Wakey-wakey marketer, it's almost 2025 (yeah we know..) – what does your content strategy look like for next year?
In this article we'll look at how you can get ready for 2025. And build a content strategy that turns eyeballs into customers. Together with Mina, we look at how to create effective content strategies, that emphasize the need for intentionality, differentiation, and amplification. Finally, we'll look at the challenges of measuring content ROI and the importance of understanding audience behavior.
This article was written based on a webinar that we recently ran with Mina Mesbahi. If you prefer to watch the webinar, here's the link. Otherwise, continue reading.
Here's Everything That You Can Expect
"If you don't stand for anything, you're not gonna stand out."
- Mina shares what she knows about the importance of having a documented content strategy and the role of webinars in content marketing.
- We'll look at the need for intentionality in content creation and the dangers of disconnected thinking.
- Full of insights on repurposing content and the importance of baking it into the strategy from the start.
- All the challenges of measuring content ROI and the value of qualitative insights.
Why You Need to Document Your Content Strategy
First things first. Start by documenting your content strategy. A documented content strategy is essential for guiding marketing efforts and ensuring alignment with business goals. Despite its importance, only 40% of content marketers have a documented strategy. This highlights a significant opportunity for improvement, as a well-structured plan can provide clarity and direction, helping marketers to focus their efforts and resources effectively.
Give Clarity and Direction
Having a documented strategy offers clarity and direction for content creators and marketers. It outlines the target audience, key messages, content formats, and distribution channels, which helps in maintaining consistency across all content pieces. This clarity ensures that all team members are on the same page, reducing the risk of misalignment and inefficiencies.
Get Strategic Alignment with Others
A well-documented content strategy aligns content marketing efforts with broader business goals. It helps in identifying the specific objectives that content is meant to achieve, such as brand awareness, lead generation, or customer retention. By linking content activities to these goals, marketers can prioritize initiatives that have the most significant impact on the business.
Resource Optimization Internally
Documenting the content strategy aids in the efficient allocation of resources. It allows marketers to plan content production and distribution more effectively, ensuring that time, budget, and personnel are used optimally. This planning helps in avoiding content waste and ensures that every piece of content is leveraged to its fullest potential.
Measure Your Content's Performance
A documented strategy provides a benchmark for measuring the success of content marketing efforts. It includes key performance indicators (KPIs) that are aligned with business objectives, enabling marketers to track progress and make data-driven decisions. This measurement is crucial for understanding what works, what doesn’t, and where adjustments are needed.
Adapt and Improve Content Strategy
With a documented strategy, businesses can more easily adapt to changes in the market or shifts in consumer behavior. It provides a reference point for evaluating current practices and making necessary adjustments. This adaptability is essential for staying relevant, because remember that the competition never sits still.
Documented Content strategy as the cornerstone
So you'll see that a documented content strategy is not just a nice-to-have; it is a critical part of effective content marketing. It provides the structure, alignment, and insights needed to create impactful content that drives business success. By investing in a comprehensive content strategy, you can ensure that your content efforts are purposeful, efficient, and aligned with your overall goals for the quarter and year.
So now that we have documentation as the foundation of your content strategy – let's look at what can be part of it. Starting with webinars.
Webinars as a Part of Your Content Toolkit
Webinars being recommend as part of your toolkit in a blog post by a webinar company? That shouldn't be a surprise. Let us explain.
Webinars are a powerful tool in content strategy, offering a unique way for engaging audiences and delivering valuable insights at scale. They allow for deeper interaction and can be used at various stages of the customer journey. By treating webinars as a hero asset, businesses can fuel other marketing channels and create a cohesive content experience.
Engagement and Interaction
Webinars offer a dynamic platform for real-time interaction with audiences. Unlike static content formats, webinars allow for live Q&A sessions, polls, and discussions, which can increase audience engagement and provide immediate feedback. This interaction helps in building a community around the brand and encourages active participation from attendees.
Educational Value
Webinars are an excellent medium for delivering in-depth educational content. They allow brands to showcase their expertise on specific topics, providing valuable insights and information to their audience. This educational aspect not only positions the brand as a thought leader but also helps in nurturing trust and credibility among potential customers.
One type of webinars that's increasingly more popular is the thought-leadership format. They educate viewers, without directly pushing a product down people's throats. Remember the guy on the beach trying to sell you sunglasses? People hate to be sold to.
