Welcome to our new video series, The Basecamp! We'll be talking business strategy and marketing trends, with the occasional "just for fun" convo.
In our first episode, Project Manager Gretchen Elliott and Agency Director Anne Shenton sit down to talk content strategy.
Read the transcript below:
- Hey welcome to another episode of The Basecamp from Ascend Inbound marketing. I'm Anne Shenton, the agency director and I have with me Gretchen Elliot, the project manager.
- Hello
- Today we are going to talk about content strategy. What is content strategy, how can you use content strategy in your business, what are some do's and don'ts of content strategy, just a good little primer on content strategy., I think I have said content strategy enough times now we can dive right in. First of all just a quick overview: I think this term gets tossed around a lot, you know you need a content strategy, content is king, etc., but we really want to get back to the basics and define what content strategy is.
Content strategy is the discipline of using content to meet your business objectives. That sounds kind of fancy, but really if we break it down it can be as simple as answering frequently asked questions that your customers are constantly calling in to ask you.
- But I think you did bring up a good point there is that content strategy can look can function in a lot of different ways for a lot of different businesses or companies. But still achieve the goals that you're looking for.
- So it doesn't have to be some scary, you know oh I got to make some big slide deck with this like content strategy in it. It can just be what's easy for your business to do.
- Yup, and that is another good point Gretchen, another big component of content strategy that kinda ties hand in hand with a lot of the content strategy that we develop for our partners, is the idea of SEO or search engine optimization and developing content that is going to drive more and more traffic to your website and not just any traffic, but qualified traffic from people who you actually want to do business with, answering questions that they have about working with companies like you, providing How-To guides and again frequently asked questions and things like that, that will help them along in their buyer's journey as they evaluate different organizations to work with. That's just one piece of that, but again it can be a lot different things, things as simple as frequently asked questions to a full blown SEO strategy. All are encompassed under this umbrella of content strategy.
- Yeah I think another thing too that you know maybe this isn't the next phase of your content strategy, as you can really use it to help streamline some of your processes, so Anne brought up frequently asked questions, which again is just one we go back to because it's , everyone can pretty much understand what that example is and probably think of some things in their business or company that they do get asked a lot and that they know that potential customers, that you know leads are interested in, but maybe think of things that come up even later in your buyers journey. You know, questions that your answering or problems customers might encounter or maybe they say like well I see these other competitors or companies talking about X topic and you aren't necessarily talking about that. There's opportunity to create some content around those topics as well.
- Yup and I guess just to drive it home a little bit I wanna leave everybody with an example of actual content strategy and action because I think it it can it becomes more real when you know a story of how we actually have used this and how it might work. So, one of our clients, Orson Woodall of Woodall and Woodall is a bankruptcy attorney and he has generated a lot of organic search traffic from qualified visitors because what he has been able to do is answer a lot of the questions his perspective clients have surrounding financial burden and which type of bankruptcy they should apply for. Which type of bankruptcy are they the best fit for, how to raise their credit score after they have filed for bankruptcy, what are the steps involved when filing for bankruptcy, so you know answering those full range of questions really educates his perspective clients, it eases their mind so in turn establishes trust with them out of the gate even before they get in touch with Orson to set that first appointment and it has been very useful for Orson you know to obtain new clients but then reduce client turn as well.
- I think another example too and you know we work with Super-Sod and when your thinking of lawn care as a homeowner you want your lawn to look nice, but how do you actually get there without having to spend a ton of time on it yourself and I think they have done an excellent job of creating a lot of content that appeals to homeowners whether it's the type of grass for the area of the southeast that you live in, how you take care of it, what does the install process look like, because maybe getting sod for the first time can seem like an overwhelming experience, but it really is so they are able to have some guides or create resources that ease their customers minds' as well.
- And in turn they have built a massive library of content so any question that you have about lawn care and maintenance you can find the answer to on SuperSod.com, and that really is a testament to the marketing team that they have there of course we support that and help them out but they are determined on helping their customers with whatever lawn care needs they have and helping answer any questions that they have.
That wraps it up on our little chat on content strategy. Thank you guys for watching if you any questions about this topic or want to get in touch you can hit us up on chat or give us a call and we would love to meet you and get in touch, Thanks!