Content marketing is an irreplaceable element of every well-rounded digital marketing strategy. Unfortunately, the mistake a lot of brands make is forgetting to set goals for their campaigns and merely focusing on publishing relevant, valuable content.

And while both relevance and value play a crucial role in content marketing, when a piece of content is not aligned with a specific goal or objective, it won't be nearly as effective at helping your business grow.

Let's take a look at seven content marketing objectives to start implementing today. 

Invest in Evergreen Content 

There are practically no downsides to publishing evergreen content. It can take a while for it to rank, but if it's written well, it will attract consistent traffic for years to come.

Think of it as an investment in the future. As long as you update and republish it often, it will bring in an incredible ROI. It can also help you establish yourself as an authority in your industry, grow your brand authority, and increase the overall value of your website in SEO terms.

This post on adjustable beds is a great example. All the brand needs to do is refresh it every year, and they have a pillar piece they can utilize in email, social media, and link-building campaigns.

Your aim should be to publish a certain number of evergreen pieces a year. What that number is will depend on the rest of the goals you set and the priority you give them. You may want to focus on this type of content alone if your content marketing goal isn't to impact your current metrics but to create a sustainable source of long-term traffic. 

How content marketing drives sales

Content marketing is a powerful strategy that can help businesses drive sales and increase revenue. By creating high-quality, informative content that is tailored to the needs and interests of your target audience, you can establish your brand as a thought leader in your industry and build trust with potential customers. 

So how content marketing drives sales it can by helping you generate leads by encouraging visitors to your website to sign up for your email list or download a free resource. By consistently producing valuable content that resonates with your audience, you can keep them engaged and build a loyal following, which can lead to increased sales over time. 

If you're looking to drive sales and grow your business, content marketing is a highly effective approach that is worth exploring. 

Improve Customer Retention 

​Improving customer retention is an important goal for every business, as retention is less costly than customer acquisition.

The way to use content marketing to impact this metric is to consistently create content that is of value to your audience. Your current customers need to be served this content in a newsletter, check it out when they are browsing your website, and keep coming back to it.

The only way to manage that is to cover topics of relevance exceptionally well. There is no way around that. You need to do thorough research (ideally by also talking to your customers) and write about the things they want to read about. And you need to align your voice and style with their preferences and levels of understanding.

Quickbooks does it exceptionally well. They cover a wide range of topics and give their audience all the resources they need to run their business. Of course, you don't have to do it on a similar scale. Even one post a week can be impactful as long as it is targeted and written well. 

Improve Brand Reach and Loyalty 

 When you're looking to reach new customers and turn your current ones into brand advocates, your goal is to create something they can use consistently and with great success. It can be a how-to video, a handy infographic, or a blog post. Just as long as it is shareable, solves a specific problem, and recommends you to a vast audience.

For example, look at this word solving page. It's a very niche page that will appeal to people who are into word games. But it has a wide range of applications, as there are dozens of these games around, and some of them are extremely popular.

Chances are, this page will get a lot of word-of-mouth recommendations, as players of Words with Friends and Scrabble tell each other to try it out. Word-of-mouth marketing is not easily measurable, but this page will certainly drive new visitors and brand mentions. 

Impact Current Conversion Rates 

 You also need to create content that will directly impact your current conversion rates. While these pieces will often also play out well in the long term, they are designed to be very conversion-oriented and highlight the benefits of your product or service.

Loom, for example, has a post comparing them to Zoom. It targets a very high-volume keyword, and it utilizes video content to reach its goal. It is highly detailed and helps readers (and viewers) make a conversion choice. Notice that they don't speak too highly of themselves, though. The purpose of the piece is not to force anyone to use their solution.

Don't make your piece a sales pitch. Use logic, demonstrate value, and let the results do the talking. 

Gain Email Subscribers 

​In order to improve the general effectiveness of your content marketing tactics, you need to own a content promotion channel that is effective and easy to access. For practically all brands (except those who are marketing to senior citizens), that channel will be email.

Your goal is to create content that boosts subscriptions. One effective way to do that is to create a rankable, highly valuable piece that your audience will visit often. This stock market holiday list is a good example.

There's nothing special about the page other than that it comes with a pop-up that asks for your email. Users who have just solved an issue very quickly (i.e., they've learned when the stock market will be closed) will be interested in getting the resource the pop-up offers (since they are already traders). All the brand has to do is continue serving these subscribers relevant content and ask them to check out some of their other resources, ultimately converting them. 

Build Better Links 

 Building high-authority backlinks remains an important part of every content marketing strategy. However, if you create poor content that no one wants to link to, you won't be able to win over the major publishers in your industry.

Linkable content is different and provides data that is not referenceable anywhere else. You need it to be unique in some way. Either you provide new data, a new point of view, or you write from a completely different angle. Your goal is to be the best reference for a certain subject.  Since finding quality websites isn't an easy task, companies will use the best link building service providers to find links for them. They may also produce content that other users will want to link to.

Semrush does this brilliantly with all of their studies. If you are quoting them, there is no way not to link to them (like we've just done here). This gets them plenty of free, organic links, and it makes their own link-building efforts much easier.

Link Building Agencies like Saaslinko follow a quality checklist to build links that ensures to gain authority and trust in your industry while boosting your SERP. Here is the checklist:

• Domain Rating is above 70
• At least 1000 page visits
• Relevancy
• Website Aesthetics
• Website is PBN or not
• Avoid websites which are posting in Multiple Niches
• The website has "write for us/ submit content" on the header
• Top Keywords ranking for that website
• Too many ads on the website
• Prefer the websites which have an upward traffic trend/non-penalized website
• Making sure that we are getting do-follow links
• Prefer to build links to real brands rather than getting links from blog websites
• Prefer the websites which have tier-1 country traffic
• Avoid links from casinos, guns, porn, drugs or any illegal stuff-related websites
• If the website has an SSL certificate

Create Atypical Content to Reach New Audiences 

Speaking of unique content, consider creating content that speaks to people outside of your typical audience. It will help you reach new readers.

The goal here is not to branch out where there is no interest. Rather, you are trying to hook readers who will care about your product or service but who probably don't follow your usual promotion channels.

This post with AI-generated dog images is a great example. It will be able to reach people who are interested in AI, art, technology, and similar topics, and who also happen to be dog lovers. A large portion of this audience probably follows relevant hashtags on social media and niche blogs. By appearing there, the website can tap into new audiences and generate a massive amount of qualified traffic they would never have reached otherwise. 

Wrapping up

Consider all of these content marketing objectives for your business and notice how they impact growth. Note that you still have to prioritize them, so align them with your overarching business goals before you start executing them.

Author bio 

Natasha is a lady of a keyboard and one hell of a geek. She has been working for, and collaborating with, individual clients and companies of all sizes for more than a decade. Natasha specializes in writing about design, branding, digital marketing, and business growth. She is also addicted to art in all its forms and grilled tofu.