Long story short: Look at the numbers. A data-driven content marketing strategy has emerged as a necessity for businesses aiming to attract qualified leads from organic search. By dissecting customer data and conducting meticulous research, marketers have the capacity to curate compelling and valuable content that profoundly resonates with the target audience. 

This thoughtful approach not only encourages meaningful engagement but is also designed to convert leads into devoted customers. The process of turning data into dineros unfolds through four key steps: 

1. Research
2. Strategy
3. Activation
4. Optimization

With a glimpse of how content marketing fuels organic lead generation, let’s turn our attention to the specific insights that will form the foundation for engaging, data-driven content (and remarkable results).

1️⃣ Research

What’s the best (and only) way to get the data that will serve as the foundation for your content strategy? Research, research, and more research. Qualitative and quantitative, hard and soft–now’s the time to follow your curiosity and find out everything you can about your audience, what makes them tick, where to find them, and what they need. 

Audience Research: Identifying Your Target Audience

Before starting the content creation process, you must clearly define your ideal customer profile(s) (ICP). By developing a detailed understanding of your target audiences, you can tailor your content to their preferences, pain points, and aspirations.

Creating Customer Personas

Craft detailed profiles that include demographic information, interests, behaviors, and goals of your target audience segments. This will help you empathize with your audience and create content that answers their questions, addresses their needs, and starts to connect the dots between their pain points and your solutions. The more your audience feels you understand them, the easier it will be to build trust.

Conducting Customer Research

Utilize as much first-person and third-party data as you can to gather insights into your audience’s needs, challenges, and motivations. By delving deeper into their preferences, you can better understand what type of content will resonate with them. Try these tactics to jumpstart your research process:

1. Surveys: Utilize surveys to gather valuable first-hand anecdotes and preferences. 
2. Customer Interviews: If possible, meet with customers or prospects to get a better understanding of their goals, pain points, and what they want from a product or service like yours, so you can tailor your content accordingly. 
3. Collab with Customer Support and Sales Teams: Engage closely with your client-facing teams to gather valuable feedback from customer conversations, allowing you to identify opportunities for improvement, where customers need the most help, and what trending topics come up frequently.
4. Case Studies and Testimonials: Research is a great catalyst for collecting case studies and testimonials from satisfied customers. You’ll be able to build trust with potential customers by getting specific about their needs and how your company addresses them. ABTSA: Always be 2 steps ahead!
5. Competitor Intel: Conduct thorough competitor analyses to understand the competitive landscape, identify your unique selling points, and differentiate your offerings, enabling you to position your company strategically in the market and in front of your audience.

Conducting thoughtful customer research sets the foundation for a strong content strategy aimed at generating quality leads. By leveraging what you know about your audience, you have the fuel to make informed decisions when planning content that speaks directly to what they care about. An audience-centric approach is the KEY🔑 to a successful content strategy that brings in the right leads at the right time. But there are more ways to get to know your audience and the information they seek, which is why we turn to keyword research to learn more. 

GA4 and Keyword Research: Identifying Organic Search Opportunities

At Tuff, we know that creating content that truly captures the attention of your target audience requires a deep understanding of not only their preferences, but also their behavior. By leveraging search and keyword data, we can craft content that will live a long, happy life online. Meaning – search engines can find it, your audience can use it, and it remains relevant and useful for weeks, months, years (?!) after publish. By combining metrics from GA4 and keyword research, you can uncover what you need to build an SEO-friendly content strategy. Here’s a good place to start:

• GA4 Analysis
  • GA4, the latest version of Google Analytics, offers advanced features/measurement that provide a comprehensive view of your website and marketing performance.
  • Use GA4’s enhanced measurement to track user interactions and behaviors across multiple devices and platforms.  providing a holistic understanding of your audience’s journey. Through that holistic view, you can identify patterns and trends that can guide your content strategy.
  • Leverage audience insights from GA4 to understand user demographics, interests, and engagement patterns. Then, segment your audience and tailor your content to their specific needs and preferences.
  • Content Performance: Analyze the effectiveness of your keywords by tracking key metrics such as page views, bounce rates, and time on page to see how your audience (or audience segments) interact with your content. 
  • Conversion Tracking: Multi-touchpoint conversion tracking can help you better understand which keywords and content contribute to conversions at each point in your audience’s journey. 

• Keyword Research

1. • Conduct keyword research using tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to discover “hot” topics aligned with your audience’s search behavior. Check out search volume, keyword difficulty, and related terms and find the right balance of high demand and low competition to fill your keyword gaps.
   • Pay special attention to the intent behind popular search queries. Rather than focusing only on the words they search, try to understand their motivations, pain points, and desired outcomes when searching to get to the root of their needs.
   • Monitor your website’s SEO performance, tracking keyword rankings, organic traffic, and click-through rates. Use that data to refine your plan and continue to optimize for your audience, their needs, and the actions you want them to take. 

