How to Develop an Enterprise Content Strategy

Content is king — even if you're already king of your industry.

Smaller businesses use content marketing to build a brand and make names for themselves. Larger enterprise organizations use the same tactic to power growth — but often take a different approach.

Here's what marketers need to know about creating an enterprise content strategy — and why that strategy is necessary for increasing conversions.

What Is an Enterprise Content Marketing Strategy?

An enterprise content strategy adapts the principles of content marketing for large businesses. It acknowledges that enterprise-level companies come from varying places and have different goals than smaller organizations.

They are also usually competing against other big names in the industry — and must make themselves stand out as the top choice to consumers.

Taking advantage of these large companies' market positions allows an enterprise content marketing strategy to grow the organization even more.

A Content Strategy for Big Business

Enterprise companies don't have the same goals and objectives as small businesses, so their content strategies should be different. While a small business works to establish its audience by gaining its trust, an enterprise business already has a reputation.

An enterprise business also has a larger marketing budget. According to Gartner's 2021 CMO Spend Survey, marketing executives allocate more than 20% of their budget to digital ads and almost 10% to offline ads.

Content Marketing With Higher Difficulty

Having more resources doesn't necessarily let you create a content marketing campaign more easily. In fact, with so many decision-makers involved across departments, the process can be more complex than it is in a smaller business.

According to a survey by the Content Marketing Institute, the top challenges of enterprise-level content marketers are:

• Coordinating efforts across departments and brands (74%)
• Excessive departmental siloing (60%)
• Difficulty with technology integration (50%)
• The ability to adapt to change (49%)

It's important to assess the flexibility and scalability of your marketing team and consider outsourcing when necessary.

The Most Common Enterprise Content Strategy Challenges and Goals

Successful enterprise content marketing strategies are purpose-driven and goal-oriented. It's crucial to identify your challenges and business objectives before you start the planning process so you know how you can successfully meet goals.

Here are a few ways enterprise-level companies benefit from strategic content marketing to get you started.

• Raising Brand Awareness: Brand awareness refers to how well customers know your brand and how easily they can recognize it. Effective enterprise content creates conversations surrounding your brand and helps to define its identity.
• Creating Sustained Engagement: Sustained engagement happens when you encourage consumers to follow you across all channels between purchases and get them to personally connect with your company.
• Improving Brand Health: Brand health measures the effectiveness of your brand identity and reputation. Content helps by reinforcing your brand consistency and broadening the conversation.
• Increasing Search Visibility: Search visibility is your share of web traffic for a particular keyword based on your ranking. The higher you rank, the more visible you are to your target audience.
• Promoting Thought Leadership: Thought leadership establishes your organization as an industry authority and resource. Thought leadership content often focuses on the expertise of a key individual, such as a CEO or founder.
• Gaining Valuable Backlinks: Backlinks are links to your site from authoritative websites. In a recent survey of more than 800 SEO professionals, 85% said backlinks significantly impact brand authority.
• Outranking the Competition: High-ranking results get significantly more clicks, with the top position currently getting 27.6% of all clicks and the tenth getting just 2.4%. Successful content boosts your ranking by helping Google see your website as authoritative and trustworthy.
• Keeping a Freshly Updated Website: Content freshness is an important SEO ranking factor, especially for time-sensitive keywords. A robust enterprise content marketing strategy targets trending keywords in your industry so you stand out.
• Generating More Leads: Content attracts top-of-funnel consumers by providing answers to their questions. It builds their trust in your brand and turns them into warm leads.
• Driving Higher Conversion Rate: Conversions happen when you convince people you're the best possible choice. Content helps to nudge readers toward that knowledge by building trust and establishing authority.
• Creating Organizational Efficiency: Organizational efficiency means increasing productivity with fewer resources. A content management strategy helps you to produce more valuable articles, videos, and other material by taking the guesswork out of content development.
• Raising Visibility in All Channels: An enterprise content strategy can target multiple channels, from social media to email. Increasing visibility across channels gets your brand in front of more people.
• Developing Better Sales Collateral: According to DemandGen's 2022 Content Preferences Survey, 55% of business-to-business (B2B) buyers have increasingly relied on content to make purchase decisions. An expert content strategy gives your sales team the material they need to close more deals.
• Improving Client Onboarding: Content turns your onboarding process into a two-way street. It gives new clients the information they need to succeed and helps them get to know your brand.
• Boosting Social Sharing: A recent survey from ODM Group found that 74% of consumers rely on social sharing when making purchase decisions. When your content resonates with your audiences, they're more likely to share it.

