Are you turning Facebook Likes into actual dollars in your company account?
Most marketers begin their Facebook advertising strategy with enthusiasm, watching as likes pour in from people active in their target niche, and waiting for the big payoff…
But more often than not, the payoff never comes.
Beyond some new Page Likes and a few extra clicks on the website, the ad campaign seems stalled. People aren’t buying your product. What gives?
In this article, we’re going to dive into what keeps people from flocking to your web page and buying your product or subscribing to your service.
We’re also going to examine successful ad campaign strategies and ask an architect of these campaigns – Dave from Magnificent Marketing – what the secret is.
As you’ll soon find out, the secret is to know your customer, and to position yourself to offer them the right ad at the right time. Facebook has tools that allow you to map your ad campaign to the buyer’s journey. This isn’t as hard as it may seem at first glance – so read on to find out.
Part One: What is the Buyer’s Journey and How Can a Facebook Advertising Strategy Follow it?
Before we go into the actual step-by-step procedure of mapping your ad campaign to the buyer’s journey, we should cover exactly what the buyer’s journey is and why it’s important.
Think about the last thing you bought. Whether it was a soft drink at a convenience store or the home of your dreams, you went through three distinct phases before purchasing that item:
Awareness. You became aware of a problem. This can be any sort of obstacle preventing you from achieving a sense of perfect contentment. Maybe you were thirsty. Maybe you fought with your landlord for the last time and decided you need your own house.
Consideration. You took some time to define the problem and looked for ways to solve it. You browsed the freezer section of the convenience store. You contacted a real estate agent and talked to banks about getting home loans.
Decision. You chose a solution that offered the greatest value towards solving your problem. You slid your favorite lime-flavored soft drink across the counter, or signed off on your home purchase.
As you can see, every purchase a person makes follows these three stages in some way. In many cases, the only part that changes is how deep the consideration stage goes. Your Facebook audience is no different, and if you advertise to them without taking these three stages into consideration, you are almost certainly losing money in the process – even if Facebook is one of the most cost-efficient ad platforms in marketing.
Facebook has a special tool you can use to tell which stage a user is in based on how they’ve interacted with your website. You need to organize your advertising strategies to show people different types of sponsored content to people based on their position along the buyer’s journey.
So What Does This Look Like in Practice?
Actually creating ads that cater to your users in this way is simple. Pay attention to the wording and specific offer that each boosted post advertises. Here are some examples, chosen from a random selection of advertisements addressing a single topic.
All of the following advertisements target Facebook users that like pages related to entrepreneurship and start-up culture. As you’ll see, each one takes a slightly different position on how much it assumes of the user.
1. Awareness
This ad is directed towards any Facebook user who likes pages related to entrepreneurship and start-up culture.
Notice that it starts with the words “Did you know that…” and then goes on to offer a statistic that showcases the company’s value.
It makes no assumption on behalf of the user, and offers free access to a general set of resources that should be useful to anyone who is interested in entrepreneurship.
2. Consideration
At this stage, Allied for Startups makes a number of assumptions about users who view this ad. The first few words specify that this ad targets data-driven startups and the people who run them.
It then goes on to assign positive value to Polish tech talent, presuming that the user runs a data-driven startup and is looking to hire talent.
This ad’s call-to-action is pretty vague. “Let’s fill Europe with startups” doesn’t really specify what you should do. Register your startup as a Polish company? Hire remote workers from Poland? Move to Poland entirely? You are meant to be sufficiently intrigued by this ad to click on it and find out more.
3. Decision
This ad not only assumes that you’re an entrepreneur, but goes so far as to presume the exact type of business you wish to open, and offers a complete solution that meets your needs precisely. This particular type of entrepreneur is not interested in tech, not interested in hiring, and not interested in forming a network – this advertisement’s target wants to grow and sell food.
The ad has gone so far as to specify that you don’t “need a green thumb” to use their solution, further narrowing down the target audience of the particular post.
Mapping Sponsored Content to Your Sales Funnel
Our partner, Magnificent Marketing, has cracked the code on getting the most out of sponsored content on Facebook. Not only do you need to generate content that speaks to buyers at each of these distinct phases, but you have to make sure that your audience sees that content at the right moment.
There is very little benefit to showing a decision advertisement to a customer who has never heard of your brand before, and who has no particular reason to trust you above any other name in your industry.
This means that you have to develop content in tiers.
Think of your sponsored content as being mapped to a reverse pyramid:
You should plan on generating less content for each step moving down the pyramid. Using a 10-to-1 ratio as you move from Awareness to Consideration and again as you move from Consideration to Decision is a good rule of thumb. This compensates for the number of readers who aren’t in your target audience – people who won’t end up buying your product no matter how much you advertise to them.
Part Two: How to Map Ad Content to Each Customer Individually
Now that we’ve covered the strategy for addressing your customers en masse, we need to find out how you can map this content to the buyer’s journey of each individual. For this, we got in touch with Dave from Magnificent Marketing and asked him how he does it.
Q: Hi Dave, so what’s the secret to sponsored content on Facebook?
Dave: Well, as you know, getting sponsored posts to the right people at the right time is the most valuable part of any content distribution strategy. If you’ve categorized sponsored posts as awareness, consideration, and decision posts, you’re halfway there.
The tricky part is that Facebook doesn’t tell you whether any individual user has visited your page before, or whether they’ve liked or commented on your posts. You have only a few general behaviors to choose from – like people who have bought an online product in the last week, for example.
You don’t have access to user interaction data on an individual level on Facebook, but you can implement user interaction tracking on your website using Facebook Pixel, and then use that data for sponsored content.
Q: What’s Facebook Pixel?
Dave: Facebook Pixel is a snippet of code that you place on your website. This code tracks user interaction from Facebook ads, which lets you collect data and target specific visitor categories with sponsored content once your users are back on Facebook. It’s the key to successful Facebook content distribution.
Here’s an example: I’m running a B2B business and I have dozens of Awareness ads targeting people in my industry out there on Facebook. These ads point to blog posts covering general topics that are useful and interesting to people who may eventually become my customers. Every time a user clicks on one of those ads, Facebook Pixel tracks that interaction.
After an individual user reaches a threshold of, say, five Awareness posts. They’ll start to see Consideration content in their feed. This content is a bit more direct. It could be product comparisons, coupons, case studies, testimonials, you name it.
After this particular user reads five of those posts, they’ll start seeing Decision content on their Facebook News Feed. This is when we go with the direct call-to-action, offer free samples, or provide consultations.
By the time a user starts seeing Decision posts in their feed, they already know what you’re all about, and they are legitimately, genuinely interested in the value you offer.
Q: That’s amazing! How do you categorize this content on your website?
Dave: The key to making this strategy work is tagging every one of your website’s pages as either being an Awareness, Consideration, or Decision page. A blog post on a broad subject related to your industry would definitely be Awareness, whereas a specific product page with a great, big Buy Now button would be a Decision page.
By tagging all of your website’s pages in this way, you can connect them to sponsored posts that target visitor categories tracked by Facebook Pixel. This lets you do really granular things like show people sponsored content related to items they’ve abandoned in their shopping cart. You can also let Facebook advertise to people with similar interests to your most dedicated visitors – those who fall in the Decision category.
Q: So, not only do your Facebook ads map the buyer’s journey, but your website does too?
Dave: Exactly. The buyer’s journey continues whether your customer is on Facebook or on your website. Facebook Pixel is the tool you need to create sponsored content that speaks to individuals based on how they’ve interacted with your website.