By integrating these data points, you can develop content ideas that both engage your audience and are also rooted in real behavior metrics. This data-driven approach will enable you to create highly engaging content that resonates with your target audience. This level of planning, when done right, will attract relevant traffic, increase visibility, and build long-term site authority. As we move onto the next section, we’ll discuss turning these data points and trends into a practical, usable, data-drenched content strategy. Let’s do this.

2️⃣ Building a Content Strategy

Building Content Pillars

After conducting your initial research, you’ll have uncovered and collected relevant topics and themes that align with your audiences’ search behavior. You’ll have enough data to identify your top target keywords, which will form the basis for developing content pillars that address your audience’s interests and challenges. 

Content pillars are a fundamental aspect of any successful content strategy. They serve as the backbone of your plan, guiding your content production and ensuring consistency and relevance across everything you produce. By organizing your content around central pillars (think: themes), you establish your website as a reliable and authoritative source for specific information, boosting your credibility for search engines and in the eyes of your audience. 

Creating content pillars based on search and audience data lets you organize and optimize your content for search engines while providing valuable info to your audience. It’s a strategic approach that not only improves your SEO performance but also establishes your expertise and builds trust with your readers. 

Identifying the Right Promotion Channels 

Choosing the right distribution channels is a critical aspect of developing a successful content strategy. Here’s how you can determine which channels will drive quality leads: 

• Historical Performance: Revisit the performance of previous content you’ve published. Tap into key metrics such as engagement, conversion rates, and of course lead volume and quality. Identify the channels that are driving the highest quality leads and focus your efforts on developing content tailored to them.
• Audience Data: Use your audience research to select channels where they are most likely to be present and engaged. Assess the relevance of each distribution channel to your content and target audience. Are they Tiktok users vs. newsletter subscribers? Do they attend industry conferences or consume mostly digital content? Are they more likely to Google something or search Instagram for info?
• Industry Best Practices: Stay up-to-date on the latest industry trends and best practices for content distribution. Look for successful case studies and examples of companies that share a similar target audience and see what their publishing patterns look like. What do their ads look like? Which blogs do they continue to promote month after month? That may give you an idea of their top-performing content.
• Start with Key Channels: Begin by focusing on a few key channels that have proven to be effective for your industry and/or target audience. Allocate your resources and efforts accordingly to maximize your impact on those channels. As you gain more insights and resources, you can scale to more channels and begin testing. 

Scheduling and Logistics

This one’s for all the planners and organizers out there–logistics 🤓 A consistent content publishing schedule is key to maintaining audience engagement and building trust, two important factors in attracting and converting quality leads. Plan your content creation and publishing process in advance, allowing enough time for research, writing, editing, publishing, and optimization. To streamline the workflow, develop a comprehensive content calendar as your single source of truth. Include essential details like content pillars, topics, keywords, formats, distribution channels, and publication dates. This structured approach speeds up resource allocation, provides transparency, and sets the stage for a smooth and consistent development process.

When planning your timeline, make sure to incorporate repurposed content into your plan to extend its reach and lifespan. Transform existing content into various formats like videos, infographics, blogs, or social media posts. Reach new audiences and reinforce your message across channels without extra production time.

Here’s a snapshot example of a content calendar for a project management software company:

By implementing a comprehensive schedule, you can ensure that your content reaches the right audience at the right time through planned keywords, rich content, and optimized publishing channels. This naturally leads us to the next component of a strategic marketing plan: the funnel. Let’s talk about how we plan for content that guides prospects through each stage of the funnel, ultimately converting engagement into valuable leads. 

Full-Funnel Content Marketing

At a glance, the marketing funnel consists of three sections: 

• Top of the funnel (TOFU): Grab their attention
• Middle of the funnel (MOFU): Collect their contact info
• Bottom of the funnel (BOFU): Make the sale!

For your content to make sense to the audience, it must not only align with keywords and address pain points, but it must also match where your audience is in “user journey”. By mapping out the touchpoints your audience has with your brand (from TOFU to BOFU) you can tailor your content to address their needs along the way. It’s the data that tells us what they need when! 

We lean on UX (User Experience) to guide the audience naturally to the next step of their journey. By offering opportunities for capturing contact information from interested visitors, you can nurture and convert them into paying customers over time. Strong calls-to-action (CTAs) play a key role in driving conversions. Place persuasive CTAs throughout your content, encouraging readers to take action and provide their contact details in exchange for information or resources.

By strategically incorporating these lead gen tactics into your content, you can optimize your content strategy to convert engagement into valuable leads. 

Setting Goals

To prove the success of your content marketing efforts, establish benchmarks and goals from the start. All goals should be specific to your brand and ladder up to business objectives, whether they’re increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, or a combination of all three. Whatever you choose, it’s crucial to proactively define your objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and evaluate your progress. Setting specific, attainable, and time-bound goals will help you stay focused and measure the success of your content efforts. Here are three examples of tangible goals, broken down into two phases (think: crawling and walking) to get you started: 

Example Goal 1: Increase monthly website traffic

Drive more potential leads to the website by increasing the number of unique visitors. Expanding brand visibility and attracting a larger audience to the website increases the potential for lead generation and future conversion opportunities.

