Content marketing is one of the most effective strategies for growing your business’ online presence. Through effective marketing research, companies can create killer content and use smart marketing strategies for directing qualified leads to their websites.
While content marketing has proven to be a productive lead generation tool for all kinds of businesses, it’s important to develop an evergreen content marketing strategy to see more qualified leads take action on your website. Before starting your content marketing strategy, preliminary research is key.
In this article, you’ll learn everything there is to know about content marketing research.
Create a Sales Funnel First
One of the most common problems companies face is creating content their audience doesn’t want to read. Sometimes, marketers can rush and write content that completely alienates their target audience.
To prevent this outcome, it’s best to create a sales funnel that defines your target audience and the steps a typical prospect will take to become a customer.
The Buyer’s Journey is one of the most common sales funnels that maps the journey a person takes of finding a website and becoming a customer. When you have a sales funnel, you’ll be able to identify the types of content that will resonate the most with your audience.
Perform Keyword Research for Each Sales Funnel Stage
No matter what sales funnel you use, it will usually be divided into three categories:
- Awareness Stage: This is the stage where the prospect realizes they have a problem and are looking for a solution.
- Consideration Stage: This is the stage where the prospect is aware of their solution.
- Decision Stage: This is the stage where the prospect is deciding which provider will provide the best solution.
When performing keyword research, specific search terms will fall under each stage. Here are some examples:
- Awareness Stage: “how to improve conversion rates”
- Consideration Stage: “great CRM tools for improving conversion rates”
- Decision Stage: “HubSpot vs Salesforce”
When you separate your list of keywords based on your sales funnel, you’ll be able to craft killer content that’s relevant to prospects in each stage.
Take Advantage of Featured Snippet Ideas
It can be frustrating to spend countless weeks ranking your content, only for a competitor to outrank your article with a featured snippet.
One of the most popular subjects in the marketing industry is featured snippets. You can use popular keyword research tools to capture featured snippet ideas.
An effective way to craft creative featured snippets is to use videos for certain keywords. For example, you can download Instagram videos from your account and post them on your website to begin ranking for featured snippets.
Build FAQs from Google’s “People Also Ask” Section
Google has now begun to display popular long-form keywords in their “People Also Ask” section. Marketers can use this section to post long-form keywords in a FAQs format on their website.
This can help in drawing more leads to their websites and answering popular questions online.
Want to Learn More About Marketing Research?
As you can see, marketing research is a core tenant of content marketing. If you want to learn more about this subject or how to use Instagram for business, continue reading our blog for more helpful articles.