Now, every industry operates a little differently when it comes to the thresholds between Awareness and Consideration, or Consideration and Decision. If I’m marketing for a heavy equipment company that sells products worth tens of thousands of dollars, I’m not going to jump the gun and go straight to the Decision category after someone reads a couple blog posts – I’ll have to wait and really draw them in over dozens of articles so that they know everything about my company and products before I make the final pitch.
If I’m selling inexpensive retail consumer goods, on the other hand, it wouldn’t make sense to wait that long. You might want to get to the Decision category as fast as possible, it all depends.
Q: Does this strategy apply with any other social network?
Dave: So far, Facebook is the one that offers the greatest power and flexibility when it comes to this advertising strategy. It’s also by far the cheapest, and that’s a huge advantage.
However, you can use this Facebook strategy in tandem with other social networks. Just as the buyer’s journey continues whether your customer is on Facebook or on your website, it also continues when customers are on platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn.
In fact, you can use this strategy to engage Awareness and maybe even Consideration on Facebook before switching to a more expensive platform like LinkedIn for the final pitch. For B2B companies, the boost of confidence LinkedIn inspires could help you close a deal, but the platform is far too expensive to spend advertising dollars on Awareness content.
Q: This is some very useful information. Thanks for your time, Dave!
Dave: My pleasure.
How to Use Facebook Pixel
At this point, it should be clear that Pixel is the secret key to the kingdom of successful content distribution on Facebook. However, getting started with Pixel can be a challenge if you’re not familiar with code.
Follow these steps to create, install, and use Pixel. This will be enough to get the most important conversion tracking metrics running so that you can see immediate benefits when creating and posting sponsored content.
1. Create Your Site’s Pixel
Open up your Facebook Ads Manager menu and click on Pixels. Click on it and you’ll see a pop-up like this one:
Click on Create a Pixel to get started.
2. Name Your Pixel
The first thing you’ll need to do is name your website’s Pixel. Importantly, Facebook assigns one pixel to each ad account, so you’ll want to name it after your business, not a specific campaign or a group of websites. If you want to connect Pixel to multiple websites, you’ll need to set up multiple Facebook Pages and Ad accounts – that’s just how it works.
3. Add the Code to Your Website
This is where it pays to be comfortable working with code. Facebook will ask you whether you want to install your code using a sales platform that offers Facebook integration (Shopify, for example) or to copy and paste the code directly into each of your website’s pages.
In order to achieve the strategy Dave outlines above, you’ll want to copy and paste the code on each page of your website. This isn’t that difficult, but if you’re totally unwilling to work with code, your website developer or administrator should be able to handle it for you without trouble.
For obvious reasons, we’ve edited out the code on this specific pixel – each code is unique and you will want to make sure yours only goes on your website. Copy the code and paste it anywhere between the <head> tag and the </head> tag on each page.
This isn’t the only code you need to place on your webpages. You will also need to copy a specific event code for each page. Facebook offers three options, and we generally agree with the Recommended one, but this page in the Facebook Help Center may help you decide best for yourself.
You will have to modify the Pixel parameters to fit your website’s specific type of content. Once you have done that, you can track specific actions by users. In the example above, the Search event tracks and optimizes searches for “leather sandals”. You can modify this term for any product or category you choose.
Just below the Search event, you have the View Content event, which triggers whenever a user views content on your page. This is the one that you need to embed in your pages.
Now all you need to do is paste the appropriate event code on the pages you wish to track. Since our primary goal is determining when users open tagged pages, you can post the View Content event code below the </head> tag on any of those pages. When prompted, choose Track Event on Page Load.
4. Ensure Pixel is Installed Correctly
If you followed all of the above steps, Facebook Pixel should immediately begin capturing user data from Facebook users who visit your website by clicking on ads. However, you will need to test this to be sure. Fortunately, this is easily achieved on Google Chrome.
First, download the Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome extension. Install the extension and visit one of the pages you installed Facebook Pixel on. The extension should find the Pixel code and trigger a popup that tells you how many Pixels are on the page. It will also tell you if the code is working correctly and offer help if it finds an error.
If you see a message like the one above, then you are in good shape as far as Facebook Pixel goes. The only thing that’s left is to create content that speaks to buyer personas and begin sponsoring content that attracts leads and gets your website seen.
Part Three: Make the Most of Your Sponsored Content Using Buyer Personas
Now that we have a tried-and-true strategy for generating audience interest in a brand and a vehicle for converting that interest into sales, it is time to address the last piece of the Facebook advertising strategy puzzle: content.
What are you going to say to your potential customers and leads? What subjects are appropriate for Awareness, Consideration and Decision blog posts? Who will read them? Who will write them?
This is where many Facebook marketers and B2B retailers make a big mistake – they start with the product first. This might seem like a reasonable thing to do, but sales-oriented content will always lose out to customer-oriented content.
The buyer is your best starting point for Facebook marketing. Forget about your product and your company for a moment and imagine whothe buyer is.
How Well Do You Know Your Customer?
Developing buyer personas lets you really get to know your customers. As Hubspot defines the term, buyer personas are “semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers.”
In practice, this just means that instead of broadly targeting a demographic, like “women between the ages of 25 and 40 who speak multiple languages”, you are narrowly targeting a specific type of person. For instance, if a travel agent were constructing a buyer persona that fits this demographic, it might look something like this:
“Elizabeth Nguyen is a 31-year old Los Angeles native who works as a Risk Analyst for an insurance broker. Although she was born and raised in California, Vietnamese is her first language. This is the language her entire family speaks with the exception of her American-born father, who is not Vietnamese. She also speaks French with limited proficiency thanks to her grandmother, who lived in French Indochina.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in International Business from UCLA, makes $80,000 per year, and briefly advised the local Asian American Business Association before quitting due to stress and differences of opinion with leadership. She is a practicing Catholic who dreams of someday visiting the Papal Palace in Avignon with her family, but can’t afford to take time off and bring her entire family along.”
It’s easy to see that as a marketer, creating this persona gives you a huge advantage when developing a Facebook advertising strategy. Using this as an example buyer persona, you can generate content that speaks to this individual and many thousands of people like her – you can connect with her based on her job, the languages she speaks, her family history, her religion, or even her frustration with a particular non-profit business association.
You can go even further with buyer personas, such as identifying how they prefer to consume content and what social network platforms they’re most active on. Read our guide on target personas for an in-depth look at this powerful tool.
Most importantly, a good buyer persona identifies the following critical points:
Goals. What does your ideal consumer really want?
Motivations. What motivates your customer to act? What do they care about?
Obstacles. What gets in your customers’ way when it comes to achieving their goals?
Demographics. What is your ideal customer’s place in society? To what groups does this individual belong?
Behaviors. How does your customer act? How does your customer treat other people or organizations?
The amount of data this exercise gives you is of incredible importance when developing a content distribution strategy for Facebook. Recall that while your Awareness content is suitably broad to meet any number of potential customer demographics, your Decision content has to be laser-focused on the specific person it addresses.
The better you know that person, the more information you have to draw from. Facebook ad targeting lets you target people using a dizzying array of interests, behaviors, and demographics.
If you are not sure where to start when crafting your buyer personas, Facebook Insights is one of the most useful tools available. It gives you broad demographic information about people who like your Page, which will give you the underlying data you need to create a story. You may also choose a specific real-world customer that you know personally, and start with that individual.