• Phase 1: Increase unique visitors by 20% (compared to the previous month).
  • This will be our initial benchmark to gauge progress and assess the effectiveness of the content strategy in attracting a larger audience.
• Phase 2: Increase organic traffic by 30% (compared to the previous quarter). 
  • The emphasis shifts to increasing organic traffic to the website within a quarterly time frame. This will tell us about the content’s ability to rank higher in search engine results and attract more qualified leads.

Example Goal 2: Improve lead quality through content

Attract high-quality leads by creating content that addresses their pain points, offers valuable insights, and positions the company as an industry thought leader. 

• Phase 1: Increase average time spent on site by 15% (compared to the previous month).
  • The focus is on engaging visitors through better site UX and content. A longer time on the site signals a higher level of interest and better lead quality.
• Phase 2: Increase conversion rate by 10% (compared to the previous quarter).
  • A higher conversion rate signifies that the content effectively convinces and motivates visitors to take the desired actions, indicating better lead quality.

Example Goal 3: Expand email subscriber base

Grow the email subscriber list to nurture into a loyal audience. A larger subscriber base provides a direct communication channel for further qualifying leads and driving conversions.

• Phase 1: Increase email subscribers by 25% (compared to the previous month).
  • Attract more sign-ups through successful lead generation content and improved UX.
• Phase 2: Improve email open rate by 10% (compared to the previous quarter).
  • The objective is to optimize email content and subject lines to increase open rates. A higher open rate indicates greater engagement and interest among email subscribers, resulting in better lead quality and potential conversions.

By focusing on increasing website traffic, improving lead quality, and expanding the subscriber base, your content strategy can achieve clear, measurable, and attributable results that directly impact the bottom line. With that data, you’re able to provide a better roadmap for attracting more potential leads, nurturing them through engaging content, and ultimately converting them into customers. 

As we’ve discussed in this section, you have the opportunity to address your audience’s pain points throughout their journey. By utilizing keyword and audience data to create content pillars, you can spark your audience’s interests and acknowledge their challenges. Choosing the right promotion channels and establishing a consistent publishing schedule allow you to systematically fill in the content gaps on your website while giving your audience exactly the information you KNOW they need. Setting specific goals and KPIs sets you up to prove the impact your content has before you even hit the launch button. That’s up next ➡️

3️⃣ Activating Your Data-Driven Content Strategy

Writing Content for SEO

Simply put, the best content empathizes with the audience’s pain points and provides practical solutions that just so happen to be related to your product or service. Show up where they’re searching, educate and inform, offer solutions, and collect leads. It’s as easy as that 😉

To make sure your blogs and videos and infographics and whatnot reach the right audience, they all must be optimized for search engines. By employing basic SEO best practices, you can increase your content’s visibility and attract people (re: qualified leads) actively searching for solutions related to you.

SEO Writing 101

Start by including your target keyword in the post title, preferably at the beginning, and mention the target keyword early in the article (ideally in the first sentence). Reinforce it naturally throughout the content, aiming for at least five mentions while maintaining a healthy keyword density of 1-3% (so if your article is 1,000 words, 10-30 of those words should be keywords). Don’t forget to incorporate related keywords to expand the scope of your content and cover various aspects of the topic that users might be interested in.

To add links to your blog, prioritize a methodical internal and external linking strategy. Avoid too many consecutive paragraphs without links, as it can negatively impact user experience and SEO. Include at about five internal links in each piece of content with keyword-optimized anchor text. Be mindful not to link to another page with the primary keyword you want to rank for, even internally. Distribute the links naturally and ensure they are all working properly.

Don’t forget readability! Use subheadings to break up the text, keep paragraphs concise (3-5 lines), and optimize images with keyword-optimized alt tags. Maintain a natural flow without keyword stuffing, and remember that online readers prefer shorter sentences and dislike large blocks of text. Include an enticing call to action or clear next steps to inspire action.

When writing, focus on providing value, solving problems, and delivering a seamless user experience to attract the right leads and improve quality overall. 

Publishing 

A well-executed publishing process is absolutely crucial in activating and maintaining a strong content strategy. It ensures that your content gets to your audience consistently, maximizing its impact and driving the greatest possible engagement. With the content calendar as your guide, you have a clear plan of action already in place. There are quite a few considerations to make before launch:

Start by establishing clear workflows and responsibilities. By defining roles upfront, everyone knows their tasks and deadlines, preventing bottlenecks and reducing errors or delays. Streamlining the workflow promotes collaboration and accountability across content creation, editing, proofreading, and publishing. The less time you spend on logistics, the more you can spend on the content and strategy itself.

Maintaining editorial standards ensures that your content reflects your brand’s voice, style, and mission, building trust and reinforcing your brand identity. Implementing a review and approval process guarantees quality control and accuracy, ultimately upholding the quality of content you produce. Leaning on automation tools, such as content management systems like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, HubSpot CMS, or Adobe Experience Manager. These tools provide a range of features to support content creation, distribution, and scheduling, enabling you to efficiently manage and automate your content strategy. By implementing some or all of these tactics, you can enhance efficiency, maintain quality, and deliver excellent content to your audience!