Lead Generation
One of the largest advantages of webinars is their ability to generate high-quality leads. By offering valuable content, webinars attract attendees who are genuinely interested in the topic, making them more likely to convert into leads. Especially when a single person watched multiple of your webinars. Additionally, the registration process for webinars often captures valuable contact information, which can be used for follow-up marketing efforts.
"Webinars are still one of my favorite things to host because they allow you to really go deeper with the audience and create an experience."
Webinars within the Customer Journey
Webinars can be integrated into various stages of the customer journey, making them a versatile tool in content strategy. They can be used for product demonstrations, customer testimonials, industry insights, or even as part of a larger content series. This versatility allows marketers to tailor webinars to specific audience needs and business objectives.
Thought-leadership webinars to get people into your pipeline. Product demo to close them – and CS webinars to increase adoption. That's a typical playbook that you'll see at organizations that master the use at webinars.
One Webinar Equals Multiple Pieces of Content
The content generated from webinars can be repurposed across multiple channels, extending its reach and impact. Recorded webinars can be shared as on-demand content, transcribed into blog posts, or segmented into short clips for social media. This repurposing maximizes the value of the original content and ensures it reaches a broader audience.
Don't believe us? This blog article is directly repurposed from a webinar that we ran with Mina. With a bit of help from Ai.
Webinars help Reduce Costs
Compared to other forms of content marketing, webinars can be a cost-effective way to reach a large audience. They eliminate the need for physical venues and logistics, reducing overall costs. Additionally, the digital nature of webinars allows for easy scalability, enabling brands to reach global audiences without significant additional expenses.
How to Make Webinars Part of Your Content Strategy
Incorporating webinars into a content marketing strategy can yield substantial benefits for brands looking to engage, educate, and convert their audience. By leveraging the interactive and educational nature of webinars, businesses can enhance their content offerings and achieve their marketing objectives more effectively. As part of a comprehensive content strategy, webinars provide a unique opportunity to connect with audiences in meaningful ways.
Want to explore webinar platforms? Here are our top 10 recommendations.
SEO and Organic Presence
Improving SEO and organic presence is a top priority for 61% of marketers. While SEO is crucial, it should be integrated with broader content efforts to ensure a balanced approach. This integration can enhance visibility and drive sustainable growth, making it a key component of a successful content strategy.
Keyword Research and Optimization
Effective SEO begins with thorough keyword research. Identifying the right keywords that align with audience search intent is crucial. These keywords should be strategically integrated into content, including titles, headings, and meta descriptions, to improve search engine rankings. Regularly updating and optimizing content with relevant keywords helps maintain and boost organic visibility.
Here at Contrast, we use Ahrefs for all of our keyword research.
High-Quality Content Creation
Creating high-quality, valuable content is fundamental to improving organic presence. Content should address the needs and interests of the target audience, providing solutions and insights. Engaging and informative content not only attracts visitors but also encourages them to spend more time on the site, reducing bounce rates and signaling to search engines that the content is valuable.
On-Page SEO Techniques
On-page SEO involves optimizing individual web pages to rank higher in search results. This includes optimizing title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags, as well as ensuring proper URL structures. Additionally, using alt text for images and maintaining a clean, user-friendly site architecture enhances the overall SEO performance.
Building Backlinks
Backlinks from reputable websites are a strong indicator of content quality and authority. Building a robust backlink profile involves creating shareable content that naturally attracts links from other sites. Guest blogging, partnerships, and collaborations with industry influencers can also help in acquiring valuable backlinks.
Optimize for Mobile
Yeah yeah, it's almost 2025 – and we should not talking about this. But here we are, as some people still forget about it. Ensuring that content is mobile-friendly is essential. A responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes improves user experience and is favored by search engines. Mobile optimization includes fast loading times, easy navigation, and accessible content across all devices.
Social Media to Drive Organic Traffic
While social media backlinks do not directly impact SEO, they play a significant role in driving organic traffic. Sharing content on social media platforms increases its visibility and can lead to more backlinks and engagement. It's simply another way of people discovering your high quality content and potentially sharing it. Encouraging social sharing and interaction can amplify the reach of content and enhance its organic presence.
