Back to FAQs page


Is Wordtree a content marketing agency?

Yes, Wordtree is a content marketing agency. We work with organisations all over the world to create content marketing strategies and develop interesting, relevant and brand-aligned content. We specialise particularly in B2B content marketing. If you’d like to talk to us about content marketing for your organisation, please get in touch.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is when you use content – such as blog articles, videos, infographics and social media posts – to directly or indirectly generate business leads for your organisation.

The idea is to create content that addresses a need or question your potential customer may have. When they ask Google the question, your blog or video pops up – and they find your website. Your content should be interesting, entertaining and relevant enough to encourage them to keep coming back to you, sign up to your newsletter or for special offers – and ideally, convert, become a customer and buy more.

Content marketing, ultimately, is about trust – building and showing potential customers how they can use your products and services to make life, hobbies, home and work better.

What is a content marketing strategy?

Any content you create for your organisation is more effective if it’s part of a brand-aligned strategy. Your content marketing strategy should include information about your audiences, the types of content they’re looking for, how your organisation is going to produce this content – and how this knowledge will help you reach your business goals.

For example, if you have a product that’s a brand new entry into the market, the main objective of your strategy could be to educate your potential customers and explain what your product is – and why they need it in their lives. If your product is already well known, your objective could be to introduce it to a new audience.  

The content you create needs to add value to your audiences’ lives. So you need to know what their lives are like – and what they care about – and create content that meets their needs.

The content you create also has to be relevant to what your organisation does. Your strategy should include themes or topics you have permission to talk about – so that your content comes across as credible and trustworthy. It should show your audiences that your products and services can enhance their lives – so it needs to be related to your products and services. For example, if you’re a beauty salon, you might talk about eating for healthier skin. You probably won’t talk about deep sea diving, even if your head stylist is an enthusiast.

Who your audiences are and what they care about – coupled with the themes your organisation is going to create content around – forms the basis of your strategy. You then need to consider the channels and type of content to produce to reach potential customers and generate new leads.

What should your content marketing strategy include?

A budget: How much are you willing to sink into content marketing? Remember, it isn’t free – and it can quickly eat into time and IT resource.

A top-level framework: Who are your audiences? What are they looking for, when are they looking – and when? What do you want them to know about you? All this information is distilled down into a set of messages… or in other words, what you’re saying to each audience, where you’re saying it and how frequently you’re saying it.

Targets: Content marketing is about lead generation, so set realistic targets both for engagement and conversions. It’s important to understand likely conversion rates for your sector. Where Wordtree works – predominantly – in the B2B world, the journey to conversion can be much longer than in B2C environments, where the aim is to sell lower value products. You can read our thoughts on this here.

Schedule: This sets out what you’re going to publish and when you’re going to do it.

How does Wordtree approach content marketing?

Wordtree primarily works with B2B organisations. This means we take a slightly different approach to the traditional “pull model” of content marketing. You can read more about our thoughts on this here.

We create content marketing strategies that are closely aligned to your organisation’s business goals. We carry out research into the audiences you want to reach and develop themes of content that will keep them interested and coming back to your organisation.

Once we’ve developed your strategy, we create a content plan. This is a detailed schedule that sets out each piece of content, what it includes, who’s responsible for creating/editing/publishing it and when it will publish.

For some clients, we develop a strategy and handle fulfilment. For others, we develop the strategy and then train in-house teams to use it.

Why do you need a content marketing strategy?

Content marketing is most effective when all the content you publish is aligned to your business goals and tells a strong story. Having clearly defined messages allows you to tell this story consistently, so that with every piece of content, your audiences immediately begins to build an association of what your organisation is and why it’s relevant to them.

A robust, brand-aligned content marketing strategy makes sure all your content supports your brand and business objectives. Without a strategy, your teams won’t know what to write about – or who to target. You could end up with content that your audiences aren’t interested in – or straying into areas you can’t claim to be an authority in.

What’s the difference between editorial strategy and content marketing strategy?

An editorial strategy and a content marketing strategy are different, although they are related and can work alongside each other.

The purpose of an editorial strategy is to make sure that all written collateral aligns with and drives an organisation’s business goals and brand.

The purpose of a content marketing strategy is to generate leads as part of an inbound marketing strategy. It’s designed to help you increase leads and convert new or existing customers to, for example, sign up to something or buy from you.