Create a Content Strategy that Speaks to Buyer Personas
With one or more buyer personas in place, you can now begin generating content that speaks to those individuals’ needs. You have the data you need, a proven method for getting the right information in front of the right people, and a highly developed Facebook advertising strategy for converting leads into sales.
Now the only thing left is the content. Recall that each level of the sales funnel should have around ten times the volume of the level above it. This means that for every Decision page you promote, you may have 10 Consideration pages and 100 Awareness pages – that’s a lot of content!
Fortunately, you can double up your pages and tags between ads. Try changing up your ad copy and use that information to find out what works best. Just make sure you don’t accidentally show users sponsored content they’ve already clicked on before – that’s wasteful advertising.
Making the most of Facebook means dedicating resources to the consistent creation of high quality content that speaks to your buyer personas. Only the most valuable information and the most poignant advice will cut through News Feed clutter. Don’t forget that when it comes to Facebook, you’re directly competing with cat pictures and that’s never an easy task.
Don’t have the time to plan and write your own content? If you want to get the Facebook advertising strategy ball rolling fast, speak with an Express Writers content strategist and let us know you’re looking to map your Facebook ads to the buyer’s journey – we’ll take care of you from there!
It’s Thanksgiving week, and content marketers around the U.S. are preparing for a delicious, tasty week of family, food and relaxation, and definitely no content marketing or strategy for at least a couple days. 😉
But in the days that lead up to T-Day, it’s wise to soak in all you can about creating your best content marketing strategy, so you return empowered and armed to take on your marketing for killer results.
We’re here with a fun map for you, just in time for the holiday:
How a perfect content marketing strategy is very much equal to the best Thanksgiving dinner you’ve ever partaken in.
To serve it up, you need the right recipes for success, tried-and-true tools and techniques, and winning dishes created with flair.
Here’s your ultimate guide, Thanksgiving-dinner style — baked and cooked up into a visually entertaining infographic by our team at Express Writers.
Enjoy! Don’t forget to share if you found this useful. And…happy Thanksgiving!
How to Throw Down Your Best-Ever Content Marketing Spread: Thanksgiving Style (Infographic)
5-Star Content Dinner Tools and Equipment
For a five-star content “dinner,” you’ll need:
Planning
Creativity
Research
Strategy
Good-ol’ elbow grease
Don’t Forget:
Just like any great feast, your content meal should move seamlessly from course to course. Your audience should tuck in with vigor and keep coming back to refill their plates. If you can make your audience feel warm, happy, and content, not to mention implicitly trust your cooking skills, you have succeeded. Needless to say, you can’t wing this kind of perfection, but we’re here to guide you through.
Ready to learn how to create a legendary Thanksgiving content spread from start to finish? Put on your apron – let’s get cookin’.
Create a table-like design for the below
9 Essential Steps and Recipes for a Fabulous Content Marketing Feast
The time you spend carefully and lovingly preparing your content marketing feast will pay off tenfold. That dedication will carry through to your audience down to the very last bite-sized sentence.
Here’s how to make your content dinner table legendary:
Set the Table for Content Success
Every great content marketing spread begins with a perfectly set table.
Your place settings and decorations need to match up with what you know about your audience, your kitchen, and your food. This is how you create a foundation that sets off your whole spread.
Keys for setting the table and planning your content feast:
Who are the guests that could show up?
What are your specialties?
What kind of content will your guests prefer?
What tools will you need to serve them the right way? (Are your kitchen and pantry properly equipped?)
During the meal:
When your guests are happily chowing down, check in with them from time to time and see how they like the spread.
Continually go over your recipes and techniques. Measure, analyze, and update your methods for an even better dinner.
Now that the table settings are planned, you can get busy in the kitchen!
Whip Up an Audience-Pleasing Side – Mashed Potatoes or Dressing, Anyone?
Every delicious Thanksgiving content dinner should start with a crowd-pleaser. To make it, you must know your audience and what they’ll love.
To find out what will please your guests most, ask them!
You can also imagine your ideal dinner guest to decide what to serve them. Think of them as a real person with distinct preferences.
Once you figure out what your audience craves, you’ll whip up dishes so delicious, everybody will go back for seconds (and thirds).
Tip: Give the people what they want. Serve content that performs like whipped mashed potatoes, sausage and apple dressing, or green bean casserole. These disappear like magic into hungry bellies.
Prepare and Roast Your Content Creation Turkey
The meat of a fantastic content marketing spread is your content creation turkey. It’s the star of the show and the vehicle that drives the whole meal. As such, invest in the most high-quality bird you can afford.
The best content creation needs careful preparation, plus plenty of time in the oven. Give it an ample amount of both so the end result is incredibly juicy, succulent, and mouth-watering.
If you rush it or season it wrong, it will come out dry and tough to swallow.
Make enough content creation turkey to use the extra meat in guest blogs and other content types, and don’t forget the final spices: creativity, readability, and great writing.
Tip: To put your content creation over the top, add a special spice that is unique to you as a cook. Your content turkey will be irresistible, even if your guests can’t put their finger on the secret ingredient.
Simmer Perfect Keyword Gravy
What’s a content marketing spread without keyword gravy? The right amount really makes your entire meal sing.
This is the link juice that takes your content creation turkey to the next level and makes your meal more desirable. The scent alone should draw your guests to the table, and, depending on how well your keyword gravy flows, Google might add you to the top of their list of V.I.P. cooks.
Tips:
Be careful not to make too much or over-season it. You want just the right amount to drizzle and spoon over your content and tempt your guests.
Dump too much keyword gravy on the spread, and your audience won’t be able to taste any other flavor. Google, especially, will give your meal the thumbs-down.
Avoid a lumpy gravy by using only all-natural keywords.
Serve Fresh Cranberry Content Sauce
It’s time to finish off your content marketing main dishes. A sweet side of zingy, fresh cranberry content sauce is the perfect addition to a savory spread.
Tip: Cook up the freshest content you can for the best taste – try using ripe cranberries and a hint of orange zest for originality.
Canned, regurgitated content is no substitute for fresh. Your guests will surely turn up their noses at this inferior fare.
Send Out RSVPs to Promote Your Thanksgiving Content Feast
The main dishes of your content marketing dinner are now simmering, baking, cooking, and roasting. As soon as you pull the first finished dish from the oven, it’s time to send out RSVPs to promote your content.
Send out invites to your lavish content marketing spread on social media, email, and other promotional channels.
The more people who see your invites, the more guests you could end up serving. Get the word out there!
Take the time to cater your invites depending on your sending method.
Choose the Best Recipe for Engagement Pumpkin Pie
If your meal is high-quality and satisfying, your guests will definitely stick around to help themselves to dessert.
Serve your very best engagement pumpkin pie (spiced with enough ginger, cloves, and cinnamon to make it lively). Your audience can sit back and savor a sweet treat while they go over the finer points of the whole meal. The better the meal – and the better the pie – the better the engagement.
Tip: See our favorite pumpkin pie recipe, below, for a crowning glory for your Thanksgiving spread.
Your Feast Is a Smash! …Now What?
A successful Thanksgiving content marketing spread that’s well laid-out, tempting and delicious can put you on cloud nine.
Wait one second, though – you can’t hang up your apron and have a celebratory drink just yet (though helping yourself to pumpkin pie is absolutely warranted… and no one will notice if you sneak a swig or two of libations).
The meal is still going, and you want to keep it that way.