Now, let’s move on to the best (okay I’m biased) part of the process: reporting and optimization, where we analyze our results and make data-driven adjustments to further improve our content. It’s coming full circle now!

4️⃣ Reporting and Optimization

Reporting

Like most aspects of growth marketing, your reporting process simply must be structured and consistent in order to demonstrate success. First things first, you should always revisit your goals and KPIs. Take the time to reassess what you set out to achieve with your content. For example, if your goal was to increase website traffic and conversions, your KPIs may include metrics such as page views, click-through rates, and conversion rates. 

Quality ≠ Quantity

Next, pay attention to lead quality. To assess the quality of your leads, track their movement through (or out of) the funnel and collaborate with your sales team for additional context. They have valuable insights into the leads generated from your content and can provide first-hand feedback on the quality and conversion potential of leads your content has delivered. By working together, you can identify which content pieces are attracting high-quality leads that are more likely to convert into customers. This collaboration also helps ensure that your content aligns with the sales team’s objectives and that they have the necessary information to effectively nurture leads through the funnel. It’s a win-win 🤝

At the same time, make sure to assess the quality of your content itself. Look at metrics like engaged sessions in GA4, time spent on page, click-through rates, referrals, and bounce rates. These metrics provide insight into how well your content resonates with your target audience, captures their attention, and encourages further interaction. Further down the funnel, conversion metrics such as form submissions, newsletter sign-ups, and downloads, point directly to whether your content is generating those high-quality leads we’re after.  

Once you have all that juicy data, it’s time to uncover patterns, trends, and highly specific audience preferences. This deeper understanding will help you plan and optimize for even more data-driven, targeted, and engaging content that resonates with your ideal audience even better than before. 

Optimizing Your Content Strategy

To attract more qualified leads, refining and optimizing is the name of the game. Here’s how to jumpstart that process: 

Double Down on Success 📈

When you discover content that performs exceptionally well in terms of lead generation and engagement, you’ll want to sprinkle that magic into more content. Identify the key elements that contribute to its success and replicate them in your next content plan. The more data you collect, the stronger your plans become (and the better your results!)

Make it an Ongoing Process ♻️

Optimization should be an integral part of your content strategy cycle. Continuously monitor and analyze your content’s performance, making data-driven adjustments along the way (can we rework this content that’s not gaining traction, can we repurpose this winner for another audience?) Iterating on your content marketing strategy lets you supercharge its effectiveness in generating qualified leads while the gettin’s good. 

Our advice? Follow the numbers. Let your data be the heart of your marketing planning and content strategy. Marketers have access to so much information–and it’s up to us to use it wisely! Don’t let all your hard work go to waste. Report, analyze, optimize, and repeat. 

Embracing Data-Driven Content Marketing

Content lets us connect with people on a more personal level. By taking the time to understand their needs, interests, and preferences, we can build content that truly resonates with them, sparks genuine interest, and solves a pain point or two. When we tap into the insights we pull from (so, so much) data, we get to know our audience better than we did before, allowing us to create content that speaks directly to them, in the way that they want us to.

To effectively share our content, we rely on channels that help us connect with individuals in more useful ways. Our content and websites should guide the audience through a logical journey that actually addresses their real-life, in real-time, needs. 

By embracing data as our compass, we continuously adapt and refine our strategies, staying attuned to what truly matters to our audience, positioning us as a trusted resource. Ultimately, data-driven content allows us to infuse our online presence with humanistic elements, forging connections with a lasting impact.

Ready to rank higher and close the deal with your audience? The pros can take it from here 💪

Hannah Burks

Hey! I’m HB, the Head of Operations at Tuff. With a decade of experience across marketing and web, I specialize in complex problem-solving, strategic planning, and organic acquisition. My focus is on facilitating client growth, supporting our creative teams, and consistently improving efficiency across our org. Let’s chat!

The post Optimizing Your Content Marketing Strategy for High-Quality Lead Generation appeared first on Tuff.

There’s been a lot of talk about an economic downturn—and what that means for marketing budgets. In a recent survey, 75% of global brands said signals of a recession influenced their media budgets for 2023. 

Some have already seen their budgets shrink. While others are keeping or increasing their marketing budgets, but taking a much closer look at the return on investment (ROI). 

The challenge many marketers face now is how to do more with less money.

Regardless of the state of the economy, there are two main priorities you can focus on to make the most of your marketing dollars: 

• Spend smarter on paid media channels – Analyze data on your audience targeting, media channels, creative, and landing page performance to reveal where to put your money and what you need to improve. 
• Invest in owned media channels – A strong content strategy drives inbound traffic, leads, conversions, and revenue.  

As a growth marketing and content strategy agency, Tuff helps brand partners with paid and owned channels. However, in this article, we’ll focus on owned channels—in particular, your website, content, and search engine optimization (SEO). 

