How to use a content marketing matrix for success

Fortunately, there are plenty of tools and technologies that marketers employ to get the job done. That’s where the content marketing matrix comes in and when implemented correctly, it can revolutionise the way a business approaches content.

So, if you’ve ever found marketing your organisation difficult, now is the perfect time to learn all about the content marketing matrix, why you should use it and how it can benefit your business.

What is a content marketing matrix?

The content marketing matrix, originally developed by Smart Insights, is a mapping tool used by marketers to visualise which forms of content are best suited to support purchasing within their target audience.

The horizontal axis displays the stage of a lead within the sales funnel, from ‘awareness’ (left) to ‘purchase’ (right). The vertical axis represents the audience’s response to your content, starting with ‘emotional’ (top) and running to ‘rational’ (bottom).

The matrix is divided into four quarters, each based on the outcome you want to achieve through your content. These are:

• Entertain
• Inspire
• Educate
• Convince

If you decide to create your own version of the content marketing matrix, it doesn’t have to stop there. Every business has a unique target audience and different content priorities, which is why the matrix is so helpful – it lets you organise your goals and prioritise types of content to achieve them.

Essentially, you can plot the types of content you currently have on the matrix and use it to visualise which areas you’re covering, as well as where you could improve to achieve your business goals.

How does a content marketing matrix help your business?

Implementing a content marketing matrix helps your business in several ways. Firstly, it supports you to prioritise the types of content you need at any given time, meaning production teams are streamlined and able to focus on what matters most right now.

It also helps you to organise your content production based on where it sits in the sales funnel. This is ideal for mapping user journeys because you can target the types of content that matter most to potential customers, whether that’s someone just learning about your product for the first time or a person looking to buy from your business.

The visual nature of the matrix facilitates content ideation, helping teams to plan future projects with a specific goal in mind and direct resources to the areas most in need of support. For plenty of businesses, it’s a roadmap to achieving objectives such as lead generation, earning backlinks and nurturing prospects.

What are the benefits of using a content marketing matrix?

The benefits of using a content marketing matrix are vast. As an organisation, creating content for the various stages of the marketing funnel is more difficult than it seems.

It’s easy to get distracted from your overarching business objectives by jumping on current trends or areas that don’t positively impact your bottom line.

Implementing a matrix will give you a wider perspective of your organisation and your marketing efforts, helping you to reach the people you want to target and make better business decisions. 

Here are some of the main benefits of a content marketing matrix.

Identify areas of need

Using a content marketing matrix users to benefit from a structured, clear approach to planning future content.

The matrix helps to ensure that every piece of content you produce engages leads at the right stage of the customer journey, allowing you to meet your business objectives more effectively.

Additionally, as you use your content marketing matrix and learn more information about your customers, you’ll find it easier to think of new ways to engage them because you’ll know what they’re thinking and what they want to see.

As a result of a better understanding of customer needs, you will be able to structure content more effectively. This could mean bringing to life media that didn’t previously feel quite right or brainstorming new ways to satisfy your audience.

Strengthen your email marketing

When done right, email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal. The thing is, you need to convince your audience to offer up email addresses first.

A content marketing matrix is ideal to support this strategy because it helps you to visualise where you need to bolster your content to better target audiences and, eventually, persuade them to sign up for your newsletter or mailing list.

Boost sales

Achieving your business objectives is best done by ensuring you have content available for leads at every stage of the sales funnel. 

The content marketing matrix helps you understand where customers are in the journey and therefore makes it easier for your sales team to target them with the right message, at the right time.

Because your target audience is now viewing the right types of content, they’ll be much more likely to take actions like clicking through to your website and, ultimately, converting.

How can content marketing be treated as an essential part of your overall marketing strategy?

Content marketing is vital to any business, as it gives your audience reasons to visit your site, learn from your organisation and, ultimately, become customers.

Without content, why would anyone visit your website? Good marketing is all about offering benefits to the people who come across your business and this could include blogs, podcasts, digital books, videos and white papers, to name just a few types of compelling media.

Without content, it’s difficult to build a prosperous relationship with clients, but that’s not the only reason why it’s so important to your organisation.

Content drives awareness

Any digital marketing campaign is underpinned by a content strategy. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a key factor here, dictating how each page of your website ranks in search engine results pages (SERPs).

As such, the blog posts you publish and share on social media platforms, as well as the specific pages you optimise and the words you use to expand your reputation, are all a huge part of marketing your business.

Content informs your audience

Publishing content allows viewers to learn about your business, its products and services, and address any questions that may arise when they come across your offerings.

Essentially, your content is helping to pull leads through the sales funnel by helping potential customers make the right buying decisions. You’re showing them how your product or service simplifies their life and explaining why they are getting a good deal. 

This is a win-win situation and the more you inform your audience, the more likely it is people will become paying customers. So, taking the time to create engaging content should never be overlooked.

Good content boosts social media engagement

In the modern world, building a social media presence is essential for digital marketing success. You can achieve this for your business by creating engaging content, as well as repurposing pieces you have previously published.

This might involve sharing relevant links or quotes, encouraging your audience to interact with your social media pages or increasing brand awareness by posting highly shareable content.

Using a content marketing matrix to boost your social media presence is one of the most efficient ways to build an authentic relationship with customers and elicit direct input from people who are genuinely interested in your organisation.

Creating a content marketing matrix for your business

Upon collecting information, scrutinising your target audience and developing SMART business goals, it’s time to create your own content marketing matrix.

This will look slightly different for every organisation because every company has its own unique set of objectives. It could manifest as anything from a spreadsheet to a whiteboard, but no matter what your matrix looks like, they all share the same key aspects.

Because there is no set standard for content matrices, this means that only you can decide how many blocks, columns and keywords your one will have. Popular tools for developing a matrix include Google Sheets, Canva and Miro, all of which are either free or offer a trial version.

The content marketing matrix is all about putting quality first and producing engaging, purposeful media for your target audience.

How to use a content marketing matrix to choose the best content type

So, you’ve created a matrix for your business, you’re ready to start identifying target areas and creating content that will drive you towards your goals. But how do you use the matrix? Implementing this tool can be broken down into a few important steps.

Identify your marketing goals

The first part of implementing a content marketing matrix is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the goals you wish to achieve. Ideally, these should be SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound – and could include targets such as building brand awareness, generating leads or gaining conversions.

Consider what stage of the customer journey to target

With your business objectives in mind, you can use your matrix to map out what types of content to focus on, based on the stage of the buying journey you want to target.

For example, if you are trying to boost brand awareness, you should produce content that fits into the ‘awareness’ quadrant of your matrix, like social media or blog posts that inform and educate your target audience about your business and what it can offer them.

Bearing in mind the type of people you’re attempting to reach with your content, it’s important to consider the pain points they might be experiencing. By addressing these and helping your audience overcome obstacles, a trustworthy relationship will begin to build between your business and consumers.

Create a content calendar

To use your content marketing matrix efficiently, you must have a variety of content types to align with the four quadrants. Create a calendar that denotes which topics or types of content you should be producing and when they should be published.

Analyse your results

Once your content goes live, that’s only half the work done. You should be constantly measuring and analysing how well your content is performing against the goals you initially set out.

There are plenty of tools and technologies that can be used to this end, many of which can quantify metrics like social media engagement rates, website traffic and, of course, how many sales you have made as a result of your marketing efforts.