Keys to keeping the meal and conversation flowing:
Keep the food warmed up for late arrivals and those who want second helpings. Thankfully, these dishes taste just as good as leftovers.
If you do it right, this should be a long meal that never ends. Get cooks to help you in the kitchen, and start planning more dishes with the help of an editorial calendar.
Finally, check in with your kitchen and keep going over your table settings, presentation, recipes, and guest comments to keep improving and climb to five-star-chef status with Google.
And to “sweeten” it up, here’s a REAL recipe just for our readers!
Express Writers’ Not Your Average Pumpkin Pie (Real Recipe!)
This spiced pumpkin pie is a true classic, but the method is a little different from the one on the back of your average can of pumpkin puree. It’s a little more flavorful and has a smoother, creamier filling. Plus, thanks to blind baking, the crust gets perfectly crisp. Enjoy!
This recipe makes one 8-9-inch pie.
Ingredients:
1 (9-inch) unbaked pie crust
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin purée (about 2 cups)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves or allspice, or to taste
3/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup heavy cream
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
Prepare the pie crust. Pre-heat the oven to 425°F. Roll out the pie dough and transfer to an 8 or 9-inch pie pan. Crimp the edges. Chill the crust while the oven preheats.
Blind bake the crust. Line the inside of the crust with parchment paper or aluminum foil. Fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or just until the edges turn golden. Remove the weights and lining, and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from the oven.
Prepare the filling. Combine the pumpkin purée, brown sugar, salt, and spices in a bowl. Mix until the brown sugar is completely incorporated. Whisk in the milk, cream, eggs, and vanilla until just combined.
Fill the pie crust. Place your blind-baked pie crust on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Carefully pour the pumpkin filling into the crust. Be careful not to over-fill the pie.
Bake the pie. Turn the oven heat down to 375°F. Transfer the baking sheet with the pie to the oven’s middle rack. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes. If the crust starts to darken too much, cover with a ring of aluminum foil and continue baking. When it’s done, the pie will be darker in color and may puff in the middle, and will jiggle a bit if you gently shake the pan.
The pie will continue to set as it cools. Let cool completely before serving with generous dollops of whipped cream.
Recently, I shared one of my latest blog posts on LinkedIn and received this comment:
“Love this article and longer, high quality content is definitely the way to go. I’d love to see a side bar or other complementary content about the best strategies for promoting content once it’s written.”
This is a great topic suggestion — and one I definitely need to address.
Why?
Because the reality is writing great content alone won’t get you far.
Composing a high-quality piece and hitting “publish” just isn’t enough.
You have to help it along on its internet journey.
Hold its hand for a little bit. You have to guide it into the limelight, or, in some cases, shove it out there.
It’s the only way to ensure success – as opposed to publishing it on your site, crossing your fingers, and hoping against hope somebody will stumble across it and read it.
With solid promotion, you can help your blog reach great heights.
The only question left, of course, is this: “How do I promote my blog?”
Well, friends, I’m here with tons of actionable tips to help you do just that.
Settle in with your cozy beverage of choice.
Ready? Let’s get knee-deep in great content promotion tactics.
“How Do I Promote My Blog the Smart Way?” 15 Tactics, Tips, Tricks, and Strategies to Try
There are tons of ways to promote your content.
Not kidding. Tons.
Because the amount of information is so broad, we’re going to break this down further into categories.
Based on your resources, choose your weapon(s) wisely.
The Lowdown: How to Create Great Email Marketing for Better Content Promotion
You know the power of email marketing — or you should.
Naturally, it can also do great things for promoting your content. Here are top tactics to try.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Need some ideas for promoting your next blog post? @ExpWriters has some great tactics to try!” quote=”Need some ideas for promoting your next blog post? @ExpWriters has some great tactics to try!”]
1. Build Up Your Email List
The number one thing you can do for content promotion is build up your email list. Once you have a direct line to a loyal, built-in audience, it becomes a platform for anything you publish.
Your email list will not only click-through to read your blogs. They’ll also share them with their social networks, which dramatically increases your exposure. In fact, your list is 3.9x more likely to share your content than people who visit from other places (like search results).
Email is widely used across demographics. According to Pew Research, 92% of adults online use it, and an average of at least 61% use it daily.
The reach potential of email is really, really big. So, how do you grow your list so you can tap into that?
We address this topic thoroughly in a previous post – it’s definitely recommended reading. Here are some key takeaways:
Use compelling CTAs in your content that urge readers to subscribe.
Create and offer free lead magnets (original guides, how-tos, videos, white papers, case studies, etc.). Collect visitor emails in exchange for your freebies.
Create evergreen content that continues to provide useful information long past its publication date. Include powerful CTAs in each one that ask for subscriptions, or point visitors to your email-gathering lead magnet.
There are also plenty of tools out there that can help you grow your list. Jeff Bullas and Kissmetrics offer great suggestions for tools to use, including both free and paid options.
2. Send Content to Your Email List at the Right Time
After you’ve built an email list, you can send them an update about when you publish a new blog post.
Jon Morrow of Smartblogger calls this combination of blogging + email “the ultimate publishing platform.” He also uses some other choice words:
He’s totally right, of course.
Here’s an example of an email I sent out to my list notifying them about a fresh blog:
However, this strategy gets better if you send the email at the right time.
There has been a standard stat floating around for a while about optimal send times – send in the morning, and send on Tuesday or Thursday.
Those times were the right times up until recently. Now, the advent of mobile is shaking things up. More and more people are checking their phones for email versus sitting down at their computers.
Vertical Response analyzed recent data and found that the ability to check email anytime, anywhere, has changed what your optimal email send time should be. Now, the ideal sweet spot is either morning or late evening on a weekday.
Here’s an infographic that shows the send-time as compared to the transaction rate (email opens and clicks). In particular, late-night email readers show a lot of potential for engagement.
Sending a short, sweet email to your list when you publish an awesome new blog = key. That goes double for sending that email at the right time.
For you, that ideal time might look a little different from the average. Play around with when you send your blog update emails, and track what works. These two powerhouses combined could make all the difference.
3. Segment Your Email List
There’s another way to truly super-power your content promotion with email: Send out blog updates to the exact people who’ll love reading about whatever topic you’ve covered.
This means you need to segment your email list, according to a HubSpot infographic. Divide it up into categories based on information like your audience’s interests, where they opted-in for email in the first place, their purchase record, and more.
These people may show more enthusiasm for certain posts than other list subscribers. Send targeted post updates and you’ll start encouraging loyal followers who are more likely to share your content.
4. Promote Your Blog in Your Email Newsletter
CoSchedule has a great tip to boost your blog visibility via email. Use your email newsletter to highlight your weekly posts along with curated, relevant content from around the web.
For instance, at the end of the week, round up all your blog posts from the past seven days into your email newsletter. Include other great content that got published the same week. This provides high value to your readers, and it reminds them to check out what you’ve published recently. Win-win.
The Lowdown for On-Page Blog Promotion and Content Strategies
This next tip is pretty simple: Use your blog to promote your blog.
It sounds strange, but it works. Here’s how:
5. Invest in High-Quality Content (Content That Promotes Itself!)
After email promotion, the next best way to promote your content is to let it promote itself.
That means keep it high-quality all day, every day.
Here at Express Writers, just by increasing our content quality (more time spent on research and creation) we have significantly boosted shares, traffic, and comments.
Why is this so?
