Content Marketing for Results: How to Get the Most Out of Your Company’s Blog

Producing and publishing content is a fantastic way of investing in the success of your business. It is a pathway toward unlocking next-level benefits for your brand — like boosting authority, improving reach, or encouraging conversions. Plus, it’s also a great way to secure a high ROI from your marketing activity.

But how do you know if your content marketing efforts are delivering results? 

Well, apart from tracking and measuring KPIs, you can gauge the success of your blogging efforts by asking a few questions:

Do you invest in content marketing just for the sake of it — without having any specific goals in mind? Do you know, for sure, how your blog can contribute to your business’ success? And are you aware of the fact that blogging can, on some occasions, backfire, alienating your target audience and minimizing your chances of achieving a satisfactory ROI?

Getting the most out of your company blog requires an elevated consciousness regarding what you want to achieve and what you need to avoid. So, if you’re ready to invest in content marketing with a result-oriented approach, here are the tactics to help you reach your goals.

Know Who You’re Creating Content For

Like any other marketing strategy, content marketing for results requires a few preparatory activities to generate sought-after outcomes. And the first step towards getting the most out of your company blog is defining your target audience, that is, forming a better idea of who you’re creating content for. 

By defining your target audience and developing buyer personas, you’ll gain valuable information about the best way to produce your content. Taking these steps won’t just help you avoid wasting resources on prospects who are not likely to turn into customers. More importantly, it will allow you to pinpoint the types of content that will reach, engage, and convert the right readers without wasting your energy or budget on the people who are not yet ready to engage with your brand.

When creating buyer personas, go beyond the basics. In addition to considering demographic information (which can be helpful but won’t be enough to fortify your content marketing efforts), you must also understand your prospects’ pain points, motivations, preferred solution types, and online behavior. 

For instance, young end-consumers are more likely to do product research on social media, from mobile devices, and maybe even on the go. On the other hand, if you’re trying to target professional users, understand that their device and communication preferences are likely to be more traditional or, at least, geared towards LinkedIn vs. TikTok.

Once you’ve developed your buyer personas and identified the pain points they want to solve, you’ll have a good foundation for keyword research. Plus, you’ll have the information required to enhance your content marketing efforts with personalization. After all, research shows that, in 2023, personalization is essential when targeting consumers, with more than two-thirds of people expecting brands to deliver personalized experiences and 88% of buyers saying that a company’s experience is just as influential as its product or service.

So, by initiating your content marketing strategy planning by defining your target audience, you won’t just ensure you’re not wasting your breath on the wrong people. Even more importantly, you’ll create an accurate view of your audience that will allow you to uncover valuable content opportunities guaranteed to attract the attention of your prospects.

Create a Market for Your Product

The second content marketing tactic you must employ to get the most out of your company’s blog is to adopt the format of long-form blog posts as a way to create a market for your product.

As you (hopefully) already know, the buyer journey consists of three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. And traditionally, when trying to widen their potential user base, brands will attempt to attract buyer attention with ads or social media posts targeting specific keywords or are based on demographic targeting.

But what if you’re a business that offers a niche solution your potential customers don’t even know exists? Presenting them with ads they don’t understand is guaranteed not to attract their attention. And waiting for them to somehow stumble upon your product (and comprehend its unique value) is an even worse strategy as it requires you to sit around, hoping that people will find your business.

In these cases, the best thing you can do is invest in content that will create a market for your product. 

You can generate interest in your products by publishing lengthy blog posts addressing your target audience’s pain points and introducing your solutions. Moreover, publishing such content can allow you to explain why your product matters and how it can provide your audience with sought-after benefits.

To see an example of this tactic, check out the Aura guide to The Best Amazon Repricer. You’ll notice that the post starts as an informational resource teaching readers how to increase profits when selling on Amazon. It is a well-written post introducing the concept of repricing tools. However, what sets Aura’s article apart is the fact that it provides context. Doing this allows readers to understand the challenges of winning the Amazon Buy Box, presents them with the benefits of automating pricing, and effectively justifies listing the Aura product as one of the top three software solutions.

Promote Your Posts on Social Media

When trying to get the most out of your company’s blog, you must understand that content production only leads to average performance without the right distribution strategy. Fortunately, however, there’s a simple solution: sharing your posts on the channels that are actively used by your target audience.

By promoting your blog posts on social channels, you’ll take a big step from waiting for your audience to find you towards reaching people on the networks they’re already active on. And if the possibility of actively impacting your blog content’s reach is not enough to motivate you to adopt this strategy, remember that 30% of people use social media to find relevant content, and 27% do so to find out what is being talked about.

There are numerous examples of businesses effectively using social media to generate conversations around topics related to their focus. But, if you’re looking for exceptionally well-executed instances of promoting blog content via social media, look no further than this Twitter thread created by Buffer.

