From blog posts to ebooks to infographics, content marketing continues to be an essential component of a brand’s communication strategy. 

To demonstrate the powerful results that a strong content marketing strategy can yield, let’s take a look at a case study conducted by Swyft, a digital marketing and PR firm in Austin. 

The brand featured in this case study is eCommission, a fintech company that provides commission advances for real estate professionals. The goal of the content marketing strategy was twofold: increase brand awareness in the real estate space and generate leads that could be converted to new customers. 

With these objectives in mind, Swyft developed a comprehensive content marketing strategy that included daily blog posts over the course of a year and a half, supplemented by strategic distribution and ad campaigns. 

The results? eCommission saw a 500% increase in blog traffic, gained more than 1,000 qualified leads, and ultimately became the top provider of commission advances and a go-to resource for real estate professionals. 

If you want to follow their lead and increase your brand awareness through blogging, then here’s a breakdown of exactly how Swyft’s content marketing strategy produced these results.  

Quality content 

The overall goal of the blog was to increase brand awareness in the real estate space among realtors and brokers. To do this, eCommission needed to position themselves as a thought leader by producing content that would appeal to real estate professionals. This required thinking outside of the box. Or really, thinking like a real estate agent. Rather than create content that focused on commission advances, Swyft produced content that spoke to the lifestyle and business challenges of an average real estate professional. For example, some of the most popular blog posts for eCommission were ones about cars. For real estate agents, their cars are essentially their office so this was a topic that they wanted to learn more about.

To produce quality content for your brand’s blog, consider your audience and their interests. Your blog shouldn’t be focused on the product or service you provide. Instead, it should focus on the reader and what they would find useful, informative, inspiring, or entertaining. 

Consistency 

Swyft’s content marketing strategy for eCommission included daily blog posts. While this was an extensive plan, it certainly paid off. Producing content on a consistent schedule is important for a number of reasons. First, it keeps you accountable for producing content on a regular basis. Second, it gives readers an idea of when they can look forward to more content. And lastly, the more content you have on the blog, the more posts people can visit once they’re already on the site. 

Taking on a robust content plan like this requires a lot of planning and creative thinking, but it’s necessary if you want your brand to become a credible industry resource. The key to being consistent is to create a schedule that you can stick to. If you can’t post daily, maybe you can post once or twice a week. The best schedule is the one you can commit to and follow through with regularly. 

Distribution 

A key part of building a blog’s audience is ensuring that people see the content in the first place. This is where social media comes into play. Swyft helped distribute eCommission’s content by promoting the daily blog posts on all three of its main social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. By doing this, Swyft was able to determine which platform performed best and gather key information on audience demographics. Additionally, Swyft was able to analyze the conversion rate from social media traffic, which emphasized the blog’s reach and value. 

When building a brand blog, it’s important to consider how the content will be distributed to your target audience and include that in the overall strategy. Social media is often a smart platform to utilize, but other outlets like email newsletters have also proved to perform well. 

SEO 

SEO is essential when developing a content-heavy marketing strategy. Going back to the eCommission case study, Swyft utilized organic SEO to help boost the blog content. Following SEO best practices, Swyft took real estate industry keywords and organically wove them into the daily blog posts. The use of strategic keywords, combined with the volume of blog posts produced, ultimately helped increase the blog’s overall traffic. 

When using keywords in your brand’s blog, it’s crucial to follow best practices and avoid keyword stuffing. It may be tempting to include as many keywords as possible in order to rank higher in search, but that plan will eventually backfire. Google takes keyword stuffing seriously and this practice will actually harm your site’s ranking, so it’s best to avoid it. Instead, focus on creating quality content that organically uses smart keywords. Over time, this will result in an increase in traffic and higher quality leads. 

About Sam Lauron: Sam is a freelance lifestyle writer and a copywriter at Swyft, which has been listed as one of the best PR firms in Austin and a top digital marketing agency in Denver since its founding in 2011. Swyft has satellite offices where it offers PR in San Francisco and Houston.