Executing an Enterprise Content Strategy

Once you've identified why you need to develop a content marketing plan, your next step is to lay out the "how."

Develop a Strong Keyword Strategy

Enterprise keyword selection is all about volume and scalability. While smaller businesses thrive by becoming keyword "bargain shoppers," searching for the least competitive keyword to find niche audiences, enterprises need to think bigger.

Enterprises need to target these two types of keywords simultaneously:

• High-volume transactional keywords: These attract and convert high-intent buyers.
• Long-tail keywords: These draw consumers with specific interests and needs.

Long-tail keywords are easier to rank for and will grow your audience quickly. These keywords can draw niche buyers and build up specific areas of your business. Transactional keywords, which include terms such as "free trial" or "on sale," indicate high buyer intent.

Many long-tail keywords are transactional. For example, consider the search term "young men's dress shoes near me." The "near me" indicates a pressing need for this long-tail phrase.

Choose Targeted Pages

Each keyword should draw readers into the sales funnel via a web page. This step requires a high-level view because enterprises have more pages than small businesses. You need to decide which keywords will:

• Lead readers to blog posts or multimedia content
• Receive unique landing pages
• Navigate to existing landing, product, or sales pages
• Become the foundation for pillar pages

Pillar pages offer an overview of a broader topic. Each pillar page uses internal links to branch out and cover sub-topics in more detail.

Pillar content strategies are ideal for enterprises. They attract diverse audiences that you can filter and disperse to target their specific needs.

Create Content

Enterprises publish content faster and in higher volume than smaller businesses do. Unless you have a large staff and existing robust content management systems, it's wise to hand your content creation to an outsourced service.

Almost two-thirds of enterprise marketers — 62% — outsource some to all of their content marketing. Of those, 92% outsource content creation. The next most popular components to outsource are distribution, strategy, and measurement. If you're looking for support to help your team create the content you need to fuel your strategy, check out Skale's list of top content writing services.

Measure the Results

Performance tracking is crucial to making the most of your enterprise content budget — and maintaining the buy-in of executive decision-makers.

It's not enough to notice "improvement" or "growth." You need measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) to keep an enterprise content management strategy going.

The most important KPIs for enterprise content creators include:

• Number of blog or page visits: How many people view your content
• Organic traffic growth: The amount of your traffic coming from organic searches
• Search engine ranking positions (SERPs): Where you appear in searches for a particular keyword
• Social shares per post: The number or percentage of views that result in sharing
• Inbound links per post: The number of links to your post from authoritative websites

Set a target metric for each KPI. For example, if you're aiming for SERP improvements, target a certain rank for each keyword.

Adjust Your Strategy

KPI tracking lets you identify what's working and what isn't. Watch for data going in the wrong direction — like declining SERP rankings or decreasing social shares.

Determine what changed immediately before the shift. Sometimes the cause is apparent, such as when a new blog post doesn't resonate. In other cases — a common one being a steady decline in returning visitors — you'll need more in-depth analysis.

Finding the issue is the first step to changing your strategy. That might mean altering what you post or when you post it.

The Top Enterprise Content Channels

Enterprises need to use multiple types of content to reach target audiences. These are the most important.

Blog Posts

Nearly 90% of enterprise content marketers publish blog posts and short-form articles, making these the most popular form of content for enterprises.

Social Media

Social media is a must-have for enterprises because of its sharing potential. With the right content, you can multiply your reach exponentially.

Video Content

Video connects with consumers personally and helps them engage with your brand. In a recent survey, 92% of marketers reported that video delivers a high return on investment, and 87% believe it has a direct, positive impact on sales.

Case Studies

Case studies are next-level social proof. They detail how a particular customer benefited from working with you, allowing prospects to imagine similar results.

White Papers

White papers are in-depth, data-driven pieces that establish your company's authority on a topic. They're foundational in thought leadership strategies.

Interactive Content

Interactive content engages your audience with activities such as needs assessments and clickable graphics. It encourages two-way communication early in the sales funnel and can allow you to gather valuable customer data.

Create an Enterprise Content Strategy with Compose.ly

If you're ready to create standout enterprise content for your brand, Compose.ly has you covered.

Compose.ly's managed service plans connect you with the content you need. Whether you need a ground-up strategy or an adjustment to what you already have, our team makes it happen.

We understand the unique content needs of large enterprises, and we'll develop a plan that targets your unique goals. Contact us today to get started.

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