As content marketers know, by creating and developing valuable, useful content, your brand may become a thought leader over time. Who doesn’t want that?
Think about it. At some point, every marketer is tasked with positioning his or her brand as a thought leader. This is a popular vision for many reasons – increased name recognition, credibility, and (ultimately) a preference for the company’s products.
So how can content marketing help build a brand as a thought leader? Here’s the story of one company I have worked with.
Goal: For the brand to be viewed as the thought leader in its space
Challenge: Lack of name recognition and brand awareness
Measurement: Google rankings, press/blog mentions, site traffic
Start by asking key questions
Before diving into the tactics, this company analyzed themselves and their key competitors by conducting internal and external audits in order to determine the right approach to take. Here are some important questions they considered:
How do you define being a thought leader?
How will you measure success or failure?
What plans will you implement in order to build your brand as a thought leader?
What are the information needs of your customers and prospects?
What positioning will you pursue?
What is the right content mix for your industry, company, and brand?
Develop content to support your goals
Once armed with the answers to these questions, the company started to adopt various content marketing tactics, choosing the appropriate content types by doing research and validating their assumptions by talking with customers, prospects, and partners:
Created and hosted informational webinars
Developed useful white papers
Wrote educational case studies
Contributed to a daily blog
Essentially, additional touch points for the brand were created, providing more opportunities for engagement with potential customers.
Track the results
It is still too early to say that this company is viewed as THE thought leader by the market, but initial results are very positive:
Before the company’s name was almost unrecognizable in its space, and now it is appearing within the first few search results on Google (when searching for different industry keywords).
The organization is beginning to see its exposure and recognition increase within key blogs, news publications, and websites in its space.
Its website has seen an increase of nearly 200% in traffic, 50% more page views per visitor, and a 40% increase in time spent on its site in a matter of several months.
Keep measuring and adjusting
The important thing to remember is that building a brand cannot happen overnight. As with any strategy, it is critical to set the metrics and periodically review and adjust your strategy. For instance, with this company, educational content types such as webinars and case studies that demonstrate the value of the product and describe typical use cases are the best received by prospects.
Remember that just because a tactic worked once, this does not mean it will always work . The converse is true, too: just because a tactic didn’t work in the past doesn’t mean it will never work. After all, there is no silver bullet.
What content marketing strategies have worked for your brand?
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