If it’s successful, it results in more leads and more sales. Sounds good, right?

An effective content marketing plan ensures that when people search for your business online, they find it. This can boost traffic, conversions and — most important of all — sales. What’s more, a top-notch content marketing agency will ensure that your visitors only see awesome things being said about you.

In this, the first of Exposure Ninja’s content marketing tutorials, we give you the rundown on what content marketing is and how to do it like a highly-trained ninja.

What are the aims of a content marketing plan?

The main aim of a content marketing plan is to skyrocket your rankings by creating blog content for your website and publishing offsite articles to get you backlinks and exposure.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Building trust in your brand, gaining authority for your website and driving more traffic takes time and effort. It’s not going to happen overnight, and it’s quite likely that you won’t begin to see the full force of a content marketing campaign until after month three.

Here are some of the things to expect from a well-executed content marketing plan.

Improve search rankings

Let’s say you own a bike shop in Nottingham. You want your business to rank highly for relevant searches, such as “bike repair Nottingham” and “buy bikes Nottingham”. These local searches are important, because that means the searcher is nearby and they probably have a purchase in mind. If you’re way down on the third page of Google for these search terms, you need to work some content marketing magic.

Boost traffic

Getting your website on the first page of relevant Google searches will ensure a steady stream of traffic. More website visitors means more chances for people to find your killer products, and that means more potential leads. Other streams of traffic, such as links on websites with a high Domain Authority, will keep the digital punters coming in as rankings improve over time.

Build trust

A content marketing plan will ensure that your customers only see good things when they search for you online. It will fill your website with engaging content that adds value to your customers’ lives. What’s more, a content marketing plan can get your product reviewed by bloggers, magazines and websites that your customers trust.

Generate leads

The ultimate goal of content marketing is to make a return on investment (ROI). If you’re paying for a content marketing agency, it’s because you want to grow your business. Generating potential leads — and therefore sales — is the golden chalice of any content marketing plan. A combination of improved search rankings, traffic growth and trust-building will inevitably produce the desired outcome for your business.

Content marketing needs to work in tandem with SEO, PPC and other digital marketing techniques, however, in order to effectively generate leads.

If you’re looking for a content marketing agency to carry out expert work for your business, contact Exposure Ninja today! We’ll build you an online profile that showcases you as an authority in your chosen field.

How does a content marketing plan work?

Now you know what content marketing can do for your company, it’s time to go into how it’s actually done. Here are some of the things you need to do in order to launch a successful content marketing campaign.

Write an SEO-friendly blog

Every website should have an SEO-friendly blog. It’s number one in our Top 100 Rules About Everything. Having an up-to-date, informative blog lets your customers — and Google — know that you’re a brand to trust. It’s also a great way of naturally adding to your website with keywords that you want to rank highly for.

Content marketing outreach

Your product or service rocks and you know everything about your chosen industry, so share the wealth! A content marketing plan involves reaching out to relevant websites and online magazines, offering to write guest posts for them and showcasing you and an authority in your industry in the process.

Unique content is treasured, and this is why guest posts and will give your product the exposure it deserves. What’s more, it will help to build your a trustworthy, authoritative image for your brand.

Learn more about guest posts

Learn more about sponsored content articles

Blogger and influencer outreach

If you have an eCommerce business, getting your products reviewed by relevant bloggers or influencers is ideal for building traffic. The best bloggers and influencers have a trustworthy voice and loyal followers, so some nice words from them can go a long way. Blogger outreach is also a way of building backlinks to your site, which can see your website shooting up the search rankings in no time.

Should I use a content marketing agency?

A content marketing agency will promise to do all of this work for you for a fee. However, not all content marketing agencies are the same. A small handful are truly great, but they are often used by huge, international companies, so they can cost a lot of money to hire. The cheaper companies might try to shortchange you by operating behind a magic curtain and never telling you what they are actually doing.

We’re proud to say that we are not like other content marketing agencies. A content marketing plan run by our Ninjas is a plan like no other. We provide monthly reports to show you exactly how your money is being spent, so you can figure out whether or not you are getting a return on your investment. What’s more, we’ll put you in contact with our Ninjas so you can contact them via email at any point during the campaign.

Using digital nunchucks, we generate kick-ass guest posts and samurai-level sponsored content to skyrocket your eCommerce business up the search rankings.

Hopefully this guide has opened your eyes to the wonders of content marketing, but if you’re craving even more detail, check out our bestselling book: the Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing and Digital PR.