CONTENT

MARKETING:
FIRST STEPS
Summary
Introduction............................................................................................... 3

What Content Marketing is...................................................................... 5

Getting Started......................................................................................... 8

Planning the content strategy................................................................ 11

Content strategy execution................................................................... 21

Content strategy analysis and optimization......................................... 31

Conclusion............................................................................................... 37

About Rock Content...............................................................................39

Introduction
↑ Summary

If you've gotten this far, I can indeed say that Content

Marketing is now an established reality in the world.

According to Hubspot marketing statistics, 70% of marketers

are currently investing in Content Marketing, and 77% of
companies have a Content Marketing strategy.

Content is increasingly becoming a key player in all

marketing strategies. No matter what your company does,
it will have fewer chances to stand out if it decides to deny
the importance of content. Especially when some of your
competitors may have already had the brilliant idea of investing
in content.

This ebook aims to help you understand what is needed to

get your strategy started. We will help you plan, execute, and
optimize a Content Marketing strategy that brings results.

Enjoy your reading!

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What Content Marketing is
↑ Summary

Content Marketing is nothing but a structured

strategy to elaborate and spread relevant
content to attract, engage, and retain
customers.

This process builds a trustful relationship

that will increase the sales opportunities
generated by your marketing team month-
after-month. It also ensures the amplification
of your brand presence.

CONTENT MARKETING:

# COSTS 62% LESS

# GENERATES 3 TIMES MORE

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

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↑ Summary

This strategy relies on the premise that you create a

relationship based on trust by offering something of
value to your customer. In other words, the opposite of
the traditional model.

Unlike conventional marketing strategies, where

interruption is the key tool to reach your prospect,
Content Marketing is based on the concepts of Inbound
Marketing, also called attraction marketing.

Today, with content, any company can become an

authority in its field. All it takes is a strategy, planning,
and execution aligned with its objectives.

Large, distinct companies, such as Lego, Tecnisa, Coca-

Cola, and Red Bull, rely on content to increase users'
affinity with their brand, create fans and influencers,
and, of course, sell products.

We want to help you create content better, faster, and

reach the largest audience possible. It all starts with
defining your strategy. It may be difficult at first, but it is
not impossible.

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Getting Started
↑ Summary

Having a communication channel with your customers is essential, and

you know it. Whether it's a newsletter, a blog, or just starting with a
profile on social media, today, all companies see the importance of this
strategy and know the returns it can bring.

However, most companies do not keep a customer relationship working

in the right way. As you read this ebook, how many companies you know
have outdated blogs, websites with no updates for months - or years -
and inactive profiles on social media?

Maybe this is happening in your company right now.

The first challenge is the lack of consistent planning with clear objectives.
It is not enough to produce content, and expect that it alone will bring new
users and retain your audience. Believe this, it will not happen. Therefore,
our first step is to plan the Content Marketing strategy.

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↑ Summary

# Not focusing on your persona and

creating content that only you
find valuable;

# Not having clear goals about what

your company wants to achieve

# Only worrying about a high volume of

new posts and leaving quality aside

# Producing content without research

# Not keeping regularity;

How to fail on your content strategy

# Not promoting the content

Just as there are good practices, there are those that

you must avoid at all costs if you want to get good # Not optimizing for search engines
results with content.

Here are some examples for you to know about before # Talking only about your company
you even get started, so you can identify them in time, and not producing informative and
thus acting in a preventive way. educational content.

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Planning the
content strategy
↑ Summary

Good planning may be the key to the success of # Collecting leads for my product/service?
your content strategy. It is possible to observe
potential failures, challenges and trace a path # To rank for hundreds of keywords in search
towards achieving your goals. engines and thus dominate the organic
traffic of my niche?

Define your goals

# Become a leader in your industry and be
constantly mentioned as an authority in
Before starting your strategy, you should ask
your area?
yourself some questions:

# What is the main goal? # Would it be a thousand monthly readers?

# Is my definition of success to have the # Ten thousand?

most readers?
# 100 new leads a month for my company?
# To have the most engaged readers?

Once you can answer one or more questions

# By what number can I measure my like these, you will possibly have a sense of
definition of success? your goals.

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↑ Summary

The second step is the deadline.

Do I want to have 10,000 readers in 6 months? One year?

Once you have done this, it is time to start mapping out the
path to reach your goal.

Apart from this, remember that just as important as

setting objectives and goals is executing your strategies
focused on these objectives.

It is very easy to get lost in the numbers. There will always

be clear objectives, but there will always be new actions,
goals, and other needs that will call your attention.

