7 Fundamental Content Marketing Goals for Businesses In 2022

Before we double down on all-things “content marketing”, it is important to understand what content marketing exactly is.

To be honest, it is nothing new. If it were up to us, we’d say that content marketing is a dated concept that tends to favor companies who improvise & add latest strategies to it.

These days, content marketing has become a norm, and rightfully so, we can’t – or just would not want to – imagine marketing without content.

With the help of the internet and social media marketing, a new dimension of marketing opened up in the form of content marketing and thus began its exponential rise.

But, what is content marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

For an effective marketing strategy, it is important to set some content marketing goals to set the tone of your marketing. Also, it is because these content objectives are that will determine whether your marketing is fruitful or not. Hence, smart goals for content marketing are just what a company needs.

Why?

The benefits of content marketing are coming up shortly so hold your horses until then.

Content marketing goals can truly connect you with your potential customers. If you have trouble deciding on what your company should make its smart goals, then know that you’re headed in the right direction.

Next up, serving a steaming hot pile of 7 content marketing goals.

Your business will benefit greatly if your content marketing campaigns and strategy goals are aligned between all relevant stakeholders within the company. Here are some of the benefits:

• Smooth Collaboration: When all relevant stakeholders are aligned on the content marketing goals than it will be easier for them to collaborate on the campaign.
• Employer Advocacy: With a more holistic view of content marketing, it will be easier for relevant stakeholders to share the content in their networks. This is even more important for B2B businesses where employer advocacy is even more important.
• More Accurate KPI tracking: When your team are aligned on the content marketing campaign and strategy, it’s easier to set and track KPIs.
• Faster Content Rollout: The right amount of alignment will always help in faster content production and rollout.
• Better ROI: It will be easier to make smart decisions, allocating budgets and achieving results your team and all relevant stakeholders will be proud of.

How to tie content to business goals and outcomes

Instead of setting the awareness as the goal, think of awareness as one step on the path towards the business goal. So what’s the business goal through content marketing? To drive profitable outcomes.

1. Increased Brand Awareness

The first goal you should consider setting is bringing brand awareness to your business through content marketing.

You might produce the best products or offer the best service, but there’s no point in doing that until and unless your prospective customers know you are out there, existing somewhere just for them and their ease.

If they don’t find out about you and know you, the chances are they will go with the competition instead of going with your business.

So, make some noise!

You should begin by putting yourself out there and building your buyer personas that will help your prospective and otherwise, buyers that much easier to understand for you. This is called brand awareness.

The next step is to consistently produce content that goes up on your website and social media platforms. Interacting with competitors, fans, and your audience. Make use of all the methods of content marketing available to you.

The biggest challenge you will face is creating content that stands out but you can use that to your advantage to create a lasting impact on your audience.

Maybe it’s a comical ad, maybe it’s a video clip that perfectly syncs a catchy song with inventive visuals, or maybe it’s something very simple and memorable.

Once that is done, you have got to effectively market it. What’s the point of creating all that content if you are not going to go all out on marketing and advertising now?

Bringing brand awareness is important for a business, – no matter the size of the company – especially now, when the consumers’ attention shifts rapidly.

To show that your business is unique and can make an impact on its prospective customers, brand awareness is the way to go. Or else, there is a chance of your market shares drifting away to another brand.

2. Attracts New Customers

Secondly, your goal should be to get as many people interested as possible. Bringing in new customers might seem like an obvious goal of marketing because without it, you have no sales and then no business.

However, it is not as simple as you might assume it to be. It comes in many layers of details that need to straighten out before they become a part of your audience and make a purchase.

Primarily because data (target audience, ideal age group, etc) comes before customers in the digital world, which means, it is data that becomes leads that then becomes customers.

Basically, what it means is this…

Data = Leads = Customers

The goal-oriented component of this type of marketing to attract new customers is to generate leads and for those to come, it is important that you first have the relevant data.

While content marketing might put your ad out there, it doesn’t take into account the fact that different people might react differently to the ad. For that, you need thoroughly-researched data to guide you down that path.

Some will choose to watch the ad. Some will choose to click on the link to your site. Some will choose to sign up for the email list.

All interactions will generate leads – most likely than not – but having data beforehand will help you to position your ad only to those that will generate these interactions and then leads, possibly.

The next questions are how you are going to make these leads become customers who are loyal to you and how you can increase the number of people in your network.

Good thing we plan on answering these questions below.

3. Fostering Brand Loyalty

Okay, let’s see.

We have attracted new customers.

Now how are we going to keep them loyal to the business?

It is an equally important part of a successful business, after all.

To keep your customers loyal to your brand, there must be a sense of loyalty fostered regarding the brand. Your audience should have a reason to feel proud and committed to you and that only arises when they are continually shown value and appreciation.