We’ll show you how to build a content strategy that helps reduce your paid marketing spend and contributes to customer acquisition, sales, and revenue. 

Table of contents 

• Why brands need a strong content strategy in 2023
• How to build an acquisition-centered content strategy
• Types of content that drive traffic and conversions

Why brands need a strong content strategy in 2023

When marketing budgets are tight, organic marketing shines. The main reason for this seems obvious—money. Here are the main reasons that investing in content marketing can save you money (and help you make more) in the long run. 

1. Get nearly free traffic

SEO is one of the few remaining ways to raise brand awareness and reach potential customers without paying for every click.

Unlike paid channels, you don’t pay for every click and sale that you get. You may pay upfront for the cost to create content. But, once you publish it, you don’t pay anything. If you’re on the first page of Google search results, you could drive hundreds to thousands of visitors from it every month for free. 

2. Attract higher-quality inbound leads

Instead of going to leads (outbound marketing), you get them to come to you (inbound marketing). Content is a core component to build an inbound marketing strategy. It helps you attract and convert new visitors and leads. Around 76% of marketers use content to generate leads.

According to Hubspot’s 2022 report, SEO is the second most effective channel for acquiring new customers, behind social media. 

When prospects and potential customers find your content organically and reach out to you, you’re more likely to make a sale. For over 60% of marketers, inbound marketing—SEO, blogs, and so on—is their highest quality lead source. 

3. Build brand awareness and educate customers

Content Marketing Institute’s (CMIs) 2022 report found that the top five goals marketers achieve through content marketing are:

• Raising brand awareness
• Building trust 
• Educating their audience   
• Building loyalty with clients and customers
• Generating leads and demand

If you only focus on ads, your brand can feel too transactional. Organic content tends to be more educational. 

For example, you might create content that answers a common question or pain point for customers. This type of content provides value without outright asking for anything in return, which builds trust and affinity. 

When customers are ready to buy, they might click on an ad or go directly to your website. However, there’s a significant chance they entered the funnel by consuming your content first.

How to build an acquisition-centered content strategy

All the benefits above might sound great, but they also rely on having a strong content strategy. Here’s how to build one like a pro. 

1. Outline clear, measurable goals

Every marketing strategy starts with goal-setting, but it’s even more important for content. Goals vary widely and tracking is challenging, so be as clear as possible. To set goals for content marketing, begin by answering these questions: 

• How does your marketing goal contribute to your bottom line? 
• To be successful, what milestones do you need to reach?
• How will you measure success? 
• When do you need to reach your goal? 

Some examples of content marketing goals could be to:

• Grow organic website traffic by at least 30% month-over-month (MoM)
• Attract at least 250 organic leads monthly 
• Increase organic revenue by 25% in six months

Once you’ve set a clear direction, then you can begin planning your content strategy. 

2. Choose content topics based on data

The biggest mistake that I see some brands make when planning content is choosing topics without data. 

Instead, they brainstorm themes and generate ideas that are based on assumptions. For example, let’s say a brand sells products and services to women business owners. The brand creates a week’s worth of content around Mother’s Day, including a listicle of Mother’s Day gift ideas. 

But, is that really what the audience wants? Simply because your audience is made up of women, it doesn’t mean they’re mothers. Plus, how does that topic relate to the service or solution you provide? 

When you base your content strategy on assumptions, at best, you’ll have little to no results. At worst, you could end up offending and losing your audience. 

When money is tight, the last thing you want to do is invest in creating content based on assumptions. So, what do you do instead? Use data to inform your content decisions. Here are two types of data you’ll need: 

• Audience data – this is where you uncover customer pain points, motivations, hesitations, and more factors that influence buying decisions. 
• Keyword data – this is the traditional SEO approach to building a content strategy, by looking at monthly keyword search volume and difficulty to rank. 

The best content strategies include both types of research. In the next two steps, we’ll walk you through how to do both—audience and keyword research—to create content strategies that consistently deliver results. 

3. Conduct audience research and create personas

Most audience research starts with basic demographic information—age, location, income, education, and so on. You can pull this information from: 

• Your current marketing channels (email, social media)
• Google Analytics and other attribution software
• Customer relationship management (CRM) tools 

However, this is only a start. True audience research goes beyond demographics and digs into qualitative data including: 

• Pain points
• Aspirations (desired outcomes)
• Motivations
• Hesitations
• Perceived value
• Other influences on buying decisions

There are many ways to collect qualitative audience data, but we recommend starting with two—message-mining and customer interviews or surveys. 

Message-mining example

Message-mining, also called review-mining, is when you pull feedback from your customer reviews on your website, Google, and sites like Trustpilot or G2. You can compile the reviews into a simple spreadsheet like this one. 

The process often reveals:

• Features and benefits your customers love
• Products and services you need to improve 
• Your unique value proposition

You can also message-mine competitor reviews. Positive reviews will show you where competitors are winning. Mixed and negative reviews reveal opportunities—they show you where you can beat competitors. 

The key is to look for patterns and de-prioritize outliers. What benefits or drawbacks appear the most? 