Regular Content Updates
Search engines love fresh and updated content. Regularly reviewing and updating existing content ensures it remains relevant and accurate. This can involve adding new information, updating statistics, or refining keywords. Consistent updates signal to search engines that the content is current and valuable.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO focuses on improving the backend structure of a website to enhance its search engine performance. This includes optimizing site speed, ensuring secure connections (HTTPS), and creating an XML sitemap. Addressing technical issues such as broken links and duplicate content is also crucial for maintaining a healthy SEO profile.
Here's Google's guide on technical SEO
Increase Your Organic Traffic
Improving SEO and organic presence requires a comprehensive approach that combines keyword optimization, high-quality content creation, and technical enhancements. By focusing on these areas, brands can increase their visibility in search engine results, attract more organic traffic, and ultimately achieve their marketing goals. A well-executed SEO strategy is an ongoing process that adapts to changes in search algorithms and audience behavior, ensuring sustained success in the digital landscape.
Speaking of change. A few months ago we ran a webinar on this exact topic "How to build 1m impressions from scratch using Ai."
Content Repurposing Strategy
It seems that after Ai made its big entrance into the B2B world that content repurposing is the new hot thing. That's not weird, as Ai makes the usually boring and long process cheaper and sometimes as fast as a single click.
Content repurposing is an effective way to maximize resources and extend the reach of valuable content. It's no wonder that 94% of marketers find repurposing beneficial, as it allows for the transformation of existing content into different formats and the exploration of new angles. This approach not only broadens audience reach but also reinforces core messaging across various platforms.
Extend the Reach of Your Content
Repurposing allows content to reach a broader audience by adapting it to different platforms and formats. For instance, a blog post can be transformed into a video – or vice versa like the webinar that became this blog article.
You should also consider infographics, or podcasts that can cater to diverse audience preferences. This multi-format approach ensures that content is accessible to users who consume information in different ways.
Create Content that Lives Longer
By repurposing content, marketers can extend the lifespan of their content assets. Instead of creating new content from scratch, existing content can be refreshed and updated to maintain its relevance. This not only saves time and resources but also keeps the content library dynamic and engaging.
Improve SEO Performance
Repurposed content can contribute to improved SEO performance by generating additional backlinks and increasing content visibility. Each new format or platform provides an opportunity to reach new audiences and attract more inbound links, which are crucial for search engine rankings.
And remember that we talked about Google liking it if your content is up to date? By repurposing your content, being up-to-date is easier than ever.
Increasing Brand Consistency
Repurposing content helps maintain brand consistency across various channels. By delivering a unified message through different formats, brands can reinforce their core values and messaging. This consistency builds trust and recognition among audiences, strengthening brand identity.
Maximizing Resource Efficiency
Creating new content can be resource-intensive. Repurposing allows marketers to maximize the use of existing content, reducing the need for constant content creation. This efficiency enables teams to focus on other strategic initiatives while still maintaining a robust content presence.
Engaging Different Audience Segments
Different audience segments prefer different types of content. Repurposing allows marketers to tailor content to specific audience preferences, increasing engagement and interaction. For example, visual learners may prefer infographics, while auditory learners might engage more with podcasts. What's the type of content that your ideal customer prefers? Perhaps it's different ones?
Facilitating Content Distribution
Repurposed content can be distributed across multiple channels, increasing its exposure and potential impact. This distribution strategy ensures that content reaches audiences on their preferred platforms, whether it’s social media, email newsletters, or industry forums. You'll see that especially on social platforms, one type of content easily goes viral, but on the other hardly gets any impressions.
Supporting Content Strategy Goals
Repurposing aligns with broader content strategy goals by ensuring that content efforts are sustainable and scalable. It allows marketers to focus on strategic objectives, such as brand awareness or lead generation, by leveraging existing content assets effectively. Therefore, we always recommend you to make your repurposing strategy a part of your content strategy document that we talked about earlier.
Why You Need to Repurpose in 2025
Content repurposing is a powerful tool in the content marketer’s arsenal, offering numerous benefits that enhance the overall effectiveness of marketing efforts. By extending reach, improving SEO, and maximizing resources, repurposing ensures that content remains relevant and impactful. As part of a comprehensive content strategy, repurposing not only amplifies the value of content but also supports long-term marketing success.
