tprc. is a full-service PR & digital marketing agency. We create bespoke strategies and campaigns that are designed to deliver results.
Content is the beating heart of digital marketing. Good content is essential for high performing advertising and lead gen campaigns, an engaging social media schedule, email marketing programmes that drive action, and organic search traffic growth.
But how should a content marketing programme be planned and how can construction companies leverage the power of content marketing to deliver tangible business results?
We always recommend before starting any content marketing programme that extensive keyword research is performed. Why? Because it ensures that not only will the content then be given the best chance of driving search traffic to your website but because it will also give you an insight into what information people are seeking online and where you can potentially get in front of them and demonstrate your expertise.
Layer this with competitor analysis and you’ll also know which topics your competitors care the most about and the content on their websites that drive the most organic search traffic.
Paid for tools to do this include SEMRush and ahrefs, we use both and the data you can get is extensive.
If you’re looking a no cost solution, simply searching Google for topics that are related to your business will provide you with the ‘People also ask’ panels in each search engine results page. By default these show just 4 results but if you click the drop down arrows on the more relevant results, more related questions will appear. It doesn’t give you estimated search volume and you can’t perform competitor analysis this way but to get an idea about what your customers and/or prospective customers are asking in search, it’s a good start.
Spend a few hours doing this or using a paid tool and you’ll end up with a long list of questions which will help you not only start to create a bank of information content on your website which could supercharge your search efforts, but it will form the basis for the next step.
Any content you create must resonate effectively with your target audience. Most businesses though have a number of key customer segments which although tend to have things in common, also have their own unique challenges and perspectives.
There are many freely available templates for creating customer segments and personas and the time invested in this process will allow you to speak to each segment appropriately and give them enough coverage in your content plan.
Before you start to use this information to formulate your plan, it’s important to work out what it is you want your content marketing programme to achieve.
Knowing this can really help to focus the plan on the things that will add the most value to your business. It might make sense to define a number of primary and secondary KPIs but some of the metrics you’re likely to think about include the following:
Your content KPIs are likely to express some of these as growth figures but ultimately, it’s important to have a measure of success which will allow you to optimise over time.
The next stage, now that you’re armed with the information gathered so far, is to start planning the themes of your content which will form the basis of your editorial calendar.
This is where the keyword research really comes into its own, especially when supplemented with seasonal themes and those key events in the year which are important to your different customer segments.
Again, there are many editorial calendar templates available or you can create your own basic version using Microsoft Excel. The important thing is that is contains, on a week-by-week basis, the intended output of your content marketing efforts encompassing the topics covered, the mediums in which the content will be produced and where they will be published, what customer segments are being catered for, and what the calls to action are.
Now that you have a plan, it’s now time to start production.
However, before diving in, it’s important that each piece of content is properly planned which is where a content brief is key, especially if you’re delegating or outsourcing the actual production.
Typically, the more detailed and specific you can be with your brief, the better the content will be when it comes back for editing and approval. You might have slightly different briefing templates for different types of content or have a master template which allows you to input the necessary information, either way it’s important to use some sort of template as that will help with efficiency and consistency over time.
Be sure to also factor in and brief your requirements for any visual assets as they will add a lot of value to your content and can really help with engagement, both on-site and in your social media feed.
Once the content is created and published, it’s time to promote it which is where the real value is.
Going into all the different methods of content promotion in detail is beyond the scope of this article but at a very top level, you might consider the following channels depending on the type and medium of content.
Of course, some of these require advertising spend and if budget is limited, you will need to be selective about where to spend it which is where your KPIs come in – spending strategically on the content campaigns most likely to achieve your objectives.
One really important thing to keep in mind here to maximise your promotional efforts is that content can be repurposed to extend reach. Using the most basic example, a single blog post should be able to make at least 5 or 6 social media posts if you think about the different angles you can come at it from. With good graphic support, this will allow you to keep promoting your content for an extended period of time.
A crucial part of building a successful content marketing programme over time is optimisation using the data you gather along the way.
Before implementing your strategy, it’s important to ensure that everything can be measured correctly, with a robust web analytics solution in place and a good process for URL tagging for good segmentation and analysis of data. Conversion tracking is also critical if lead generation is one of your objectives.
The metrics you measure and use to inform future activity should be very much based on the KPIs you defined at the start of the process. The things you’re looking for are:
Armed with this new knowledge, you can really start to refine your programme and focus on the things that generate the best results for your business.
If you would like to discuss content marketing for the construction industry in more depth, please get in touch.
