A Complete Guide to Content Marketing in 2023

Content is king. But it can also appear complicated and vague to many. Questions naturally arise - what even really constitutes content marketing? How does one leverage content to actually drive meaningful objectives vs just broadcasting more noise into an already crowded online world?

These questions and more crossed my mind too when I first heard the hype around content marketing. It seemed ambiguous, risky and frankly more art than science. But what I've come to realize after getting waist-deep in content across my career is just how pivotal of a role it plays in almost every single business' success.

And content marketing doesn't have to be ambiguous or scary. There is absolutely a science to it. Best practices that can transform random acts of content into a real competitive advantage with very real, measurable business impact.

I went from content marketing skeptic to true believer once I learned the fundamentals of what good content marketing entails and saw first-hand results it drove for brands that leveraged it properly. I’ve witnesses small businesses rapidly establish authority in their space while large companies maintained relevance and soapbox's. I could directly correlate content efforts to sales influenced, leads generated, and revenue growth quarter over quarter.

Now I can't help but geek out on all things content strategy, promotion, distribution and measurement. What's worked, what hasn't and why. The keys to readable, compelling and consumable content across forms, formats and platforms. How to truly integrate with broader sales and marketing efforts rather than operate as a siloed function.

All marketers and founders should at least understand the basics and implications of modern content marketing. So I've outlined everything I know in a full beginners guide below. Consider this your content marketing 101 crash course on what it is, why it matters, how to do it and do it well even with limited resources. I promise by the end you'll see content very differently.

What is Content Marketing and Why It Matters

Content marketing refers to creating and sharing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience in order to drive profitable customer action. The idea behind content marketing is to provide useful information to prospects and customers that helps them solve a problem or answer questions they might have, rather than direct selling.

The goal is to build trust and credibility by delivering consistent value over time. This helps establish the business as a trusted authority and resource in its industry, ultimately driving sales as prospects and customers come to know, like and trust the brand.

Unlike traditional advertising, content marketing focuses more on "pulling" customers in with valuable content rather than "pushing" out more traditional promotional messages to try and capture attention. The emphasis is on informed, permission-based marketing that seeks to earn attention rather than buy it.

Why Content Marketing Matters More Now  

A crowded and noisy online landscape has diminished the effectiveness of traditional disruptive advertising and outbound sales tactics. At the same time, customers have gained more control over their buying journeys with more access to information than ever before.

This means brands need to adapt by focusing less on active selling messages and more on consistent value creation. Content marketing enables brands to stand out by providing truly useful information that helps guide customers as they do their own research before making a purchase decision.

By consistently meeting customers where they are in their buying journey with value, brands earn mindshare and trust over time through content marketing. This drives sales as customers decide the business understands and can serve their needs better than alternatives.

Creating a Content Marketing Strategy

A successful content marketing strategy starts with a deep understanding of your target customers and what questions, concerns and needs they have that your brand is best positioned to address.

To build an effective strategy, brands should go through the following key steps:

1. Define Your Target Customer

Get very specific in defining who you serve, what challenges they face, questions they have that you can answer/provide solutions for. Create a detailed target customer profile.

2. Map the Buyer's Journey

Analyze the typical journey your defined persona takes from initial awareness of their need/problem all the way through to becoming a happy customer. Identify your best opportunities to provide value along each stage.  

3. Set Goals and KPIs

Define what success looks like for your content marketing. Example goals and KPIs may include traffic driven, leads generated, audience growth and engagement metrics, sales influenced/attributed, etc.

4. Audit Existing Content

Objectively review what content you already have, how useful/helpful/engaging it is and where there are gaps or opportunities to consolidate/improve. 

5. Create an Editorial Calendar

Plot out the new content you will create mapped to each buyer's journey stage, reflect your goals, and provide value for your defined audience based on explicit needs and natural search queries. Integrate promotion, distribution and repurposing channels. 

6. Launch and Iterate  

Roll out your content, analyze performance, refine based on feedback and data, personalize and improve over time while seeking to provide more and more value with each new piece you produce. Patience and persistence pay off.