It could be discounts, membership points, giveaways, prizes, or anything else that fulfills the purpose. The options are limitless

Content marketing in itself is a conduit for bringing value to the customers/audience so that’s how this goal comes around.

Once you have managed to gain customers who trust you, the price won’t be the deciding factor for them in their purchases because you have proven your worth to them.

4. Staking Your Claim in SEO

This is another goal that will help you stand out from the crowd.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO needs to be established for any business so that whenever someone searches it on the internet, or its products/services, or any keyword associated with it; that business tops the results.

To rank the best on a search engine, a business is required to have excellent digital content that is engaging and compelling.

5. Lead Nurturing

Your customers are more vital to your success than you realize.

Sure, they bring in the good ol’ money but they do much more than just that.

They are your customer, your research and development team member, and also a friend who tells you honestly if the new jeans (or a new product, in this case) are looking flattering on you or not.

They tell you what they like and don’t like about your business – that’s feedback.

They tell you what they would like to see in the future and what they would like to see be changed – that’s new ideas for new products or product innovation.

These are all the more reasons why you should nurture your customers and content marketing helps immensely with that.

Engage with your customers so that you can make them into true customers.

6. Lead Conversion

Now, that all preceding things are done, let’s get to the main thing of it all: leads. How do you compel someone to buy from you?

Yes, of course, with the help of compelling, creative, and relevant content.

For that, make sure your product pages have all the information but aren’t too wordy that it feels like a chore to go through it all.

Placing catchy call-to-actions with all the right words, graphics and colors can help you significantly.

Pro-tip: Have them fill out the information about themselves that can be later used for your campaigns and added to your database.

7. Educating Current and Potential Customers

There is no business in the world that doesn’t face a little challenge every now and then.

That doesn’t mean the relationship the business has with its customers (new or existing) should suffer at the cost of that.

This is why you need to establish a strong foundation with your clients that it can weather any storm that comes.

For that clarity, content marketing is recommended for educating current and potential customers.

Here’s what you can do:

★ Your substance can represent the advantages of your item, portraying exhaustively what it gives and enlightening any other benefits that the customer might not have known about.

★ You can clear any misinterpretations about it, assisting clients with a better understanding.

★ You can provide enlightening statistics and discuss market trends with your audience.

★ You can share how positively impactful your business is.

The key is to share as much as possible and to be honest while you’re at it. You don’t want to lie and later land in hot waters with your customers.

Remember, the more you share, the stronger the connection will be.

The most common methods of content marketing, include…

1. Email newsletters

2. Website

3. Blogs

4. Infographics

5. Social Media

6. Webinars and podcasts

7. White papers and eBooks

The Present and The Future of Marketing

Content marketing is crucial for growing your brand and reaching the right audience.

90% of organizations are now using content for marketing purposes.

Why companies have started to adapt content marketing strategies is not a mystery to anyone.

The answer lies in the fact that the value content marketing offers at a considerably low price is impressive.

Especially when compared with the traditional marketing tactics, content marketing is much more successful in attracting people.

It reportedly costs 62% less than outbound marketing and still manages to generate three times more leads and six times higher conversion rates.

86% of companies employ content marketing strategists to plan projects that generate leads.

And that’s not all there is to content marketing. There are many more benefits of content marketing that are given below.

Wait, you weren’t expecting us to get to content marketing goals already, were you?

Too bad, there’s still some reading you need to do to get there.

Anyhow, without further adeu, let’s get to the benefits of content marketing.

Below is a list of all the reasons that have compelled companies to use content marketing instead of the traditional way of marketing.

1. Generates more revenue

2. Helps to create brand awareness

3. Develops customer loyalty

4. Better brand positioning

5. Makes your brand more visible to audiences

6. Helps build credibility and trust

7. Effective in lead generation

8. Attracts more traffic to your site

9. Affordable

10. More profitable

The saying: “content is king“ is becoming more and more of a reality with each passing day as companies make their shift from traditional marketing to content marketing.

Content Marketing Goals Are Evolutionary

The saying: “content is king“ is becoming more and more of a reality with each passing day as companies make their shift from traditional marketing to content marketing.

In conclusion, content marketing is a multi-use tool in your toolkit. It can help you achieve many goals, including bringing awareness to your brand, attracting new customers, fostering brand loyalty, engaging with and educating customers, and developing a strong SEO presence.

More importantly, it can help you use these goals to measure your success as a content marketer and as a business owner. Having said that, let us know if we have missed out on any aspect of content marketing goals that you wanted to be addressed in this article in the comments section.

SMART marketing goals is a framework that facilitates in successful content setting. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Timely.

How do you set the best content marketing goals?

• Lead Scoring
• Brand Awareness
• Trust
• Target audience
• Lead Generation