Digital Marketing is a vast field of opportunities, and

Apart from that, another important note is:
because of this, you can get lost in an ocean of metrics that
can leave you confused about your real goals.
NO MATTER THE QUALITY OF YOUR CONTENT,
So, for now, it is worth remembering that regardless of what
WITHOUT A WELL-DEFINED GOAL, IT IS
your goals are, focus only on what matters.
IMPOSSIBLE TO EVALUATE THE RESULT.

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↑ Summary

Know your buyer personas

A Buyer Persona is a simplified representation of a

company's ideal customers.

As the name suggests, a persona is a character created to

help your company better understand who the customer
is and what they need.

"Persona or buyer persona is a semi-

fictional profile representing a company's
ideal customer, created to help your
business better understand who the
customer is and what they need.
Personas allow for more sophisticated
marketing strategies."

Don't make the mistake of believing that just a

conversation between you and your team will be enough
to create your personas.

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↑ Summary

Interviews, surveys, and conversations with # Company communication language;

your current customers and even prospects
are the most valuable weapons for creating # Language of blog posts and social
these fictional representations of the media content;
ideal customer.
# Choosing the main social media platforms
The benefits of a buyer persona are for your business
countless, but for those who work with
Content Marketing, only one matters: # Defining the content that you must produce;
well-defined buyer personas mean more
effective Content Marketing. # Defining formats of this content;

Buyer personas impact all parts of a strategy # Chosen keywords;

and, to make it even clearer, there are some
points where your persona is essential and # Style and frequency of email marketing;
helps to set up actions effectively. I will list
some points: # Choosing the sponsored links;

# Campaign features, such as Facebook Ads.

Without personas, your strategy may have results far

below expectations.

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↑ Summary

Defining your editorial MONDAY

INTERVIEW WITH CLIENTS
tone of voice
TUESDAY
Constant updating is essential for a
A VIDEO OF AN EXPERT WITH TIPS
successful blog. Therefore, to make things FOR YOUR INDUSTRY
easier and ensure that you stay on track, you
must follow a framework of your plan, which
WEDNESDAY
we call an editorial calendar. COMMENTS ABOUT
INDUSTRY NEWS
It's a simple idea. To get started, make a
weekly schedule, with each day of the week THURSDAY
reserved for a different type of task. ARTICLE BY A GUEST AUTHOR WHO
IS AN EXPERT IN THE INDUSTRY
Need a simple example for your corporate
blog? Check it out:
FRIDAY
A LIST OF THE BEST ARTICLES IN
YOUR INDUSTRY PUBLISHED ON
THE INTERNET DURING THAT WEEK

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↑ Summary

That's a fictitious schedule, but it could very well fit

many types of corporate blogs. The important thing
about having a calendar is that you commit to that
routine and have "guidelines" to follow.

Of course, eventually, you won't get a specific type of

article or produce an infographic, but calendars are
there to ultimately be broken too! The important thing
is to get your reader used to the periodicity and know
that there will be fresh content to consume whenever
they come back.

You can download the Rock Content Calendar Kit and

use the templates we use to base yours on! This way,
you will know what information is indispensable and
have clear guidelines for the first actions to take.

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↑ Summary

Content Promotion

Everything you write must be spread across

multiple platforms to reach multiple audiences.

One of the most critical points of a content

strategy is understanding that your results can
require up to 12 months to appear. Therefore,
this creates a need to acquire traffic through
other channels.

Email marketing, newsletters, social media,

and guest blogging are the most suitable
ways to work on content promotion in a
comprehensive and well-rounded way.

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↑ Summary

Finding these channels is the key to a successful Content Marketing strategy. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
Pinterest, and Linkedin are great for increasing the reach of your content, for example. So, finding the channels
your audience is on is key.

Publishing an article is just the first step. Promoting it to ensure it reaches the broadest possible audience is
necessary, so focus on promotion. Remember:

# Whenever a new article # Do a weekly newsletter to

is published, it should be promote the best articles
shared and promoted on all from the last seven days
the channels you have; you published;

# Create a Social Media # Find blogs of similar subjects

calendar that takes into to yours that communicate
account different days with a similar persona, so
and times to promote the you can also write guest
same content; blogs for their publication.

Content promotion is the secret weapon of every strategy and must always be done to achieve better results.

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↑ Summary

Measurement

For your result analyses, we recommend

installing Google Analytics and Google
Search Console on your website. Both are
free tools, rich in features, and easy to
use if you are just starting with analytics.

To help you out, Google offers free basic

and advanced certifications for its tools,
which ensure you can use them in the
best possible way.

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Content strategy execution
↑ Summary

Now that you have a goal and a plan, you might be asking
yourself: how do I start operating my Content Marketing
machine? How much should I invest in Content Marketing?
Which professionals do I need to hire to execute it?