Example customer interview questions 

If you’re conducting interviews or surveys, here are sample questions to ask and which data point they reveal:

• Pain points – What problems does this product/service solve for you? 
• Aspirations – What do you hope to achieve by using this product/service? 
• Motivations – When did you realize you needed this product/service? 
• Hesitations – Was there anything about this product/service that you had questions or hesitations about? 
• Perceived value – What made you choose this product/service over other competitors?

We could devote an entire blog to audience research, and it still wouldn’t cover everything. If you have limited resources though, this will help you get the most important audience data. 

With all this data, you should have a better understanding of your audience to create personas. Audience personas should include demographics as well as qualitative research like pain points.

4. Perform keyword research 

How will you get your content in front of your audience? Most people won’t navigate directly to your website and go to your blog, so you need a way to distribute your content. 

For most businesses, that means SEO. First, you need to identify which searches your audience is putting in Google, and which you want to show up for—these are your keywords. 

To find them, you’ll conduct keyword research with a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush. 

At the start of keyword research, it’s okay to have a lot of ideas. Later on, you’ll trim your list and prioritize keywords that will have the most impact on your bottom line. Now that you’ve done audience research, it’s easier to put yourself in your audience’s shoes too.

How to identify keywords

To identify keywords, begin by looking at your: 

• Paid keywords – Are there keywords in paid campaigns that you could rank for organically?
• Current rankings – What is your site ranking for currently? Which pieces of content could rank in a higher position if you refresh the content? 
• Competitors – What keywords and pieces of content drive organic traffic to your competitors’ sites?
• Audience and intent – Does the person searching this keyword align with your audience? How likely are they to convert to a lead or customer?

Paid keywords you can find in your Google Ads and Analytics account. 

Current rankings you can find in Google Search Console. You can also use keyword research tools like Ahrefs and Semrush. If you’re using Ahrefs, you’ll go to Site Explorer and drop in your website URL. Then, click on organic keywords from the left menu. 

If you’re using Semrush, you’ll go to Domain Overview, add your website URL, and hit Search.

Then, scroll down to Top Organic Keywords and click View details. For SEO research, you’ll want to exclude branded keywords. This is usually your company name, so it wouldn’t be a keyword that you target with content. 

For example, this is what it looks like if you put REI’s website into Semrush and filter out branded terms. Three of the top keywords that drive non-branded traffic to the site are: hiking shoes, paddle board, and sleeping bag. 

To find what keywords your competitors are ranking for, follow the same process or do a keyword gap analysis. 

For audience and intent, refer back to your audience research. You can also bring in data from sales and customer service teams to identify questions and pain points that arise after your initial research. 

Keyword research is only one part of SEO. To rank in search results, you’ll need to structure your content and website intentionally with best practices. You may need technical SEO experts to optimize your website too. 

Also, you may create content without SEO. But, that means you’ll need a budget for paid content distribution to get content in front of your target audience. 

5. Prioritize topics that relate to your products and services 

To make the most of your marketing dollars, you’ll narrow down your content strategy to focus on the most impactful topics.  

To do this, start with a map of your customer journey and ask:  

• What questions do potential customers have as they learn about your business? 
• How can you help answer those questions with content? 

Then, narrow down your choices further by asking: 

• What pain points does this content address and do I actually have a product or service that helps solve them? 

Every topic you choose should originate from data—either keyword or audience data. Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t leave a small percentage open for experimentation. However, when marketing budgets are small, it’s harder to take those risks. 

You’ll also want to select topics that map back to a core product or service and include an internal link to those landing pages.  

6. Measure results and adjust 

How you measure success will ultimately depend on the goals you set at the start. For SEO content, the typical metrics for success focus on the quantity and quality of organic traffic. 

Here’s some examples of ways to measure results for content and SEO.  

SEO tends to take longer to see results than paid because you aren’t paying for a spot at the top of search results. Typically, we start to see results after three to six months. 

Now you have a solid plan, here’s how to execute it with high-quality content. 

Types of content that drive traffic and conversions

Part of the challenge of building a content strategy is deciding what types of content to create. There are so many options that it can lead to decision paralysis. 

We’ve created many types of content for B2C and B2B brands. Here are some types of content we recommend to drive inbound marketing efforts and focus on more traffic and conversions. 

1. Comparison content

For this, you create in-depth comparisons of you vs. your competitors. There are two main reasons to create comparison content. First, if you don’t have a lot of brand recognition, you could possibly steal some from your competitors that do. 

Second, it’s ideal content that sits at the consideration stage of the marketing funnel. Your prospects and customers are already researching your brand. They can either get the information from a third-party or even your competitors or hear it straight from you. 

Many companies from project management tools to bookkeeping software create comparison content. Gusto, for example, has an entire pillar page of comparison content. 

Each page features a comparison chart and an overview of the most important differences. ClickUp is another company that leans into comparison content. Comparison pages have easy to understand charts with key features. 

2. Articles about pricing  

If your company is being mindful of spending, your customers may be too. Be upfront about pricing, because it’s one of the first and most important factors that buyers look for on your website. 

