20 Questions For Your Content Marketing Strategy: Quality vs. Quantity

How many blog posts should we write each week? Or… How many articles will you deliver each month?

These may be the worst questions I constantly field with new prospects and clients.

While it’s tempting to believe that more content equates to more traffic and engagement, this isn’t necessarily true. The key lies in understanding the varying needs of new and established companies and crafting a content strategy that aligns with these needs.

New Brands: Build a Foundational Content Library

Startups and new businesses often face the challenge of establishing their online presence. For them, creating a foundational content library quickly is crucial. This library should cover a broad spectrum of topics relevant to their products and services. The focus is on quantity, but not at the expense of quality. The initial content sets the tone for the brand and should be informative, engaging, and representative of the company’s values and expertise.

• Types of Content: Product how-tos, introductory case studies, initial industry insights, and company news.
• Purpose: To introduce the brand, educate potential customers, and build SEO visibility.

Think about your target audience and their day-to-day activities that drive their personal or business growth. These are the topics that your brand should have expertise in and be writing about – beyond your products and services so that they recognize that they understand you.

Established Brands: Prioritizing Quality and Relevance

Established companies should shift their focus to enhancing the quality of their existing content library and producing new content that resonates deeply with their target audience. Here, the emphasis is on detailed, well-researched articles that provide value.

• Types of Content: Advanced case studies, in-depth industry analyses, detailed product guides, event highlights, and thought leadership pieces.
• Purpose: To reinforce brand authority, foster customer loyalty, and engage in deeper conversations with the audience.

I’ve republished thousands of articles on Martech Zone, including this one. It’s written from the ground up with the strategies I’ve deployed for countless clients over the last decade. It’s a critical topic, but algorithms have changed, technology has evolved, and user behavior has changed.

Having an old article that’s outdated with poor advice wouldn’t serve anyone. By republishing it at the identical URL, I can recap some of the old search authority the article had and see if I can build momentum with the fresh content. It would be best if you were doing this with your site as well. Just look at your analytics and view all your pages with zero visitors. It’s like an anchor holding back your content from delivering on its promise.

Quality and recency trump frequency and quantity.

Douglas Karr

Quality Over Quantity: The Misconception About Frequency and Ranking

Contrary to popular belief, content frequency is not a primary factor in search engine rankings. People often see large organizations produce a mountain of content and think it is. It’s an illusion. Domains with excellent search engine authority will rank more easily with new content. It’s the dark secret of SEO… one that I admire AJ Kohn for fully documenting in his article, It’s Goog Enough.

So producing content more frequently may be more clicks on ads for those crappy sites, but it’s not going to produce more business for you. What matters more is the creation of carefully crafted articles that address the topics and questions your target audience is researching online. Search engines favor relevant, informative content that provides a good user experience.

Diverse Content Types and Their Roles

There’s no shortage of types of content that can help at each stage of the buying cyle. Here’s a list of diverse content types that cater to different audience preferences and platforms, enhancing awareness, engagement, upsells, and retention:

• Behind-the-Scenes Content: Offering a glimpse into the company’s operations, culture, or product creation process. This is often shared as short-form videos or photo essays on social media.
• Case Studies: Showcase real-life examples of your product or service in action, building credibility.
• Company News: Share milestones, new product launches, or other significant company achievements.
• E-books and Guides: Comprehensive information on specific topics, often used as lead magnets. These are typically downloadable and designed for easy reading.
• Email Newsletters: Regular updates on industry news, company updates, or curated content. Newsletters keep the audience engaged with the brand regularly… an expectation of the subscriber.
• Event Announcements: Keep your audience informed about upcoming events, webinars, or conferences.
• FAQs and Q&A Sessions: Providing answers to common customer queries. This can be through blog posts, downloadable guides, or interactive webinars.
• Infographics: Visual representations of data or information, useful for simplifying complex topics. These can be shared across various platforms including websites and social media.
• Industry News: Position your brand as a knowledgeable and up-to-date source within your industry.
• Interactive Content: Quizzes, polls, or interactive infographics that engage the audience actively. These can be hosted on websites or shared through social media platforms.
• Podcasts: Audio content focusing on industry insights, interviews, or discussions. Podcasts cater to audiences preferring on-the-go content consumption.
• Product How-Tos: Essential for educating users on how to get the most out of your products.
• User-Generated Content (UGC): Leveraging content created by customers, such as reviews, testimonials, or social media posts. This can be showcased in blog posts, social media, or video testimonials.
• Webinars and Online Workshops: Providing in-depth knowledge or training sessions, often used in B2B contexts. These can be live-streamed or offered as downloadable content for later viewing.
• Whitepapers and Research Reports: Detailed reports on industry trends, original research, or in-depth analyses. These are usually offered as downloadable PDFs.

Each of these content types serves a unique purpose and caters to different segments of the audience. By diversifying the content library with these various types and mediums, both B2C and B2B organizations can effectively reach and engage their target audiences, accommodating a wide range of preferences and consumption habits.

Here are some great questions about your content that can guide a company in developing a comprehensive and effective content strategy:

• Have we already written about that? Is that article up to date? Is that article more thorough than our competitors?
• What questions are our target audience searching online?
• Do we have articles that range for each step of the buying cycle? Via: B2B Buyers’ Journey Stages
• Do we have the content in the mediums that our target audience wishes to consume it in?
• Are we consistently updating our content to keep it relevant?
• How often are we auditing our content to ensure it aligns with current industry trends and customer interests?
• Does our content sufficiently cover topics in-depth, or are there areas where we could provide more detailed information?
• Are there complex topics where we could offer more comprehensive guides or whitepapers?
• How are readers interacting with our content? What does the engagement data (likes, shares, comments) tell us?
• Are we actively seeking and incorporating user feedback to improve our content?
• Are we optimizing our content for search engines to ensure maximum visibility?
• How do we compare to our competitors in terms of keyword rankings and search engine results page (SERP) positioning?
• Are we providing unique insights or value that our competitors aren’t?
• Does our content have a unique voice or perspective that differentiates us in the market?
• What do our content analytics (page views, bounce rates, time on page) indicate about the quality and relevance of our content?
• How can we better utilize data to inform our content creation strategy?
• Are we incorporating a variety of multimedia elements (videos, infographics, podcasts) to enrich our content?
• How can we make our content more interactive and engaging for our audience?
• Are we effectively distributing our content across all relevant platforms?
• Are there untapped channels or audiences we could be reaching with our content?

Both new and established brands need to understand that while quantity has its place, especially in the early stages, quality is what sustains and elevates a brand in the long run. A well-curated content library serves as an invaluable asset, attracting and engaging customers while simultaneously establishing the brand as a leader in its field.