conquer content - how to create effective content at every stage of the buyer's journey

CONQUER YOUR CONTENTHow To Create Effective Content At Every Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

2

WHAT IS CONTENT?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve likely heard content is the most important thing ever. (at least these days…) In fact…

3

…THEY SAY IT’S KING!

By Mike Mozart - http://www.flickr.com/photos/39160147@N03/9622116171/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31228611

4

CONTENT IS…The message you are trying to deliver to your visitors, leads, customers and promoters.

The foundation of any inbound marketing strategy and campaign.

Yet it can also be one of the biggest hurdles marketers and businesses face in effectively executing their inbound marketing campaigns.

Why?

5

BECAUSE MAYBE THEY NEED SOME INSTRUCTION ;)

6

4 STEPS TO CONQUERING CONTENT!

1. Understand the Buyer’s Journey2. Develop buyer personas for your business3. Align your keywords with the buyer persona & the

Buyer’s Journey 4. Create premium content in the right format that

speaks to each particular buyer persona at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

WHAT IS THE BUYER’S JOURNEY?

#1

8

THE BUYER’S JOURNEY IS NOT.It is not the inbound methodology.

9

AND IT IS ALSO NOT THE… It is also is not the marketing or sales funnel.

10

THE BUYER’S JOURNEY IS THE ACTIVE RESEARCH PROCESS A POTENTIAL BUYER GOES THROUGH LEADING UP TO A PURCHASE.

11

DEVELOP BUYER PERSONAS#2

Personas help you create the right content.

The right content will most effectively attract your ideal visitors,

convert them into leads, and close them into customers.

Content to attract visitors

Content to close

customersContent to

convert leads

FLICKR USER INPRAISEOFSARDINES

BUYER PERSONAS:Semi-fictional characters that represent your ideal customers.

Semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on real data and some select educated speculation about customer demographics, behavior

patterns, motivations, and goals.

They’re NOT: target markets, job titles, or specific real people.

They ARE: common motivations, shared pain points, universal goals, wishes, and dreams, general biographic/demographic information.

BUYER PERSONAS

16

BEERORAMA CO. PERSONAS

Beer Geek BobInterest: Constantly testing and improving his homebrew. He’s the mad scientist!

Crafty CarlInterest: Homebrewing is his newest craft hobby and brews every weekend with friends. He wants to make his beer more drinkable.

Enthusiast HansenInterest: Loves all things alcohol and thinks it would be fun to have his own creation available for friends to try at home.

Goal: Sell our hydrometer to every homebrewer in the world!

ALIGNING YOUR KEYWORDS WITH THE BUYER PERSONA & BUYER’S JOURNEY

#3

18

SOME PRACTICAL STEPS TO ALIGN KEYWORDSa) Keyword Brainstorm b) Rank Keywords By Search Volumec) Map Top Keywords to Buyer Personas

and the Buyer’s Journey d) Assign Primary Keywords to Web Pagese) Create Blog Content Topic Ideas

19

A.) KEYWORD BRAINSTORM

Resource: http://neilpatel.com/2016/04/02/how-to-generate-long-tail-keywords-using-quora-and-google-trends/

20

A.) KEYWORD BRAINSTORM

Resource: http://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner/

21

A.) KEYWORD BRAINSTORM

Resource: http://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner/

22

A.) KEYWORD BRAINSTORM

Resource: http://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner/

23

B.) RANK KEYWORDS

Resource: http://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner/

CompetitionFilter = < .70 (or

lower)Avg. Monthly

VisitorsFilter = > 50 (or

higher)

24

BEERORAMA CO. PERSONAS

Beer Geek BobInterest: Constantly testing and improving his homebrew. He’s the mad scientist!

Crafty CarlInterest: Homebrewing is his newest craft hobby and brews every weekend with friends. He wants to make drinkable beer.

Enthusiast HansenInterest: Loves all things alcohol and thinks it would be fun to have his own creation available for people to try at home

Goal: Sell our hydrometer to every homebrewer in the world!

Credit and thanks to Hansen Hunt, Senior Consultant, SmartBug Media

25

C.) MAP KEYWORDS TO BUYER PERSONA

Add Persona- Use intuition to

determine which persona would search for each keyword

- Eg. Beer Geek Bob knows what a “refractometer” is, but Carl or Hansen don’t and would never use one in brewing.

26

C.) MAP KEYWORDS TO BUYER’S JOURNEY

27

MAP BUYER’S JOURNEY STAGE

Add Buyer’s Journey

- Put yourself in their shoes. What are you searching for?

- Enter keyword into Google see what content relates to their keyword/intent

28

C.) MAP KEYWORDS TO BUYER’S JOURNEY

Add Priority- Choose the top keywords you would like to rank for. Think about

how the keywords will fit in your on-page SEO like the page title.- For awareness stage, choose keywords with higher avg. monthly

searches.- For consideration/decision stage, choose the best matching

keywords to your product/service- Long tail keywords (like questions) are great keywords to target

with blog content

29

D.) ASSIGN PRIMARY KEYWORDS TO PAGES

Add Web Page- Assign a page to each primary keyword, and possibly a page for

each secondary if they are unique from the primary keyword.

30

E.) BRAINSTORM BLOG TOPICS

Create Blog Topics- For each keyword, brainstorm at least one blog topic- Focus more topics around the primary and secondary keywords- Brainstorm topics that could be used for premium content offers

(eBooks, guides, product comparison sheet)

31

E.) BRAINSTORM BLOG TOPICS

Resources- Keywordtool.io- moz.com/content/- app.buzzsumo.com/research/

CREATE PREMIUM CONTENT IN THE RIGHT FORMAT THAT SPEAKS TO EACH PARTICULAR BUYER PERSONA AT EACH STAGE OF THE BUYER’S JOURNEY.

#4

33

WHEN CONTENT IS MAPPED TO THE BUYER’S JOURNEY, IT LEADS

TO MORE CONVERSIONS.

34

35

KNOW THY CUSTOMER! Add photo

36

CONTENT INVENTORY ANALYSIS

#%

#%

#%

Title ATitle BTitle C

Title 1Title 2Title 3

Offer XOffer YOffer Z

37

REPURPOSING CONTENTWhat do you do when you have

content gaps? Beacon.by – Turn blog posts into Ebooks Put a bow on it! Turn blog posts, website page information into an

infographic. Hire an agency to help you repurpose! (shameless plug) Find templates, automated software to help you with the process. Best Practices? Let’s hear from you.

38

THANK YOUQuestions, Comments and Ideas for Future HUG Meeting Topics?

Want to Give An Upcoming Presentation or Write A Blog Post?Let Me Know!

Matthew Penchukmatthew@searchstrategymarketing.com | 831-316-4776

Special thanks and credit to HubSpot, Hansen Hunt, Senior Consultant @ SmartBug Media

of the San Diego HUG and Andrea Boccard, HUG Leader of the Long Island HUG for sharing their presentations.