Because quality content can speak for itself. Here are some other reasons why it’s a self-promoter, via an infographic we did:
Mediocre content will need much more promotion to get people interested. Quality content, meanwhile, is inherently interesting. It stands on its own two feet, which means promotion is WAY easier.
Be the best answer to the question your user is searching for, and flesh it out with good writing, research, and attention to detail. Your efforts to get it noticed will take half the work.
6. Link to Internal Content
If you can keep your visitor on your site longer, you have a better chance of shepherding them into the fold. Loyal followers, in turn, are more likely to share your content than non-followers.
The result is a cycle of engagement, conversion, content sharing, and boosted visibility.
How should you link to your own content on your blog?
First, always do it in a useful way. Only link to your other content when it’s relevant to the piece you’re writing.
Next, avoid spammy links. Don’t link to the same article three times in one sentence. Don’t pepper every other word in a paragraph with internal links that aren’t relevant to your topic.
For a great example of internal linking done right, look to Content Marketing Institute. In this article by Joe Pulizzi exploring 2018 content marketing trends, related links are included in context with terms that help demonstrate that they’re not random picks:
These links are “handpicked.” That tells you they have been personally selected to go with the article you’re reading. It’s helpful and valuable for information gathering, but it also keeps you on their site longer. That’s just smart.
7. Use Creative CTAs
Using creative calls-to-action at the end of each blog you publish can help promote your brand and your other content. Really good CTAs drive traffic to areas you pinpoint, which can lead to higher visibility and conversions.
At Express Writers, we use creative CTAs that promote our course (education) and our services (done-for-you). For example, the end of this post encourages readers to check out other content pages on our site that explain our services:
8. Update Consistently, and Optimize Your Blog for Search
Don’t forget to optimize your blog for search engines! The organic traffic you can get from Google is invaluable.
Here at EW, this has been HUGE for us. We currently have over 4,000 keyword rankings in Google because we’ve optimized our blogs (over 700 of them) and zeroed-in on keyword opportunities.
The more you blog, the more pages you have on your site for Google to index. The more content you have that’s Google-indexed, the more your chances improve for higher traffic and leads. Just look at this HubSpot graph from a study that shows the correlation:
That’s the one-two punch you need: a consistent publication schedule with only high-quality content, and posts that target search with great keywords.
To hone in on the keywords to focus on in your blogs, you need to do keyword research. This is a big topic in and of itself, but there are lots of guides out there to help you.
If you’re a beginner, this HubSpot blog is a good starting point. Don’t forget to check out our own deep dives into this topic here at EW. Check out our articles and videos on how to handle closely related keyword terms, why keyword search volume doesn’t matter, and how to use long tail keywords naturally in your content.
The Lowdown on Social Media & More (Promote Your Blog Off-Site)
Use the resources at your disposal across the world wide web to give your blog the extra traction it needs. Social media is a no-brainer, but there are a few other tricks to flesh out your power to reach more people.
First, let’s start with the obvious:
9. Share on Social Media
The most basic way to promote your posts on social media is to share them. Whenever you publish a new post, share it on all your accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. You’ll get hundreds, or even thousands, of extra eyes on it (depending on who follows you and who shares the post).
10. Widen Your Social Following
If your follower count is a bit low at the moment, increase your commitment to engage with people on a human level. Your goal isn’t to rake in followers, but to make genuine connections with other people that are mutually beneficial.
How to do it?
Reach out. Visit somebody’s profile in your “friend-of-a-friend” network and like some of their posts or leave a genuine comment. Participate in Facebook group discussions and Twitter chats.
Put yourself out there and mean it. The rewards will be ten-fold.
11. Create Unique Social Posts for Each Platform
When you’re sharing your blog posts on social media, don’t forget to compose unique posts for each platform.
That means you should write different posts for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. All of them will share the same link to your fresh blog, but they’ll be targeted for each unique audience.
To write the best posts possible, ones that will get noticed, compose each according to best practices. Don’t forget to post at optimal times for the best engagement.
For instance, for Facebook, posting the link to your new blog at 9 a.m., 1 p.m., or 3 p.m. gives it a better chance for engagement. This is according to CoSchedule’s analysis of 20 different studies.
This tip is simple. According to best practices for posting to each network, include popular industry hashtags with your blog link to help a wider audience discover your post.
13. Repost Your Post!
Don’t just share your new blog posts on social media networks once. Set up a posting schedule where you share out your link multiple times during the day right after it goes live. Then, for the following week, share the link once a day.
Guest blogging can be a great way to promote your own blog. If you do it right, you’ll be publishing on a popular platform and getting your content in front of a wider audience.
However, there are a few keys to guest blogging strategically:
Choose blogs that topically make sense for your guest posting opportunities. The audience of that blog should be in line with your own target audience. It should speak to the same interests and pain points.
Choose top blogs with authority. These blogs will get lots of engagement, so you can benefit by association.
Make sure you’re allowed to reference your own content wherever you guest blog. Linking to your own content naturally and in a way that adds value for the reader is a great way to get clicks and grow your own audience.
For a great example of the power of guest blogging, look at these statistics from Bamidele Onibalusi. After guest blogging on JeffBullas.com, he netted almost 800 visitors and 300 new email subscribers in two weeks:
15. Try Cost-Effective Ad Promotion
Of course, we have to mention ads once in this guide. You won’t be shelling out thousands of dollars, though. Instead, all you need is some pocket change.
An easy way to promote your blog on Facebook for very little money is through their ad tool. Just head to the Ads Manager to get started creating a campaign.
In particular, to promote your blog, your best move is to retarget your existing traffic. These people are already fans/followers, but they may have missed your post due to the quick-moving flow of their feeds.
Making sure these people see that you’ve got another great post ready is a simple way to boost traffic and engagement.
The best part? You could spend as little as $25 to get it done. Here’s how:
1. Choose a great, recent post that could use a boost. It needs to be REALLY good (but you’re already on top of those quality standards, right? Right).
2. Choose your ad objective. For this scenario, you’ll probably want to choose the “Traffic” option for your ad objective. Facebook says this will “send more people to a destination on or off Facebook, such as a website, app or Messenger conversation.”
3. Create a custom audience to target. Buffer has a thorough guide to creating ads and getting it done. Here’s a screenshot that shows you all the essential pieces of audience targeting:
After you narrow down your target audience, you get to choose your ad placement, budget, and schedule.
Then you’ll choose your ad format (single image works well, here), enter the link to the blog you want to promote, and create your ad text.
You may think you’re ready to confirm your ad at this point, but hold on a second. There’s one more step…
Set Up a Facebook Pixel to Track Ad Performance
Facebook Pixel is a little tool you can install on your website to help you track ad performance. If you don’t yet have it set up, you can find it under “Advanced Options” on the final ad creation page:
All it requires is adding a snippet of code to your site’s header.
Don’t know how to do that? The help guide shows you your options based on how you manage your website:
Once Pixel is set up for your site, you’ll need to create an event that tracks when people click your ad on Facebook. You’ll get an additional snippet of code to add to the existing Pixel code:
This is a low-cost way to quickly promote your blog and get noticed. By retargeting your existing audience, you’re grabbing that low-hanging fruit off the tree instead of leaving it to wither.
Go the Extra Mile: Promote Your Blog to Promote Your Reach
The high-quality content you’re putting out now should perform ludicrously better than your old, cheap efforts. (If you haven’t invested in quality yet, stop. Go back. Do not pass “Go.” Do not collect $200.)
