The HubSpot Approach to Content Strategy

When planning out your content marketing strategy, is your approach focused or scattered? In other words, do you have a solid idea of who you are trying to reach and how and where to find them? Or, do you try every angle out there, hoping something will work for someone?

Here’s the thing: according to HubSpot, approximately 78 percent of companies utilize the services of content marketing specialists. Those experts are using tried-and-true techniques to determine who the demographic is, where they are located, and what they respond to. From there, they can use a laser-targeted approach to effectively reach their chosen audience.

If your business doesn’t currently prioritize content marketing in that way, consider the fact that there’s a solid chance the competition does. The good news, however, is that platforms such as HubSpot make developing a cohesive strategy easier than ever.

Let’s take a look at the steps involved in creating your content strategy from start to finish. As HubSpot is the go-to tool of choice for First Page Strategy, we will specifically dive into how HubSpot can be utilized, as well.

Start with the Basics

The first thing you need to identify is your ultimate business goals. What are the products or services you offer? What output do you expect from your content marketing strategy? Once you figure this out, your plan can become more focused and defined, and the probability of attaining results is maximized.

You also need to identify the target audience and the buyer’s persona. Once you are aware of the persona of the target buyers, you will quickly be able to figure out relevant content to keep them engaged. You can conduct qualitative and quantitative research to understand the range of buyer personas for your business. There may be multiple buyer personas, but you may choose to begin with the key buyer persona initially.

Navigate Through the Buyer’s Journey

To best understand the impact of the strategy applied, you need to map the digital course of the buyer and understand the intent through each stage of the marketing funnel, right from TOFU and MOFU to BOFU, by making use of paid digital campaigns, advertisements, forms, and download options as defined in HubSpot’s Content Strategy.

Plan Your Keywords

Keywords are one of the main essences of content marketing strategy. Creating an extensive list of keywords formulated after brainstorming personas, the buyer journey, competitor research, buyer intent, and existing keyword ranking, and dividing them based on the buyer intent, can refine the strategic application of content.

You can assign a pillar landing page to each top-level keyword to optimize search intent to get organic leads and potential customers. Based on HubSpot’s Content Strategy, you need to identify the priority keywords with high search volume and low purchase intent to build your audience.

Create Content

Now that you have your keywords, you can definitely make content plans, which is the actual part of the content marketing strategy. HubSpot’s Blog or Article Ideas Generator can help you with content ideas simply by entering a keyword. The most-followed rule of content creation is to keep it simple, unique, and engaging. You can choose to plan your content in a variety of forms. Some of them are: blogs, articles, newsletters, videos, webinars, microcontent, ebooks, and more.

It is important that any of the above-mentioned formats of content always be clear and deliver the right message to the target audience. An ebook may intend to have in-depth content meant to educate or create awareness among the customers. On the other hand, a video can speak about the product or convey a story to capture the attention quickly.

HubSpot’s content strategy confirms that videos are 40 times more likely to be shared and circulated on social media than written content. An infographic is a combination of content and pictorial information that can cast a more compelling impact.

Content style or format may vary, but you will need to observe and experiment with the content marketing strategy to track the responses of the customers.

Also, grade your website to know the ranking of your content marketing strategy. To assist in content strategy and planning, HubSpot’s Website Grader looks into various aspects of your content marketing strategy and scans blogs and social media posts as well. This tool can provide recommendations for improvement.

Plan, Schedule, and Post

Now that you are aware of your target audience, their intent, keywords, and preferred content formats, you need to start planning, scheduling, and posting content. Make sure that the posts are consistent and steady — for instance, maybe one or two blogs and four social media posts weekly. You can plan, schedule, and post accordingly, and this consistency will keep you in memory of the target audience.

HubSpot predicted that in 2020 more than 70 percent of businesses would take their content marketing strategy seriously. And that 78 percent of those businesses would look for a content strategy specialist who could support their business digitally and multiply revenue.

Bottom Line

Creating a content strategy with HubSpot can drive new traffic to your website and help increase engagement with existing customers. First Page Strategy is happy to assist with any of your content marketing needs.

We are proud to note that we've been awarded the “Best Content Marketing Program Strategy” by the Content Marketing Institute for our outstanding work. We also received the “Finalist Award” in the category of “Best Content Multi-Year Program” for improving a client's web traffic by 13 times and increasing revenue by four times in three years.

Consider partnering with us to craft a content marketing strategy that will grow your traffic and convert leads. Contact us today to start the conversation.