Knowing that threads are the latest trend on the platform and that users genuinely enjoy this type of content, Buffer chose to transform its latest blog post into a 10-part thread highlighting the social media trends most likely to be relevant in 2023.

Other brands do something similar via Instagram, posting snippets of blog articles via posts or Stories. 

Don’t Alienate Reluctant Readers

Do you know that most people’s preferred way of consuming online content doesn’t include reading? That’s right. Data shows that 79% of internet users scan text content instead of reading it word-by-word.

So, if you’re trying to get the most out of your company’s blog, you must ensure that your articles are user-oriented and cater to your entire audience — including people who aren’t keen on reading blog posts.

Fortunately, one solution will help you avoid alienating reluctant readers: optimizing blog posts (especially long-form ones) for readability.

All you need to do is implement a few simple formatting tactics. Use headings, employ text chunking, use a readability tool like Readable, and include visuals to break the text into more easily comprehensible pieces. 

By doing these few things, you’ll significantly improve the UX on your company blog, thus making it a more attractive resource of valuable content to your audience.

If you check out the 2023’s Best Medical Alert System guide from MedicalAlertBuyersGuide.org, you’ll see that this is precisely what the resource does. The product summary sections are particularly well-designed, as they give reluctant readers insights into the pros and cons of each solution via a visual table layout that includes product info, feature ratings, pricing overviews, and images of the physical product.

Supplement Your Content With Video

Scientific research shows no significant difference between people’s ability to comprehend and retain information when consumed in text vs. video format. 

However, if you look at people’s willingness to consume blogs vs. videos, you’ll find that the multimedia format wins every time.

According to a survey conducted by Wyzowl, 73% of people prefer short videos over text-based articles. Plus, they’re 2x more likely to share a video with their friends than any other type of content.

With this in mind, it’s safe to say that one of the most effective ways to enhance your content marketing efforts is to find opportunities to transform blog posts into videos. 

The good news is that this doesn’t have to be a challenge — after all, you’ve done most of the hard work by writing the article. But, more importantly, by allowing users to consume an article in video (or, alternatively, audio) format — like Concept 2 did below — you’ll significantly increase engagement rates. Plus, you’ll help your prospects understand your message and boost their chances of sharing your content, improving reach.

Generate Credibility for Your Brand

The truth about doing business in 2023 is that consumers put much pressure on brands. People not only view business as the most trustworthy institution, but they expect their favorite brands to take a stance on current issues and do meaningful work that shapes society.

The problem with this, however, is that missing the mark when taking a stand can come off as politically motivated. Fortunately, there’s a way around this. According to the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, the best thing a business can do to establish its credibility is to be a trustworthy information source and base its actions on science.

In other words, building credibility is, at the moment, one of the best ways to attract and retain customers. And the simple fact is that content can effectively help brands do this.

All excellent strategies are hiring qualified writers, having a sound editorial policy, supporting your claims with scientific links and research, or even focusing on providing readers with valuable info before presenting them with a CTA. 

More importantly, articles written this way can be a powerful tool to separate your organization from your conversion-hungry competitors.

Online therapy platform Talkspace’s blog offers an excellent example of using these techniques to generate confidence in their brand. 

Their post on communication in a relationship is written by a mental health professional (who even has her profile page), reviewed by another equally qualified therapist, and the content links to clinical studies that back up the points raised by the writer. In addition, the post’s footer also contains a list of all the scientific materials the writer referenced when researching the article.

Notice that even though the article still has a very visible conversion CTA, one never gets the impression that it was written with a sale as its primary purpose. This is something that these credibility-generating elements do a great job of preventing.

Compare Your Product to Competitors

Last but not least, if you’re looking for content marketing tips that will yield results, don’t forget to turn your company’s blog into a space where your target audience can expect (and receive) objectivity.

By showing that your business isn’t biased when providing customers with information — and, more importantly, that it won’t distort facts to make a profit — you can boost company trust and ensure your blog articles drive a higher ROI. And the good news is that this can be easy to accomplish with product comparison articles.

By putting your solutions against those made by your competitors, you can prove your objectivity and position your product in a favorable light. 

For instance, if you check out the Transparent Labs Best Pre-Workout guide, you’ll see that it includes reviews of several products, including its own and those sold by its competitors. However, what stands out in this brand’s approach is that it never takes an overly negative stance on its competitors’ products. Instead, it uses opportunities to highlight the benefits of its solutions, establishing its superiority without losing objectivity.

Final Thoughts

Though achieving next-level content marketing results can seem challenging, you’ll discover it isn’t impossible.

True. Getting the most out of your company’s blog will require you to do some serious work. However, applying the tips outlined in this article will surely get a head start. 

So don’t hesitate to try these strategies out for yourself (and track results to gauge their effectiveness), and you can rest assured that you’ll be well on your way to turning your company blog into a powerful attention-grabbing and conversion-driving weapon for your business.