96% of software development companies already use content marketing as a part of their overall marketing strategy, and for good reason.
If your company is not one of them yet, it might be time to sit down with your team and create a solid content marketing strategy.
However, creating a content marketing strategy that takes into account the unique aspects of the software development industry is not an easy task.
In this article, we will show you how to maximize your investment in content marketing by focusing on seven strategies that work well for software companies.
What the Right Content Marketing Strategy Can Do for Software Development Companies
There is a good reason most software companies are already using content marketing as a part of their overall strategy.
Content marketing is a cost-effective way to grow traffic and bring more qualified leads to your website. It costs 62% less than traditional marketing and brings in an ROI(return on investment) that’s hard to match.
In fact, the right content marketing strategy can help you generate 3x the amount of leads than paid search does.
If you need more reasons to get started with content marketing, we have a full article on the benefits of content marketing for software development companies.
In the meantime, let’s talk about developing a content strategy that produces these kinds of results for your software development company.
7 Ways Software Development Companies Can Create a Great Content Marketing Strategy
1. Deliver Real Value
If your content lacks real value, it will not convert visitors into buyers.
It does not matter how much traffic your content attracts if you can’t translate that traffic into a measurable ROI.
That does not mean your visitor has to immediately purchase something after interacting with your content.
Valuable, high-quality content will simply help you move them to the next stage of the buyer’s journey and leave a positive brand impression.
Then, when you interact with that customer next, they will already have some positive associations with your brand and will be more likely to trust and buy from you.
2. Emphasize Storytelling
Each piece of content you create tells a story.
The key to content marketing success is telling better stories than your competitors.
By analyzing the conversations going on in the software development space, you will be able to tell better, more useful, and more engaging, stories.
3. Create Powerful, Emotion-evoking Content
It is a great way to stand out in the B2B space and appeal to the human decision-makers in the organizations you are targeting.
When creating a content strategy, ask yourself: what story do we want to tell?
4. Use Buyer Personas to Personalize Content
Not every piece of content you create will resonate with every member of your audience.
In fact, if your company focuses on multiple buyer personas or stakeholders, it shouldn’t.
You want to build your authority and demonstrate thought leadership for each stakeholder or buyer persona individually.
When putting together a content strategy, create an Audience Matrix that includes information about your buyer personas: their pain points, goals, and motivating factors.
This will help you brainstorm and create high-converting content that resonates with each individual buyer persona.
5. Centralize The Way Users Experience Content
While you want to personalize individual pieces of content, they should all come together to tell a unified story and provide a centralized content experience.
Don’t let a customer leave your site after reading just one piece of content. Include suggestions for where they should go next to build a relationship with them.
You can also add a Resources page to your site navigation. From there, your customers can find content that resonates with them and get a closer look at the overall story your company is telling.
Each new piece of content your visitor interacts with will build their trust in your expertise and push them one step closer to becoming a paying customer.
6. Find A Unique Approach
People are bombarded with a huge amount of information every single day.
How are you going to make your content stand out?
You could focus on the content itself, or find a unique way to distribute it.
Stepping away from email and returning to direct mail campaigns has worked really well for some technology companies.
The tactic is an old one, but, when it comes to software, it is unexpected and fresh.
Think outside the box here, even if your ideas seem ridiculous at first. What is everyone else in the software development space doing? What is no one doing, and why?
7. Use The Buyer’s Journey to Your Advantage
Different types of content are best suited for different stages of the buyer’s journey.
For example, creating a fun quiz is a great way to engage a customer in the Awareness stage of the buyer’s journey.
On the other hand, putting together a list of customer reviews, or highlighting a celebrity endorsement, will be the most effective strategy for buyers in the Decision stage.
Build your content strategy with the buyer’s journey in mind to effectively reach different personalities in different stages of the sales journey.
How HandmadeSEO Can Help
Creating content marketing that follows these seven tips, is a cost-effective way to increase ROI and bring more qualified leads to your website.
Here at HandmadeSEO, we don’t just grow traffic.
We create and execute content marketing strategies that are uniquely designed to match the needs of your software development business.
Want to see how we can work together?