At this point, you'll have to make some strategic decisions to

figure out what's best for your company. After all, the content
won't write itself!

Internal, external or mixed team?

There are many ways to create an excellent content team.

Some companies have succeeded by hiring highly skilled
professionals and assembling teams of employees to produce
content in-house.

Other companies seek out specialized content production

companies to reduce investment and maintain editorial quality.
Each model has its advantages and disadvantages, and the
arrangement will depend on the specific things your brand
wants to communicate and your corporate culture.

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↑ Summary

Internal team Outsourcing

This strategy is excellent when you need This strategy is perfect when the company
a lot of daily interaction, very dynamic has no experience in producing content, has
and constantly changing agendas, or the difficulties recruiting a strong editorial team,
production of more technical articles. or even when it has a smaller
budget that does not allow an in-house
An internal team encourages collaboration, content team.
communication, speed, and distribution
of information. When hiring a content provider, it is very
important to evaluate the quality of the
Note that having an internal team does not work and the previous experience of that
mean that all your employees have to work company. Before hiring this service, always
from the same office. Many companies have ask which case studies the provider has
dispersed teams, in some cases all over been working on and consider if any are a
the world. benchmark in Content Marketing.

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↑ Summary

Mixed team

Many companies have successfully

combined mixed approaches between
an internal, and outsourced team for
their content strategy.

Companies directly align branding

or marketing departments with the
content provider to ensure that
the Content Marketing strategy
communicates what the company is.

This work is a good option. In

addition to producing content at
scale and with the quality of market
professionals, you can focus your
internal team on the most strategic
issues and content at the bottom
of the funnel, which talk about your
business or area of operation.

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↑ Summary

I want to start writing,

now what?

Research your client's interests in-depth: news

concerning your industry and look at who has
recently done or written something interesting.
Those are great ideas to start designing your
topics and feeding your blog.

Found something compelling? Write your point

of view as a comment or critique on it, adding
your analysis. Take advantage of the headlines
to contextualize trends and news from other
industries in your field.

Talk to experts in the industry and ask for help

to generate ideas. Find the diffuclties your
audience faces, and help them solve their
problems. Ask your readers what they would
like to read about!

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↑ Summary

Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Many professionals don't have this The first three positions are responsible for
knowledge, but you will come out at least two receiving almost 55% of all clicks, so your goal
feet ahead of your competitors with it. Search is to occupy one of these positions.
engine optimization, also known as SEO, is a
technique used to ensure your content is at This strategy consists of several optimizations
the top of the organic search engines. that you must make to your content and your
site. We recommend reading this complete
SEO is essential for the simple fact that less material on the subject that we have produced
than 2% of all clicks end up going to the here for a full understanding.
second page of a search for any given term.

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↑ Summary

A good title is everything

Your title - or your headline - is the first, and

perhaps only, impression your potential reader
will have. A good title can turn your visitor into a
reader, and the rest of the article should serve to
confirm that expectation.

It must be able to do more than just grab

attention and briefly communicate an entire
article and thus attract the reader's attention to
your text.

A good way to think of attractive titles is to make

sure that they always promise the reader to
generate more value and knowledge in exchange
for their time to read the rest of the article.

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↑ Summary

Creating editorial templates

Editorial templates are nothing more than Of course, having templates

writing formulas for everyday article creation. helps to speed up and
Each site has its templates, and they standardize your language,
significantly speed up the content production but you can eventually break
process. How many times have you seen the them. It's okay to break out
following formula: of the pattern. The important
thing is that standards exist
and give you dynamism.

TITLE: Some other template ideas:

5 TIPS TO IMPROVE YOUR
CONTENT STRATEGY # Galleries with X photos
with a paragraph
commenting on each one;
STRUCTURE:
# 1 INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH # Step-by-step articles on
how to perform a task
# 1 LIST WITH 5 TIPS
# 1 CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH # Recipes in general;

# Interviews with
industry experts.

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↑ Summary

Building your audience's loyalty

It is very important to increase reader engagement with your That's why we've also chosen to put together some tips to ensure
blog to strengthen the contact between the brand and that your readers spend more time and discover as much content
the potential customer. on your site as possible.