Types of Content That Drive Traffic and Sales

There are many forms of content that can work well as part of an effective content marketing strategy focused on driving traffic, leads and sales. Some of the most effective types include:

• Blog Articles/Posts: In-depth articles focused on providing actionable tips, how-to advice, step-by-step instructions, addressing key questions from target customers. Can also announce and summarize key information from other content formats.

• eBooks & Guides: Lengthier downloads that consolidate multiple related articles/resources into a single place focused on fully covering a topic area of interest to your target audience. Offer as opt-in in exchange for contact details.

• Visual Content: From images and graphics to videos and presentations, visual content breaks up text and delivers information and storytelling in more engaging mixed media formats. Shorter videos and images also travel well on social media.  

• Podcasts: Audio content allows customers to learn while on the go from industry experts. Build relationship and credibility with target audience.

• Webinars: Live or recorded video presentations featuring slide supported subject matter experts discussing key issues, delivering how-to guidance, providing Q&A, etc.

• Checklists/Templates: Offer useful downloadable tools and resources relevant to your products that customers can apply to their own efforts for quick wins. Reduce friction in buyer's journey.  

• Landing Pages: Dedicated pages that enable you to collect contact info from those interested to access gated premium content offers outlined above (eBooks, Checklists, Webinars etc)

Blog posts, guides, visual content and podcasts help attract visitors from search and social media on an ongoing basis and branches them off into other content offers through calls to action. Webinars, templates and landing pages focus on lead conversion. 

Optimized and repurposed combinations of different content types mapped to the buyer's journey as described in an editorial calendar will drive maximum traffic and sales over time. Patience and persistence is key for content marketing success. But when done correctly over an extended period, it can deliver exponential returns by establishing brand authority and mindshare with your audience.

Promoting Content to Drive Traffic & Conversions 

Creating amazing content is only half the battle when it comes to content marketing. Equally important is having a strategy for promoting and distributing your content to ensure it reaches your intended target audience and drives engagement.

Here are some core channels to utilize for content promotion and distribution:

• Email Marketing: One of the most direct ways to reach current customers and prospects is through your email subscriber lists. Send email campaigns highlighting new blog posts and other content.

• Social Media: Share content across targeted social media platforms where your audience is active, like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Include relevant hashtags.

• Paid Ads: Run paid campaigns via platforms like Facebook or Google Ads to get content offers in front of new audiences. Retarget those who engage.  

• Site Search Optimization: Structure and optimize on-site search to make content easy to find in search results based on target keyphrases.

• Guest Contributor Outreach: Have industry partners and influencers share or reference your content with their audiences for increased reach.

• Live Events: Discuss and distribute physical copies of content before, during and after industry live events and conferences your audience attends. Capture leads.

The most successful content marketers take an integrated, omni-channel approach combining organic, owned, earned and paid channels tailored to how their different audience segments consume information. They continually test and analyze performance to refine their promotion strategy over time, doubling down on what works.

Measuring Content Marketing Success

When it comes to analyzing content marketing performance, there are two core aspects to evaluate:

1. Content-Level Metrics

Performance indicators tied to each specific piece of content, such as:

• Traffic  

• Social media shares/engagement

• Backlinks 

• Time on page  

• Bounce rates

2. Business Impact Metrics

These cover the downstream sales impact and ROI from content efforts:

• Conversions generated

• Marketing qualified leads  

• Sales qualified leads

• Revenue influenced  

• Cost per lead

Additional metrics like audience growth, retention, engagement rates, search rankings influenced and sales cycle acceleration can provide further insights into how content drives business results.

To track performance, brands should capture baseline analytics before launching content and then monitor identified KPIs on an ongoing basis, reviewing new content for at least 3 months to gauge true impact over time.

Review content performance reports, assess what's working well and what's underperforming, then optimize - updating existing pieces or evolving your content strategy and mix moving forward based on the data and consumer response. This will ensure continual improvement and maximum ROI.

Over time, brands are able to quantify the real business value delivered from content marketing efforts, from generating more quality leads to shortening the sales cycle and directly influencing revenue growth.

Combining a strategic, metrics-driven approach with persistence and patience will yield significant payoff for brands that can do content marketing well. It establishes lasting credibility and trust that turns audiences into happy, loyal customers over time.