Typically your editorial strategy will guide your content marketing strategy and help you maintain a consistent approach across your brand communications.

Read our FAQs to learn more about editorial strategy.

What are the benefits of content marketing?

Done well, content marketing can help you build lasting relationships with your customers and potential customers. By sharing useful, interesting information, you give people a reason to keep coming back to you, to try your products and services and ultimately to become loyal customers. You set your organisation apart from your competitors – and show what makes you different and special.

If your product or service is complex, content marketing can be a useful tool to educate your audiences. You can explain what you do and how you make lives easier and better. You can tell your story consistently and start to build a space for your brand in people’s minds.

What is the return on content marketing?

Returns can be impressive – and quick – particularly in B2C. When you are selling more complex and costly products and services, the sales cycle can be considerably longer. You may need to nurture relationships for months and years to convert audiences and customers.

Is content marketing worth doing?

For most B2C products, probably yes. You will be able to track the impact of your content marketing activities or platforms.. and if you do it well, you will see satisfying returns.

In B2B – particularly when your product is complex and expensive – you will not see the same number of conversions, and conversions take significantly longer. We’ve met B2B teams who’ve changed their content marketing strategy several times because “it’s not working”. Then we discover they expected to get the same results that a company selling £500 sheds might… when their offer is a minimum £50k consultancy service.

The question B2B companies really need to ask is: “What is the price of not doing content marketing?” A lesser presence in your marketplace? Less relevant content available to match search results? Fewer opportunities to become an invaluable guide and friend in your sphere? If you think you have these things covered via other avenues, then maybe content marketing is not for you. However, if you’re clever and create content that can be re-used in brochures, award entries and other collateral – then it’s worth considering it.

What’s the difference between engagement and conversion?

“Engagement” in content marketing simply means that people have interacted with your content in some way. When content marketers talk about engagement, they usually means shares and likes. But it can also mean page impressions. With many B2C products, likes and shares are really good news. It means your customers and potential customers are acting as ambassadors for your brand, giving it their endorsement and increasing the likelihood that their friends will visit your restaurant or buy your nail polish.

Of course, a “like” of your content doesn’t necessarily mean that the liker is going to buy what you have on offer. Poundland shared some risqué content over Christmas 2018 that was liked and shared many, many times. But did it result in more people going to do their Christmas shopping at Poundland? Possibly, though possibly not.

On the other hand, Kylie Jenner created a billion dollar cosmetics company based on likes and shares of her social media.

In the B2B world, do not expect engagement – or at least engagement that is anywhere near Kylie Jenner or Poundland levels. When you’re selling B2B products and services – and sharing information related to them in the form of content marketing – you’re dealing with people in their professional environments. And while it’s easy for someone in their private life to share a cosmetics ad, with a comment saying: “Best concealer you can buy!” – people tend to be far more reluctant to rave about products or services connected to work.

There are probably three main reasons for this: 1) Your audiences are smaller to start with (more people want to buy a £10 nail varnish than a £10k IT programme), 2) To say that you find a company’s infographic on data analysis really useful might just suggest that you need help understanding the subject… and that might not make you look great, and 3) Your company’s confidentiality policies may not allow you to say that you use, or are considering using, a particular brand.

So in B2B, don’t expect high levels of visible engagement – and certainly don’t think your content marketing is failing if it isn’t generating lots of likes and shares.

Even page impressions can be misleading. You can try to block competitors from visiting your site and downloading materials – or you can at least try to keep tabs on which IP addresses are visiting you. But it’s a lot of effort for something that’s far from accurate. So be aware that a number of page impressions will come from competitors looking to see what you’re up to, from students who are using your white paper as part of your study – as well as, of course, from people who could eventually become your clients.

Conversions are people who read your content and then click or pick up the phone to order your stuff. The road to conversion can be really quick – especially if you’re selling an affordable B2C product. Or it can take months and years – for example, if you’re selling very high value consultancy services.

How long does it take to create a content marketing strategy?

This really depends on the size of your organisation. It also depends on how much content you want to produce and the level of budget and resource you have.

How much does a content marketing strategy cost?

Again, this depends on your goals and resources. We price by project – so if you’d like to get an idea of how much a content marketing strategy and fulfilment could cost your organisation, please get in touch.