Content Marketing Guide: Increase Engagement, Reach & Sales

It’s easy to get sucked into the hype of social media and expect immediate results, but it just doesn’t happen that way.

If you don’t have a goal or a plan, you’re likely to get frustrated and quit. Social media should be part of a larger content marketing strategy designed to steadily build awareness for your brand through engaging content that generates leads for your business.

Don’t just think about what you’re posting. Think about how these posts will benefit your company as a whole by increasing sales.

Brand awareness

Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand.

Brand awareness is important because it’s the first step in getting your brand “top of mind.” When you think about a product — like toilet paper, for example — what brand comes to mind? Most likely, the first brand that popped into your head was Charmin.

With over $1 billion in annual sales, Charmin has created an incredibly successful marketing campaign with dancing bears and a catchy jingle that people remember. When they have to make a decision on which toilet paper to choose off the shelf, they go with the most familiar.

How do you measure brand awareness?

There are two primary ways to measure how aware people distinguish your brand: top-of-mind recall and spontaneous unaided recall.

Top-of-mind recall refers to whether your business came up when someone was asked what brands they thought of first, while spontaneous unaided recall refers to whether a person could name your business when they were asked what businesses they thought of spontaneously.

Both can be measured through surveys or focus groups.

Top-of-mind recall: You’re walking out of a supermarket with a cart full of groceries and walk past several people who see the name on all your bags from the store.

What’s most likely going through people’s minds? “I wonder what store those came from?” If you picked up some items from Walmart, that question might easily be answered; Walmart makes sure its logo and colors are bright and distinct so that even if someone doesn’t see one of its stores very often, they’ll still recognize the bags.

Learn how to boost your brand awareness with this free guide.

Boost engagement

The second goal to consider setting is one that will help you understand your audience better. This goal will track engagement or any action a user takes on your social media page.

Engagement includes clicks, likes, comments, shares, and mentions. It’s one of the most important metrics for understanding your audience because it gives insight into how users are interacting with your content.

Engagement metrics will also help you understand how well (or poorly) your social media posts are performing on each channel. But if this is your only goal, you might be underselling yourself!

Setting an engagement goal won’t tell you if users found what they were looking for when they landed on your page or if they turned into customers after interacting with your profile.

Lead generation

A lead is a potential customer who has taken some kind of interest in your company. For example, someone who has submitted their email address or other contact information for the purpose of receiving more information about your products or services is a lead.

There are many types of social media users, with varying degrees to which they are ready to become leads. Some may be familiar with you and already like you enough to want your newsletter. Others might be interested in learning more about a particular product but not sure if they want to make a purchase yet.

Funnels are a basic lead gen tool. A funnel is an activity designed to entice people into trying something new, then progressively guide them through steps until they end up making a purchase (or at least taking some action that moves them closer toward making one).

The easiest way to create leads on social media is by creating an effective sales funnel — in other words, posting content that gets people interested in what you’re offering and then giving them the opportunity to join your mailing list by submitting an email address or signing up for updates via Facebook Messenger.

Increase sales

Social media is a powerful tool for building your brand and getting more leads. But you need to be clear on what you’re trying to accomplish because it’s easy to spend time on social media for little or no return.

The first step is knowing what goals you should set on social media. Here are some ideas:

• Sell products directly to consumers
• Sell products to other businesses
• Sell subscriptions to services
• Sell professional services (i.e., accounting, law, web design)
• Sell advertising space
• Earn affiliate commissions by promoting other people’s products (i.e., Amazon Associates)

Social media can help you with all of your business goals.

You may not be new to social media but opening an account does not come with a content strategy guide. By starting with a specific goal in mind, you can set yourself up for success — what do you want social media to do for your business?

You don’t have to do everything suggested, but the more of these steps you incorporate into your plan, the better your results will be in the long run. It can seem like a lot at first, but take it one step at a time and before you know it, you’ll be more than comfortable with all that’s expected from an effective social media strategy.