Social media strategy
A social media strategy is crucial to a content strategy because it ensures that your content reaches the right audience at the right time. It helps in defining clear goals, understanding the target audience, and selecting the appropriate platforms to amplify your message. By integrating social media into your content strategy, you can enhance engagement, drive traffic, and build brand awareness. It also allows for real-time feedback and interaction, enabling you to refine your content based on audience response. Overall, a well-crafted social media strategy complements your content efforts, maximizing reach and impact.
We think that social media is a whole beast on itself. So we'll write about it later – but if you're in need of something helpful right now, we love this article from our friends over at HubSpot.
How to Measure ROI on your Content
Understanding the ROI of content marketing efforts is crucial for assessing their impact on business objectives. While 60% of marketers use sales as a key metric, a holistic view that includes both quantitative and qualitative insights provides a more comprehensive understanding of content performance. This approach enables marketers to make informed decisions and optimize their strategies for better results.
Understanding Content ROI
Content ROI refers to the value generated from content marketing activities relative to the cost of creating and distributing that content. It encompasses both direct and indirect benefits, such as increased sales, brand awareness, and customer engagement. What that is for you will depend a lot on your unique use case. However, here's an overview of everything that could be useful to you.
Key Metrics for Measuring Content ROI
- Traffic and Engagement Metrics:
- Page Views: Indicates how many times a piece of content has been viewed.
- Time on Page: Measures how long visitors stay on a page, reflecting content engagement.
- Bounce Rate: Shows the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page, indicating content relevance.
- Lead Generation and Conversion Metrics:
- Lead Quality: Assesses the potential of leads generated through content to convert into customers.
- Conversion Rate: The percentage of visitors who take a desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
- Cost Per Lead (CPL): Calculates the cost of acquiring a lead through content marketing efforts.
- SEO and Organic Reach Metrics:
- Search Rankings: Tracks the position of content in search engine results for targeted keywords.
- Backlinks: Measures the number of external sites linking to the content, indicating authority and reach.
- Organic Traffic: The volume of visitors arriving at the content through unpaid search results.
- Social Media Metrics:
- Shares and Mentions: Reflects how often content is shared or mentioned on social platforms.
- Engagement Rate: The level of interaction (likes, comments, shares) content receives on social media.
- Follower Growth: Tracks the increase in social media followers as a result of content efforts.
- Revenue and Sales Metrics:
- Sales Attribution: Identifies the contribution of content to sales, often through tracking links or promo codes.
- Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Estimates the total revenue a customer generates over their relationship with the brand.
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): Measures the revenue generated from paid content promotion relative to the cost.
Challenges in Measuring Content ROI
- Attribution Complexity: Content often influences multiple touchpoints in the customer journey, making it difficult to attribute sales directly to a single piece of content.
- Long Sales Cycles: In B2B contexts, sales cycles can be lengthy, delaying the observable impact of content on revenue.
- Qualitative Impact: Content also drives qualitative benefits like brand perception and customer loyalty, which are harder to quantify.
Best Practices for Measuring Content ROI
- Set Clear Objectives: Define specific, measurable goals for content marketing efforts, such as increasing website traffic by 20% or generating 100 new leads per month.
- Use a Multi-Touch Attribution Model: Consider all interactions a customer has with content before converting, rather than attributing success to the last touchpoint alone.
- Leverage Analytics Tools: Utilize tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, or SEMrush to track and analyze content performance across various metrics.
- Incorporate Qualitative Feedback: Gather insights from customer surveys, feedback forms, and social media comments to understand the qualitative impact of content.
- Regularly Review and Adjust: Continuously monitor content performance and adjust strategies based on data-driven insights to optimize ROI.
Of course you'll need to make sure that this is a part of your content strategy document. By making this data available internally, you can build trust and transparency about what's working and what's not.
Improving Starts by Measuring
Measuring content ROI is essential for demonstrating the value of content marketing and guiding strategic decisions. By focusing on a combination of quantitative metrics and qualitative insights, marketers can gain a comprehensive understanding of content effectiveness. This approach not only helps in optimizing current strategies but also in planning future content initiatives that align with business objectives.
Building a Content Strategy that Converts
In the end, we all care about creating content that delivers value. Because we marketers understand that value will turn into conversions. Perhaps not today, but surely down the line.
A content strategy is there to create a structured plan that will show what you do, how you do it and ultimately why you do it. Next to putting the plan into practice, it should also help you win support internally so that you can unlock the budget needed to make your plans a reality. Win-win.