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↑ Summary

Check them out:

# USE INTERNAL LINKS: # INVITE YOUR READERS AND COMPANY

When creating a post, always remember STAFF TO SHARE YOUR ARTICLE:
to link it to previous articles and other Place the buttons for sharing on social
pages on your site. By doing this, media and always link to their Twitter/
you ensure that your reader is always Facebook/Tumblr/etc. profiles.
browsing and getting to know a greater
volume of content. # PRODUCE INTERACTIVE CONTENT:
Polls, reader questions, etc. Initiate
# INVITE YOUR READERS TO COMMENT: conversational posts with your audience.
By asking for comments, you manage to
increase engagement, and, as a bonus, # PLACE LINKS TO RELATED POSTS AT
you also increase the amount of content THE BOTTOM OF YOUR ARTICLE:
on your site. A good tip to increase the These links can lead to other content
number of comments is to end your on your site and thus engage the reader
articles with a question directed at your even more.
reader. Ask what they think of the article
or if they have anything to say.

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Content strategy analysis
and optimization
↑ Summary

By now, you are probably asking

yourself: How do I know if
everything I've done is working
out? How do I know if I invested
my money correctly? Is it time to
calculate the return on investment
(ROI) of your content strategy?

We have compiled some tips for you

to start measuring the returns of your
strategy and thus optimize it to have
increasing returns.

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↑ Summary

Measuring ROI

Remember back in the beginning, when Once you can do this kind of attribution, you
you decided what the goal of your Content are ready to calculate your ROI. The formula is
Marketing strategy was? Would it be to as follows:
increase traffic? To generate more sales or
to create more registrations for ROI = PROFIT ÷ INVESTMENTS
your website?
Where:
No matter what the goal of your strategy
is, the important thing is to choose a metric # Profit: total value of
that represents this goal to make your ROI the sum of conversions
calculation. Once you are sure of your primary obtained by the channel
goal, the first step is to define a financial value
for it. # Investment: total cost of
operating the channel that
Suppose that a new lead generated on your generated the sale
site is worth "$5.00" to you. In this case, to
calculate the ROI of your Content Marketing So, suppose you update your blog daily, and
strategy, we need to start thinking about the it has a monthly operation cost of $ 1500.00.
concept of attribution. Your blog generates 1000 monthly leads for
you (remembering that each lead is worth
Where did the visitor who performed this R$5). Therefore, your ROI would be
conversion come from? From the newsletter,
your blog, or a sponsored links campaign? ROI = 5000/1500 = 3.33

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↑ Summary

Other relevant metrics

Number of comments Sharing on social

It is a fantastic metric to know how That's an excellent indicator and will give you a good
much your readers engage with your indication of how shareable, engaging, and interesting
content. The higher the number of your content is.
comments, the more voices directly
interact with your brand.
Total time spent on your website
And if you want to increase
Month by month, you can measure the total number
engagement per visitor, divide the
of visits multiplied by the average duration spent per
total comments by the total visitors.
visit to get an idea of how much people are engaging
You will know how often your visitor's
with your brand. As the number increases, this
comment, and so you can start
becomes a great signal that your brand is growing in
prodding them to comment more and
visibility and audience.
increase engagement.

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↑ Summary

Using data from search

engines and social
media to improve your
content strategies

When producing content, it is essential to

always be aware of external information
when identifying the trends and interests
of your audience.

For this reason, we have listed some

tools that can be useful in the analysis
of your users' interests, in your
competitive analysis, or even for small
day-to-day surveys.

Check them out:

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↑ Summary

Twitter trending
topics

Want to know the hottest

topics on Twitter in real-time
in your region? They are in
the Trending Topics!

Bing Ads
Intelligence

Similar to the Adwords

Google Ads Keyword tool keyword tool, but using

Bing data.

It helps you find the main search terms related to your site's
subject and thus discover potential subject ideas to cover. Topsy trends

Google Trends Like Twitter's trending topics,

but incorporating other social
It helps you to understand and compare the interest shown media to discover the hottest
towards specific topics, and how they vary over time. topics on the web.

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Conclusion
↑ Summary

Throughout this guide, you have learned the main points to Guide to Creating Personas;
consider when you start your Content Marketing strategy.
We have gone through all the steps and shared our tips for Getting to Know WordPress
planning, implementing and improving your strategy.
Content Marketing Planning Guide.
Now it's in your hands. Are you ready to get started? How
about turning your brand into a Content Marketing machine? It Other than that, we wish you all the best
will all depend on your efforts! during the development of your strategy!

To help you on your new journey into the world of content, we And if you need help, you can count on us.
have prepared a list with the main ebooks we recommend for
those who are starting a new strategy: Good luck!

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↑ Summary

About Rock
Content

Rock Content powers the content experiences of over 2,000 brands, marketers,
and agencies. As a global content leader, Rock Content offers innovative content
marketing solutions, creative services, on-demand talent, and professional training.
Founded in 2013, Rock Content has grown to a team of 500 creative professionals,
a talent network of over 80,000, and a product suite of high-performing
innovative solutions.

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↑ Summary

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