You could also drive organic traffic and qualified leads to your website with content around pricing. There may be keywords that follow one of these formats: 

• How much does (your product or service) cost? 
• (Your product or service) pricing 
• (Your product or service) cost

For example, let’s say you search “how much does a mattress cost”. According to Semrush, there are over 6,600 monthly searches, and it’s possible to rank for the term. 

It could be a great keyword for a mattress company like Casper or Nectar to rank for organically. (Even though they are paying for paid shopping spots.)

On the other hand, Enterprise ranks in the number one spot for a pricing question: how much does it cost to rent a car? With over 6,600 monthly searches, it likely drives a large chunk of qualified traffic every month for free.

By the time someone searches for pricing, they’re close to buying. As a company, you want to show up when they are ready to buy. Prioritizing pricing content is one way to do that. 

3. Video content

Video is the top content type for marketers, followed by blogs and images, according to HubSpot’s latest marketing report. 

You can use all those types of content together and repurpose them on channels outside of your website like YouTube. 

Combining and repurposing content has two benefits. You save money by stretching how you use your creative assets, and you increase your content effectiveness. 

For example, on average, blogs with videos get 70% more organic traffic. 

Here are some examples of videos to include in your content strategy:

• Product demos 
• Short-form videos
• Tutorials

4. Templates and interactive content

Interactive content gets almost 53% more engagement than traditional static content. Examples of interactive content include: 

• Quizzes
• Calculators
• Webinars
• Video 
• Templates 
• Forms

Another perk that comes with creating interactive content is that you can use it for lead generation. For example, when potential customers take a quiz, they may provide their email along with information about themselves that helps you get to know them. 

These are only a few examples of content to get started. Along the way, you may add other types of content that are inspired by customer and audience research. 

Investing in a strong content strategy will help you spend smarter. But, remember to base your content decisions on data, like you would with any other marketing campaign.

Interested in working with Tuff on a content strategy for your business? Let’s talk!

The post Building an Inbound Content Strategy to Acquire Customers appeared first on Tuff.

As we watch companies scale back both their workforce and spend, it becomes clear (again) that unpaid channels are vital to a healthy marketing and sales strategy. Businesses are trying to be cognizant of spending without canceling all long-term investments, so in terms of priority, unpaid channels have moved to the top of the growth list.

If you haven’t invested in organic channels or if you’ve taken a hiatus from that investment, it’s time to get back in the game. Unpaid channels are a sustainable and helpful fallback during economic downturns.

Organic is a long-term play. Strategies within SEO, for instance, take time to build up and take frequent maintenance. So the longer you neglect your organic visibility, the longer it will take to catch up to your competitors.  Prioritizing  a solid foundation now means that you start reaping the benefits sooner. 

Aside from SEO, there are endless unpaid opportunities you can leverage while pinching pennies. From branding to experimentation all the way to that website refresh you’ve been holding off for far too long. 

Let’s walk through a step-by-step guide on how companies should be spending their time and marketing budgets in 2023.

Step 1: Self-care, but make it branding

At Tuff, we see a lot of well-established companies come through without having performed any brand or audience exercises to establish voice, tone, and persona targeting strategies for their website and campaigns. Putting in the work here is important both on and off your site. A strong, established brand is the secret sauce to campaign success and customer loyalty. 

When you’re looking to save money but spend your time productively, it’s a great time to tighten up brand messaging, produce value-driven content, and build relationships with new and existing customers.

Here’s a branding checklist you can use to get started:

• Establish your brand’s mission and purpose
• Understand your competitors (how do you stand out)
• Determine your target audience and create personas
• Shape your brand’s voice and tone
• Modify how your organization discusses your products or services
• Ensure all digital property emulates your brand identity

Once you’ve made these branding decisions, it’s important to audit your website and ensure it represents your brand well. The areas that will get you the most bang for your branding buck are updating high-intent pages and creating a fresh content strategy that’s brand mindful while delivering the information your audience needs. 

Step 2: Content with a twist

“People still crave information and solutions to their unique challenges, especially during a downturn.Tap into the emotions and needs of your audience, now and into the future. Create evergreen content that connects and builds trust in your brand.  You’ll reap long-term returns from your content and keep your base engaged while others pull back.” – Bridget Doherty, UX Copywriter

Content will always be an important part of your branding and marketing strategy. It’s also the easiest to upkeep while cutting budgets. 

Take advantage of this time and create a solid plan for content production and promotion. Leverage your internal experts to write pieces that grab and hold your audience.

When we think of content marketing, we usually think of fresh content to bring in new customers. However, content is a valuable way to stay connected to existing customers and provides a direct line of communication for brand loyalty and upsells. 

The probability of selling to an existing customer is between 60% and 70% while that number is only between 5% to 20% for new customers, so give your current customers plenty of attention during this time and beyond. 

Step 3: Designing your strategy 

High-quality design has become an expectation of customers. In today’s digital world, well-designed websites, social feeds, emails, videos, and blogs is the norm. Meaning, your customers hold you to a higher standard than you think. 