But… (And this is a big “but”)…
…If you want to give your high-quality stuff that little extra push it needs, you need to promote your blog.
After all, you can’t reach super-star status without some good ol’ P.R.
In fact, think of yourself as your blog’s public relations manager. You want it to get noticed in all the right ways so people start associating your name/business with authority, value, and expertise.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they did get it done. Your efforts should be no different.
So, the only thing left to do is get out there and give your content every last opportunity to shine.
Google has become increasingly cagey about its updates. If there is one, unless it’s gargantuan, you probably won’t hear about it from the search engine.
Take a look at some of their communications on Twitter via their spokespeople, John Mueller and Gary Illyes:
It’s like it’s physically impossible for them to come out and say it.
Because of this secrecy and caginess, marketers and webmasters have to play a game of detective whenever they notice changes to search. This “volatility,” as it’s commonly termed, shows up in their automated statistics, particularly those for SEO visibility. From there, they have to read the clues and compile data to come to any conclusions.
The most recent Google update waves that rolled through the internet happened in March 2017. It’s now simply known as “Fred.” (Gary Illyes jokingly said all the updates should be called Fred, and it stuck for this one in particular.)
There was no announcement, no forewarning. SEOs and webmasters noticed the “volatility” affecting their stats and their rankings. Then they compared notes, which all lined up.
Here’s a good example from Glen Gabe, the marketer in front of G-Squared Interactive. He shared how Fred affected a site that had heavy advertising:
Overnight, the site lost almost 60% of its organic traffic from Google.
That’s a huge amount. Lots of other sites reported traffic losses just as deep, but Google kept mum about it.
So, that begs these questions: What did Fred do? What kind of sites, exactly, did it affect? How do you stay on Google’s good side if they won’t offer guidance about their algorithm updates?
And, perhaps most importantly, what does the biggest Google update in 2017 mean for you and your site? Let’s delve into this topic together. Grab a tea or a coffee, and join me!
Google’s “Fred” Algorithm Update: The Shot Heard ‘Round the World
This update sent shockwaves through the internet.
Some marketers discovered their traffic had been hit hard (down anywhere from 50% to 90%).
It was obvious that Google had done something big, but they wouldn’t cop to it outright.
This tight-lipped response was nothing new, but it understandably rankled the SEO community, and not just because it was/is frustrating. Not just because it was/is frustrating, but also because Google’s zipped lips are no help in the face of huge chunks of organic traffic gone overnight.
Kristine Schachinger for Search Engine Land summed up the frustration in her column:
Here’s What Fred Tweaked
So, we know that Fred was mainly a quality update – but what aspects of quality did it affect?
SEOs analyzed the stats from hundreds of affected sites to figure out what it did. They found that this update mainly affected content sites whose goal was revenue (as opposed to providing value to users). Specifically, Barry Schwartz termed these sites as “ad heavy, low value.”
These sites had features like:
1. Heavy Advertising
One of the defining features of all sites badly hit: ads. Each and every one had heavy servings of advertising. Or, they had generous helpings of affiliate links sprinkled into their content. These ads were liberally integrated, pushy, and deceptive. Lots looked like on-site links but actually took you elsewhere.
2. Redundant or Non-Expert Information
In most cases, sites that suffered an organic rankings dive also featured redundant, non-expert, or rehashed information. This was thin content – not well researched at all, stuff that merely skimmed the surface.
3. User Experience (UX) Interference
The user experience is how easily a visitor can navigate your site, click around, and find what they need. This is a big factor for site quality because a poor UX can totally impede that information-gathering process.
Here are some examples of roadblocks to a good UX. Glen Gabe calls these “low-quality user engagement problems”:
Disruptive pop-ups that take over the whole screen
Confusing navigation and site hierarchy
Too much advertising – so much so that it drowns out the content
Problems viewing the site on mobile
4. “Jacks-of-All-Trades, Masters of None” Content
Another common feature was that most of the sites with traffic hits had a content format, like a blog. However, topics covered a wide range of information without any rhyme or reason.
Some of these hit sites publicly shared their URLs. Here’s an example of a few posts from one of them:
The content was not published to inform users; rather, it only served as a vehicle for advertising. In particular, the above blog featured useless information that Wikipedia or the “help” section of a product website already covered better.
Here’s How to Keep Fred Happy
Now that you understand what the Fred update did and who was affected, you can keep your own site compliant and Fred-friendly.
This will be important for the future because Google is never going to stop throwing out updates. In fact, it’s pretty much a standard monthly thing these days.
Here’s how to stay on Fred’s (and Google’s) good side to keep your chances of getting blindsided by any future update slimmer.
1. Recommit Yourself to Quality Content and Good SEO Practices
If you’re already on top of your on-page SEO and content quality, good. Keep going. This commitment is one that builds on itself in terms of positive gains. The longer you stick with it, the better the results you’ll see.
If you’ve cut corners, tried some “shortcuts,” or are just plain unsure about where you stand, you need to recommit yourself to quality. That means you should start making improvements to your site and content right this second.
The sooner you start, the sooner you can get on your way to climbing the ranks, not falling into a black hole of Google penalties.
2. Pay Attention to UX
UX (user experience) is the first determiner of your site’s quality. If your UX is terrible, your visitors won’t be able to read your content at all. That’s a big no-no.
To keep things up to standard, first look at the basic structure of your site. Approach it like an average visitor would. Ask yourself these questions:
Is it easy to read?
Is it easy to navigate and/or find what you’re looking for?
Do your pages use SEO properly?
Is the page layout clear and logical?
Do all the links point to where they should?
You need to make the user experience as seamless and enjoyable as possible. Using disruptive or deceptive site design, on-page advertising, or links will do the opposite. Google will penalize you.
3. Rethink Your On-Page Advertising
Ads are fine to use on your site – within reason. For example, the Fred update targeted sites who used ads so aggressively, they messed with the UX. When ads get in the way of somebody gleaning the information they need, Google has a problem with it. You should, too.
If your focus has been on monetizing your site, think again. Cut back on ads, especially ones that break up or interfere with content. Make them less intrusive, and try to improve your advertising for the user. This often means getting rid of most of your ads and making the ones you have left more intentional.
4. Check Your Old Content
When your site-wide experience is optimized for your audience, then you can move on to your content and link quality.
First, critically analyze your blog posts and content pages. If they’re thin, badly organized, or full of errors, you’ll get penalized. Rewrite them, improve them, and add depth and value.
Going forward, it will help to have a set of quality guidelines in place for each and every piece of content you create. Rigorously adhering to these will help you keep publishing top-notch content and improve your rankings.
To stay on the right side of Google, check on who’s linking to you. Make sure your link profile is made up of relevant, quality sites.
If sites with zero value are linking to you, this can hurt your rankings. However, there are ways to rectify the situation.
Just say no to link schemes, including paid links and spam.
Contact sites with low quality and ask them to take down your link.
When the above fails, disavow all links that negatively affect your site. This tells Google to ignore them when it assesses your site for quality.
6. Stay on Top of Google Announcements (and Non-Announcements)
Yes, Google is notorious for keeping quiet about updates, but they do still announce a few (sometimes). It’s important to keep your ear to the ground so you know about important changes as soon as possible.
As for unannounced important changes, keep yourself in the loop with the help of your social network. Many SEOs and marketers take to Twitter when they see something fishy going on. Other major sites like Search Engine Land will post updates and attempt to confirm the situation with Google.
Follow these blogs and fellow marketers so you’re always in the loop:
Check out my list of recommended SEO and content marketer bloggers here.
