Content marketing is the primary source of marketing and promotional material for the majority of businesses today.
It’s safe to say that it has taken over from traditional marketing methods in 2022. It’s mainly because it’s on digital media, compared to print or visual media.
Considering there are around 6.648 billion smartphone users around the globe, using digital means to convey such content is the primary source of marketing for many businesses today. So, you get to hear terms like digital marketing, SEO, social media, etc.
But, content is the one thing they all have in common. That’s why businesses must make a content marketing strategy. However, where do you get started? What are the pillars of a successful content marketing strategy? Let’s find out.
How many main pillars of digital marketing we can find?
There are many pillars of digital marketing that can be found, but the most important ones include:
- Content marketing
- SEO
- SEM
- Social Media Marketing
- Email marketing
But, we will initially focus on content marketing.
Content marketing is the most important pillar of digital marketing. It can be defined as a process that creates and distributes valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
Content marketing is more than just blogging. When executed correctly, content including articles, guides (like this one), videos, podcasts, etc.
Content Marketing: Content Funnels, Distribution & Optimization
Content marketing is the act of using content for marketing purposes. Usually, this content entails various types, besides the written content.
Some adept marketers employ videos and images right off the bat. While other businesses on a budget use text as their primary starting point.
Regardless, each of these content types works as a stimulant surrounding a brand, product, or solution. While marketing copywriting is more targeted towards promotion, marketing content’s aim is to build interest.
However, one of the most important things to remember about content marketing is its three essential pillars.
The first is various content funnels, each one targeted towards a different goal. The other is content optimization for target audiences and search engines.
Lastly, the third one is content distribution, aka the platforms to use. While many brands choose to pick one, some rely on many. That’s why it’s important to understand these three essential elements of content marketing.
So, let’s dig a little deeper and understand how they work:
Content Funnels
Content marketing relies on three main funnels: TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU. You might think they’re funny-sounding names, but they’re actually highly essential for your marketing strategy. TOFU stands for top of the funnel, while the other two are middle and bottom.
Each of these types serves a different purpose in content marketing and helps users achieve their primary goals.
The goals include awareness, evaluation, and conversion from top to bottom. That’s why a marketer or a new business must grasp these ideas.
1. TOFU
Top-of-the-funnel marketing content entails blog posts, infographics, website copies, and other types of content that might generate awareness.
Usually, the content that falls into TOFU follows a direct marketing approach, such as copywriting.
2. MOFU
MOFU or middle of the funnel content deals with your target audience directly. This is the part where awareness becomes evaluated, and your target audience begins to contemplate whether or not they need your product. That’s why it’s considered the most critical funnel out of the three.
3. BOFU
The bottom of the funnel is direct communication or your marketing strategy’s CTA (Call to action). This is the part where you directly urge your target customer to take action.
Content Optimization
Content optimization is the phase that deals with optimizing content to help it reach a vast audience. This phase includes all the fuss you might hear about SEO and online marketing since visibility and organic traffic fall into their playhouse.
However, the three major elements you need to remember are:
1. Backlinks
Backlinks are your best friend since they are one of the key elements of your website’s domain authority. That’s why your content needs to feature thorough backlinks, including outbound, inbound, and interlinks.
2. Meta Data
Metadata is one of the essentials of any content marketing blog. This includes three significant essentials of its own, including meta descriptions, titles, and slug. Moreover, you also need to provide alt titles to images that you use in your content.
3. Subheadings/Content Scattering
Content structure and readability are also two of the essentials of content optimization. So, use subheadings and spread your content’s vital information evenly.
Content Distribution
Content distribution is more about the places where you post your content. These are three major platforms that require your thorough attention. Moreover, using them as a blend of content platforms is also necessary. So, here they are:
1. Website/Blog
Your website and blog are your primary platforms for content distribution. That’s why they will remain your primary focus throughout your content strategy.
2. Paid Adverts
Paid adverts, well, are pretty self-explanatory. These are the content types that get distributed by platforms in exchange for a small such, such as PPC. Content marketing examples of this would be PPC on Google and paid adverts on Facebook.
3. Social Media
Social media content is also one of the key essentials of content marketing
4 Major Pillars Of Successful Content Marketing
The four central pillars of content marketing in digital marketing make you think of the famous Bill Gates quote from 1996 “Content is king.” And, so it is because most marketing strategies today use content or depend on it in one way or another.
The four pillars on this list, including SEO, content creation, and calendars, are all based on content requirements for businesses in 2022.
Whether you use broken link checkers or an online paraphraser, you need these four pillars to work for you.
So, without further ado, let’s get started:
1. Search Engine Optimization
SEO or search engine optimization is perhaps the most important pillar of content marketing. It helps you stand out in SERP (Search engine results page) and gives you higher visibility; therefore, it is critical to generate organic traffic.
However, search engine optimization can be divided into two different and essential sections, i.e., content and website. So, here is how the two most important factors of SEO become a pillar of content marketing:
Website
Your website needs optimization to rank higher in SERP. That’s why your website needs optimal page-loading speed, removing orphaned pages, eliminating broken links, and ensuring the usage of alt tags.
Content
Content optimization for SEO includes a few necessary elements, such as metadata, creating linkable content, using relevant & informative topics, and ensuring a specific keyword density.
2. Unique Content Writing
Content writing itself in content marketing needs to work towards achieving your objective. That’s why there are four main phases of this major pillar of content marketing, which are:
- Audience Research: Researching your audience and understanding what they like or look for in content
- Topic Research: Thoroughly understand your topic before you sit down to write
- Content Writing: Writing content, ensuring readability and originality.
- Distribution: Using the right platforms, as mentioned above, to distribute your content towards achieving your goals
These four significant phases require your thorough attention, so focus on creating content that’s according to your necessities. Furthermore, try ensuring a specific content tone for optimal results. If you find it difficult, you can use an online plagiarism checker to ensure content originality.
3. Content Calendars
Content calendars keep your strategy in line and ensure that you research, formulate and distribute content without delays. The three forces that drive any content calendar are as follow:
Objectives
Any content marketing calendar is driven by objectives, whether they are weekly, monthly, or yearly.
Content Creation Times
These objectives drive the marketers and content writers to ensure certain content creation times—so that the content is posted regularly.
Posting Frequency
SEO and online marketing are all about relevancy. So, it includes creating relevant content but also doing it frequently. That’s why a content calendar should push you towards regular content creation.
4. Revaluation & Upgrades
The fourth and final pillar of a successful content marketing strategy is to look back and reflect. Whether at the end of a content calendar or after achieving an objective, marketers need to re-evaluate and upgrade their strategies.
So, how do they do that?
- KPIs: Finding out key performance indicators and expounding on them further
- Content Expansion: If written content performed well, or didn’t, using images, videos, and other types of content to blend with written pieces
- Platforms: Besides blogs and websites, expanding to various platforms, i.e., social networks, online streaming platforms, podcasts, etc.
By ensuring these three revaluation elements, you can keep a content marketing strategy fresh, relevant, and result-yielding.
Four pillars of content marketing’s Conclusion
These major elements of any successful content marketing can help you yield great results. While this article mentions mostly basics, understanding them in-depth and ensuring their thorough usage is your job. So, work on each of these four pillars to strengthen your marketing strategy.
