Content Marketing & Pay Per Click Are The New Power Couple!

Blogs, articles, whitepaper, case studies, infographics, videos. The internet is filled to the brim with content by the millions. So how will your own content fare while floating adrift on this sea of information? Will anyone read it? Will it be effective? The answers to these questions may quite possibly be yes, but to get there you need to find a way for your content to be found.

Content Marketing is one of the most important tools in the marketing toolkit. It can generate traffic, leads, and even move prospects further into the sales funnel. Even long after you publish your content it will still be working to bring you fresh eyes.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

On the other hand, pay-per-click (PPC) gets your content to a new targeted audience and as a result, your content gets heightened traffic, in short, defined periods of time. Using PPC makes this traffic easily measurable. Both strategies are effective to increase traffic in different ways and are usually used separately in the marketing strategy. But this has led us to question, why aren’t we just using both?

When you combine PPC and Content the benefits of both are increased. Creating compelling content is the first step toward reaching your target market but when you promote it through PPC you can drive sales and leads much faster.

Leads & Sales

In addition to accelerated leads and sales, when you start leveraging PPC with your content marketing, the data that you receive will illuminate the audiences that are most interested in your products or services. That way you can identify new audiences that you may not have previously been targeting. It may also help you identify new attributes for your buyer personas so that you can update them to be more accurate.

The great part about PPC is testing and tracking. You can test your PPC by measuring the results as you go, that way you can make adjustments and really nail down your PPC strategy to get the best results.

However, PPC can only do so much, you must first start with engaging content. Figure out what the pain points are for your audience. Determine what expertise you can offer on the topic and present it in an exciting way. Sometimes it can be hard to figure out what your audience wants but the best way to identify what content you should create is to look at what worked in the past. What are the most visited blog posts, product pages, past content pieces, etc? You can take an eBook or whitepaper that performed well and break it down into several blogs or you can take a high performing blog and turn it into an eye-catching infographic. 

Trending Industries

Another great way to figure out what content to provide is to look at the topics that are trending in your industry. Look at some of the top trending articles and figure out where there are gaps. Maybe it can benefit from added statistics or research. Figure out what it needs to make it ten times better then write your own.

Here are some great ways to elevate existing content:

  • Add some twists and turns. Make it exciting.
  • Use an enticing headline.
  • Make sure your content is actionable. Make sure it is something the audience can apply right away.
  • Use visuals like photos and videos.

Now that you have elevated your content it is time to combine this amazing content with your tested and proven PPC strategy. Your PPC strategy will promote your content piece through ads, increasing traffic, and generating leads and sales that will bring higher ROI for the marketing dollars that you spent. Here are a few tips on where to primarily spend these marketing dollars.

  • Where do customers on social media spend their time

Test and measure which social media platforms are best for your content. For example, a B2B whitepaper may test better on LinkedIn while a B2C blog post may do better on Facebook.

  • What is the best format and subject

Test your proven content first, this is the content that has performed well before. Gated content, as well as seasonal trend content, are both great candidates for PPC.

  • Segment

Run your campaigns on segmented groups of your products and services in groups based on things like benefits and features. Do not run a campaign for every individual product or service.

  • Use keywords

Make sure that your keywords are specific and high-performing so that they will attract better leads.

While content marketing alone casts a much wider net and does not target specific audiences, combining your content with a robust PPC strategy will get your content to the audience that needs and wants to see it. This will allow you to move prospects further down the sales funnel because you will be delivering content that will build their interest and confidence in your product or service.

To get started on this content marketing strategy, consider a marketing automation set-up like Sugar Market!

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