To get almost instantaneous SEO updates, one marketer who stays on top of updates like none other is Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick).
Link schemes aren’t the only bad SEO practices to avoid (there’s a reason it’s called “black hat SEO”). There’s a host of others out there. They may sound like great shortcuts to ranking, but they’re actually ethically unsound in Google’s eyes.
Cloaking – This technique presents one page to human visitors and another to search engine crawlers in order to deceptively boost the site’s rank.
“Thin” content – Thin content has no meat to it. It’s shallow, short, vague, rehashed, or unhelpful information that provides no additional depth to a topic.
Content scraping – This is the web equivalent of plagiarizing. It involves taking content from another site and passing it off as your own. You can do it with old-fashioned copy-and-paste, but lots of people employ software or special programming language that does it for them.
Automatically generated content – Perhaps the laziest black hat technique on this list, automatically generated content is created through programming. It gathers paragraphs of random text interspersed with keywords.
Google has an even bigger list of deceptive, spammy, confusing, or manipulative tactics they have targeted. Sites who use them will get penalized – so not worth it.
Stay Ahead of Google’s Update Waves and Ride the Tide to Great SEO
Here’s the bottom line about unexpected yet gargantuan Google updates like Fred.
To avoid equally huge penalties that hurt your business, you have to attempt to stay ahead of the curve.
This means committing yourself to only producing and publishing high-quality content. It means never engaging in link schemes. It means focusing on your site users, first and foremost, rather than monetization, A.K.A. lining your pockets.
It can definitely be frustrating when Google pulls the rug out from under you with a big update they won’t confirm. You’ll be less worried, though, if you know you already have great policies and standards in place for your site and your content.
In fact, websites with this commitment to quality often see a boost in traffic after an unannounced update. This is the ideal scenario, no?
Many times, after an algorithm change, with the amount of organic content on our site we’ll see an increase in rankings. Our SEMrush rankings show steady growth with some decrease here and there. Here’s a typical month of position rankings for our site (screenshot taken of September 2017 rankings):
If all of this information seems overwhelming and leaves you wondering where to go from here, the answer is simple. Start with your content, make it better, then work outward from there. If you need help, we can write quality content that will make a difference. Our authority content level is one of the best ways to stand out on the web!
$73,000. According to The Creative Group, that’s the average salary of a content strategist in today’s market.
And, if you’re working in a bigger market, the map below shows us that this number can climb as high as $100,000.
But you’re not just getting in this industry because you’re attracted to the high salary potential and strong benefits.
You’re getting in it because you love telling stories. You’re doing it because you understand the power that great content can have on people.
Above all, you’re doing it because you want to build a rewarding career for yourself where you can use your skills to impact the lives of others.
The salary is just the icing on the cake.
And while you’ve wanted to get into this industry for awhile, you’re just not quite sure how to do it.
What do you do if you don’t have any experience? Who hires content strategists? How many jobs are available? Where can I build the skills needed to become a desirable candidate? The answers to these questions, and more, lie within the sections below. Let’s dive in.
Content Strategy Career Guide 101: Why You Need a Growth Mindset to Succeed
The first thing you need to understand about starting a career as a content strategist is that it’s essential that you develop a growth mindset from the start.
Stanford professor and renowned psychology expert Carol Dweck defines someone with a growth mindset as:
“An individual who believes their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others).”
Someone with a fixed mindset, on the other hand, would be an individual who believes that their talents are innate gifts and cannot necessarily be improved upon.
The world of content marketing changes frequently. What was considered “great” content in 2010 certainly isn’t the same as what it is today.
For this reason, deciding to become a content strategist means also deciding that you’re willing to improve, grow, innovate, and change as the industry demands.
While that doesn’t mean that you should simply follow in the footsteps of others in the industry, it does mean that you have to be willing to grow and develop your skills along the way.
Before you move forward, I strongly encourage you to make the decision to develop the growth mindset that will allow you to prosper as you move through your career as a content strategist.
9 Key Skills Needed to Become a Top Notch Content Strategist
As you begin your career as a content strategist, here are a few of the main traits that you’ll need to succeed.
1. Content Strategy Fundamentals
The ability to develop a Content Differentiation Factor (CDF), set content goals, and understand how to create high-ROI content are all important foundational pieces.
2. Develop Audience Personas
Audience personas form the basis for who content will be written for and about.
3. Develop Content Marketing Funnels
By understanding which type of content should be created for each type of the marketing lifecycle or sales funnel, you can increase the effectiveness and conversion rates of a content marketing campaign.
4. Keyword Research and SEO Knowledge
A focus on long-tail keywords and SEO helps ensure that your content marketing strategy maximizes its long term ROI potential.
5. Create and/or Manage Creation of Authority Content
With so much content being created today, you need to know how to put together content that separates itself from pack.
6. Content Promotion
Understanding how to successfully promote content is arguably just as important as your ability to help create it.
7. Develop an Editorial Calendar
Building a content calendar helps to ensure structure and efficiency throughout a content marketing campaign.
8. Track Content Marketing ROI
The goal of any marketing campaign is to maximize ROI. In order to determine the ROI of your strategy, you need to know which metrics to track and how to track them.
9. Set Up and Manage a Content Budget
Understanding how to maximize content strategy budget will put you in a position to increase ROI potential for the companies and clients you work with.
If you’re just getting started, this list might look intimidating.
After all, how are you supposed to find the necessary resources to develop all of the above traits before even starting your career? Keep reading.
How to Develop the Necessary Traits to Start Your Content Strategist Career
If you were to attempt to scour the web to find the resources needed to develop the traits outlined above, you’d likely be looking at a learning period of 12-24 months.
How do I know?
Because, in the past, I was a self-taught content strategist.
And not only did I take over a year to attempt to learn these things on my own, but I had a very minimal understanding of each concept even after that prolonged period.
That all changed after 7 years of day in, day out, learning and applying myself to the field of content marketing and content strategy, and finally making my way to the top of my industry through a ton of self-taught content marketing.
But, once you develop the necessary traits, how do you actually go about getting a job in the industry?
Let’s find out.
3 Different Ways to Work as a Content Strategist
One of the most exciting things about working in content strategy is that there are several different ways to build your career. And, the salary of a Content Strategist is holding steady across every major U.S. city:
Let’s take a look at some of the main options at your disposal:
1. Companies Hiring In-House Content Strategists
Take a quick look at job boards like Indeed and Glassdoor and you’ll find that there are thousands of companies looking to hire in-house content strategists.
7,716 Content Strategist jobs are currently posted on Glassdoor
The salaries are great, too – Facebook is hiring for a Strategist and paying $103,000-$148,000/year:
And while these companies now understand the importance of having a content strategist on their staff, here’s the truth…
They’re having trouble finding talented strategists to fill these positions.
According to another study by The Creative Group, 45% of advertising and marketing executives claimed that finding creative professionals is a major challenge today.
One of the issues here is that many of these positions require years of relevant experience.
And, since many talented people in content strategy are just getting started in the industry, this presents a problem.
The solution?
The industry needs to find a way to groom more content strategists to develop the skills, knowledge, and experience necessary to lead a company’s content strategy.
How to Become an In-House Content Strategist for a Company
As you’re browsing job boards filled with thousands of content strategist jobs, you’ll notice a trend.
They all want EXPERIENCED content strategists.
And, as you see this over and over, you’re probably thinking:
“How in the world am I supposed to gain relevant experience if every potential job requires experience?”
