The content revolution has taken hold of the online world and if you’re not on board, you may be missing out on key opportunities to drive traffic to your website, convert lookers to opportunities; opportunities to leads; and leads to closed sales. It all starts with great content and a strong content marketing strategy.

In your quest to determine the best roadmap for building out the right content marketing strategy, you’re coming to come across a wealth of information – some of it good, some just OK. There are leaders in the field and then there is common sense. The good news is you don’t have to invest significant amounts of money to learn how to use your content to your benefit. Here, we’ll show you three tips to building a better content marketing strategy that drives results.

If You Build it, They Will Come –

The phrase likely brings back fond memories of Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones standing in the cornfield turned baseball diamond, but the concept here applies across multiple industries and for various purposes. In our case, it serves as a metaphor for building great content. Consumers have too many outlets for finding information and they quickly lose patience for sites with poor information or that lack clear value.

Your content marketing strategy should serve to build a foundation for quality traffic to be driven to your site or your blog. Once there, you want your readers to do something. Before you can inspire them to act, however, they must be drawn to what you have built.

Include a Surprise Inside –

Why were Cracker Jacks so popular? It wasn’t because the caramel coated popcorn and peanuts were so tasty we couldn’t get enough. It was all about the prize. We couldn’t wait to munch it down to find what was waiting at the bottom of the box. (Never mind the fact that Cracker Jacks prizes have diminished greatly in value over the years – we still like the surprise.)

Do the same thing with your content. If you only offer what is expected, your readers are likely to get bored with what you have to say – no matter how much intelligence you bring to a topic. Include a video or a picture to take your content to the next level. And, don’t assume the video needs to be a boring recap of the information you’re already sharing in your content. Think funny, and shareable.

Keep it Personal – But Not Too Personal –

In keeping it personal, this basically means you need to remember that you are writing for humans and not for robots. Keep the approach personal, as if you are having a conversation. But, don’t include the personal details of your life or your day unless they absolutely apply to your brand, your product line and your audience. Even then, keep it brief. Customers want to know what you can do for them, not how you feel about your cats that day.

It really isn’t difficult to develop a powerful content marketing strategy, but the key word is strategy. If you’re writing just to write, buy a journal. If you’re writing for results, you need a strategy. Need help getting started? That’s exactly what we do. Contact Susan J. Campbell Copwyriting Solutions and we’ll show you the way.