce rates, and average time on page
- Using social media to support your content strategy
And what’s better, this post contains lots of historic examples that marketers can look to for inspiration.
So there you have it. Our list of the top 8 content marketing resources that can give your blogging a much-needed boost.
If you would like to learn more, or speak with one of our lovely content experts, then follow us on Twitter @theukseo.