If this is what you’re thinking, you’re not alone.
It’s a problem that job seekers in every industry face.
But what’s the answer here? How do you gain the necessary experience to become a top candidate for one of the thousands of content strategists jobs on the market?
Well, you have a few options here:
1. Volunteer at a Non-Profit Organization. Employers want proof that you have the ability to create and manage the content strategy of their organization. What better way to show that then by volunteering your skills and managing the content strategy of a non-profit you care about?
2. Complete Projects as a Freelancer/Independent Contractor. Freelancing has the lowest barrier of entry and is a great way to develop your skills and experience. We’ll talk about this option more in the coming sections.
3. Work for a Marketing Agency. Marketing agencies often require at least some experience, and/or a strong educational background, but can be a great opportunity to expand your skills and knowledge while working on a variety of different content strategy projects.
The important thing to realize here is that there is no cookie-cutter solution to gaining experience and putting yourself in a position to get hired by top companies.
And while it will take time to develop experience, the career advancement opportunities make it well worth it.
2. How & Why to Find Work as a Content Strategist in Marketing Agencies
Whether because of budget constraints or apprehension towards going “all-in” on content marketing, many companies work with an agency that can handle content strategy for them.
This opens a lot of opportunities for job seekers like yourself.
And, in my opinion, working for a content marketing agency is the absolute best move you can make if you’re looking to quickly advance your skills and earn valuable experience.
This is especially true if you’re able to find an agency that has a content marketing influencer that you can learn and gain experiences from.
How do I know?
Because it’s the exact route many of my internal agency Content Strategists have taken.
From the thorough content strategy training to gaining an understanding of how to develop content that earns real ROI, my Strategists say it has been an amazing learning experience.
And it’s an experience that I’m sure could help you have as well.
How to Become a Content Strategist for a Marketing Agency
We’ve already identified that marketing executives are having trouble finding talented creatives to fill roles within their companies. Fortunately for you, the same can be said about executives at marketing agencies.
But that doesn’t mean they’ll simply hire anyone that claims to know what they’re doing.
To get hired, you need to provide proof that you have the skills and knowledge to get the job done.
Doing this starts by developing a strong portfolio of your best work.
When developing your portfolio, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind.
They include:
1. Create Your Own Domain & Website. Website builders like Squarespace and Jimdo make it easy and affordable to build an online portfolio regardless of whether you have any tech skills.
2. Show Your Best Work. This may seem obvious, but many potential job candidates flood their portfolio with dozens of projects. Instead, it’s best to narrow it down to the 4-5 projects that you consider to be your best work.
3. Let Your Projects Do the Talking. While you should optimize your website with copy, don’t overdo it. Point out your qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, etc. and let the quality of your projects do the rest of the talking.
Don’t have projects under your belt?
No worries. If you don’t currently have any projects to speak of, you have a few options:
Volunteer to Complete Projects for a Non-Profit. Once again, this is a great option to prove that you have the chops to manage an organization’s content strategy.
Start by Taking On Projects as a Freelancer/Independent Contractor. We’ll talk about this more in the next section.
Create “Pretend” Projects. Find out the type of clients the marketing agencies you’re looking to target are working with. From there, create a project showing how you would handle content strategy for a client within that niche. You can do this by either creating an imaginary client or doing it for a real business that represents their ideal client.
Clutch, a review site for firms and agencies, also has a list of 900+ content marketing agencies that you can target.
If you’re looking for an agency in your area, a simple Google search should yield plenty of results.
My search for ‘content marketing agencies in PA’ led to over a dozen agencies that I could apply to.
Overcoming “Imposter Syndrome” When Applying
When preparing to apply to an agency, it’s natural to feel a sense of “imposter syndrome” because of your perceived lack of experience and skill level.
But, as Jeff Sauer, a digital marketing consultant, says, one of the things that often keeps agency applicants from getting jobs is their lack of confidence.
As he mentions:
“The people who are hiring you are just as scared about their lack of knowledge in digital marketing as you are. Digital marketing is new, and new things are scary. Concentrate on how you can make things less scary for both parties, and you will get hired.”
This is a great piece of advice and it applies to applying for a content marketing job just as much as any other digital marketing job.
When creating your cover letter, focus on your strengths and how you can contribute to being a productive employee for the agency.
Don’t get caught up in the skills and knowledge that you don’t have. After all, so long as you maintain a growth mindset, you’ll learn those skills and develop the necessary knowledge as you continue working in the industry.
3. Freelance Content Strategist
When I started freelancing part-time in the summer of 2012, the opportunities for professionals in content marketing were bleak to say the least.
Job sites like Upwork and Freelancer.com were filled with clients that were looking to pay the bare minimum for the skills of freelancers, regardless of their expertise or experience.
Fortunately, the tides have turned. Today, freelancers have more opportunities and are as well-respected as they’ve ever been.
It’s about darn time freelancers got some respect.
The reason for this is two-fold.
For one, the number of skilled professionals that have decided to join the world of freelancing has risen significantly. The initial perception about freelancers was that they were freelancing due to their inability to find a job, and not by choice.
And, according to Intuit, the freelance economy – also known as the gig economy – accounts for over 34% of the US workforce. That number is expected to rise to 40% by 2020.
Second, businesses have begun to realize that hiring a freelancer, or a team of independent contractors, often produces higher ROI. This is due to just how expensive it can be to hire in-house content specialists.
Even just hiring a single writer, inbound marketer, editor, and community manager will cost the average business $221,000 per year.
Add a seasoned content strategist to the mix and you’re looking at right around $300,000/year.
All of this equates to talented freelancers being in higher demand than ever.=
In the end, the main point being made here is simple:
Freelancing CAN be a career if you want it to be and it’s NOT, by any means, a symbol of failure because you didn’t get a “real job”.
In addition, it’s a great way to develop the skills, knowledge, and experience necessary to open up opportunities for the future.
How to Become a Freelance Content Strategist
Before pitching your freelance content strategy services to clients, you’ll need to do three things. They include:
1. Pick a Niche. By determining your niche, you’re immediately putting yourself in a position to maximize your income potential while working with clients in an industry that you actually care and know about.
2. Create a Website. Use website builders like Squarespace or Jimdo to create a website that gives you a platform to market to clients.
3. Build Your Portfolio. Using the strategies outlined in the previous sections, create 4-5 projects that display your ability to provide content strategy services.
From there, the biggest question for most freelancers is simple:
“How do I find clients?”
Before we move into some of the options for finding work, it’s important to realize that, as a freelancer, it will likely take some time before you earn a steady flow of high-paying clients.
The benefits associated with freelancing, such as freedom, choice of clients, and the ability to set your own rates, come with the sacrifice of what can often be inconsistent income.
So long as you maintain a growth mindset and work towards building your reputation, however, it shouldn’t be long before you put yourself in a position of high demand.
As far as where and how to find clients, you have several options:
Cold Emailing Clients in Your Niche. Create a list of 200-300 potential clients within your niche. From there, take the time to write personalized cold emails aimed at bringing them on as clients.
Guest Posting. Find out what publications and/or websites the clients within your niche read and start pitching guest posts to get in front of them.
Contena. Although it is a fairly new site, Contena features dozens of remote content marketing related projects and even a few full-time job opportunities.
If you’re willing to develop a growth-mindset, cultivate your skills, and prove your abilities, a career in content strategy can be both rewarding and lucrative.
