Content creation is a pretty big deal in industrial marketing. You can recycle old content and create new innovative content. You can lead people to your site, resulting in more leads and opportunities from content marketing.
So why do we think that content creation is a poor industrial marketing strategy? Well because it is not a strategy at all.
It is a tactic. People try to transform it into a strategy, but it falls short. Hint: SEO is not a strategy either, it is a tactic. A good tactic, but only a tactic. A strategy is an overarching plan that hinges all of your tactics together and makes them all stronger together.
So we are going to explain how you can transform this tactic into a strategy that has a significant ROI.
1. Make it Cohesive: At heart, content marketing is a part of your story. Content marketing needs to be a part of your consistent theme and should tell a story across all of your channels.
At the center of your content marketing is your website. Your offers and your blog need to be consistent. You need to have all the horses pulling the same way.
Let’s say for the first quarter of 2017 you want to push your solutions for industrial engineering companies. So talk about that. You need to build content to help industrial engineering companies. Information that they would find interesting, valuable and share-worthy.
2. Keyword Research: To make a cohesive strategy you need a keyword plan for your content marketing. Instead of just creating an article about your company being a leader in industrial extrusion, it might be a better strategy to focus on industrial aluminum extrusion in North Carolina.
You won’t know what is going to be a better keyword until you do the research.
3. Audience Research: You don’t know your audience. In creating content, you need to know for whom you are creating the content. The worst idea is to build content looking inward. vs. creating content looking outward. 
4. Distribution: You’re not distributing it correctly via social or email. If you create great content but no one sees it are you doing content marketing? I would say no. You need to get eyeballs (the right eyeballs) on your content for it to do any good.
Look at your social media. Are you using the channels that your customers use or the ones with which you are comfortable? If you use the ones your clients can take advantage of, you are going to be able to get a much better response and click through rate.
Are you sending emails that highlight your offers? Email is a great way to get your content in front of prospects and customers. However, growing your list and making sure you are presenting the right content takes a strategy that goes beyond content marketing.
5. Smart Software: Content marketing is the production of fantastic (hopefully) content that will appeal to your target audience. However, it doesn’t expand to what sort of smart software you are running in the background. To transform your content marketing into a more comprehensive inbound strategy, you need smart software that helps you.
Want to learn more about how to turn your content marketing tactic into a strategy? Download our guide to content marketing.