Building a coworking content marketing strategy can seem like a daunting task. But, once you understand the basics of how to get prospective customers to find your content and convert readers to members, it’s quite an intuitive process.
What you’ll need is time, patience, a blog platform, a few subscriptions to online marketing tools, and a positive pitch. But before we dive into the actual content, let’s nail down the basics:
Establish Your Goals
The main reason you’re building a content marketing strategy is to convert users into members. However, because users might not be ready to convert when they reach your blog, you might also consider using email marketing tactics by having users sign up for an email conversion journey or a newsletter. You might also want them to engage with your brand on social media, participate in an event at the space, and more.
All scenarios require a well-structured, attractive blog and useful content for your readers, while the conversion techniques will depend on your objectives. While working toward multiple goals at once is common in some industries, if you’re just starting, it’s best to keep it simple and focus on the bottom line: getting members through the door and keeping them engaged with your brand.
Define a Strategy Fit for Your Space
After setting goals, you’re ready to start working on a plan. You want to:
- Get users to your blog
- Offer valuable or entertaining information
- Pitch products and services convincingly
We’ll go through the specifics of each below, but before writing your first blog post, it’s good to be versed in the marketing infrastructure to tie these stages together.
Develop a Simple Conversion Journey
A conversion journey is the roadmap for reaching users at each step in the sales process. It might look like:
User Googles a question -> sees your blog post in the search results -> visits blog post -> views banner at the bottom of the article -> joins your space
or
User clicks on ad -> visits blog post -> views pop-up form -> signs up for a tour
For example, if you were looking for a new place and wanted to know how to find the best Chicago apartments, you would search for that phrase online and end up on a blog post from an internet listing service offering renter advice. That post might have a banner at the bottom of the article asking you if you were looking for a new rental apartment. Then, because you received useful information from the blog post, perhaps you’d be inclined to search for a new apartment on that site.
Granted, these are simplified versions of the paths a user might take. For instance, they will probably read multiple blog posts and also visit your information and pricing pages, if you have them; each individual experience will depend on the personal situations and consumer journey.
Define a Member Persona
To know when and how to reach your users, first get to know your potential members. This is where member personas come into play. You can build one by asking your current members the right questions and looking for patterns in how they behave. To learn the basics of defining your ideal user, check out this blog post on building member personas.
Choose Your Tools Wisely
Content marketing requires continuous improvements to the user’s experience and optimization of your writing and conversion techniques. The good news is that today’s content marketing software is easy to manage even at a beginner level.
On a global website level, track how many people visit your website—including how much time they spend on it as a whole as well as on your individual blog posts—through Google Analytics.
On a post level, use a tool like Hotjar to determine how much of your posts your users read, where they click on a page, and what grabs their attention. This will help identify the optimal length of your content and where to place banners and forms.
For search engine optimization purposes, try MOZ or a similar product to find keywords that your potential members use to search. Then, install a WordPress add-on like Yoast SEO to evaluate whether you’ve used the keywords correctly, optimized the meta description and title (more on this below), and created an easy-to-read blog post.
Finally, to easily add forms to a website and test new messages efficiently, check out a marketing software like like Hubspot, which provides analytics, landing pages and email journey tools, and content marketing lead management.
And there you have it—the infrastructure of content marketing. To learn about creating and optimizing content, check out the second part in our series, Content & Conversion.
To engage your current and potential members efficiently—and access analytics and accounting software that will allow you to focus on your business development strategy—book a Yardi Kube demo today.