When potential customers come to your site, they’re bringing the experiences they’ve had on every other site (especially those of your competitors). They’re always looking for speed, ease of use, and, whether they realize it or not, something that’s easy on the eyes. 

Investing in design can help to:

• Ensure that your product or service is easy to use and understand
• Connect with customers on an emotional level
• Make your brand stand out and your company more memorable
• Build a positive brand image
• Gain customer trust and loyalty

If you don’t have a resource internally now, it’s a worthwhile investment to bring on a partner who can support your brand’s design needs.Generally speaking, it’s often cheaper to outsource design work to an agency, as they have lower rates and can provide a wider range of services. Hiring a full-time designer can be more expensive when you’re trying to save, as it involves additional costs such as benefits and other overhead expenses.

Don’t let your campaigns be wasted on lack of design and branding. 

Step 4a: Your Website & SEO

Think of your website like it’s your home. A strong foundation is important and when something breaks, it’s best to take your time and fix it correctly. Shortcuts risk the problem becoming out of control. 

Enter SEO. 

“When consumers begin spending at normal levels again, companies that have pulled back on SEO efforts will have to make up for lost performance. Companies that keep SEO rolling won’t have to backtrack and deal with drops in visibility and lost rankings as other companies overtook them on the SERP.”- Claire Routh, SEO Strategist

SEO is a secret weapon that’s important to keep in your arsenal, whether it’s keeping up with content optimization and creation to sustain organic visibility or monthly maintenance on your website to ensure it provides a good user experience.. 

Poor site performance and lack of keyword support can be detrimental to your visibility in search. Sites that give users a bad experience are penalized for this and the same goes for poor keyword targeting. Not using the right language to find the right audience can mean useless traffic and irrelevance within search engines.

As you face uncertainty during financial hardship, shift your strategy to long-term, unpaid investments. Take the time to finesse on-site content to target keywords that will bring in high-intent audiences. Focus on maintaining a healthy site experience for your users so they’re more willing to come back again as they continue on the buyer journey. 

Start now and keep up with it even once you’re back at full force with your paid investments. A consistent organic strategy is an ironclad way to guard against tumultuous times.

Step 4b: Your Website & Experimentation

So, you finally figured out your branding, content, design, and you’re maintaining SEO support on your site… Now what? 

Even though you’ve refined your brand’s online presence, the best way to see what truly resonates with and converts your audience is to start testing. From headlines to CTAs, websites present endless testing opportunities. This is the perfect way to improve conversion rates and sustainably grow the leads flowing through your pipeline without having to toy with money in paid platforms.

Forming the habit of testing before solidifying decisions about your brand ensures you’ll always have a pulse on the market and the needs of your customers. 

It’s surprising how often we see clients making major site changes because they like it internally. Just because we like something doesn’t mean it will actually be successful at speaking to customers. When in doubt, test it out. It’s not just the experience your customers need, it’s the one they deserve. 

Step 5: Organic social and partnerships

With paid social as successful as it is for a lot of companies, the upkeep of social media platforms organically is often forgotten. Staying active  and organically engaged on social media is a great way to keep visibility with your audience and keep customers engaging with your brand. 

The same is true for partnerships. During a downturn when budgets are cut, focusing your energy toward building and strengthening partnerships is time well-invested. The exchanging of content or more logo visibility off-site is the perfect, low-budget strategy to get eyes from untapped audiences. 

Don’t you… forget about paid 

During an economic downturn, it can be easy to make a rash decision like completely cutting budget to certain channels but it can actually be a great time to get strategic with your ad spend. 

Nielsen Marketing Mix Models found that when companies go cold turkey and cut channels out of their media mix, they can expect to lose 2% of their long-term revenue each quarter and found that it will take up to 3-5 years to recover. 

Nielsen data also shows that marketing accounts for 10%-35% of a brand’s equity, proving if budget cuts are done incorrectly, it can have major impacts across your organization.

You’ll find your competitors will also be dealing with budget cuts, meaning campaigns that were once highly competitive in the market can now be  high-opportunity. Campaigns that historically haven’t had much return can have a greater impact now.

The solution isn’t making hard budget cuts but rather allocating your budget towards the channels or campaigns that will have the most return at this time. Knowing how to watch the trends and keep your strategy agile is an important factor to sustaining paid media, and having a partner who brings that expertise can be the best tool for being  cautious yet effective with your budget.

It’s all about balance

Ultimately, whether you’re just getting started with unpaid investments or picking things back up, create a sustainable plan to upkeep your organic channels even as you ramp back up with paid media.

Whether it’s leveraging high-value content on and off the site or sharing keyword and audience insights to support and improve campaigns, there are endless opportunities for cross-collaboration. Add CRO into the mix by testing everything from ad copy to elements on your landing pages, and have a media mix that’s a recipe for digital success.

It seems more complicated than it is, though we are the experts. Reach out if you need an assist ramping up and maintaining your organic efforts. 

The post Prioritizing Unpaid Channels During an Economic Downturn appeared first on Tuff.