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Often, customers come to us with a need for a specific service. Usually, it’s setting up a lead generation or SMM. But to get the desired result, one tool is not enough, because everything in marketing is connected.
Yes, you can attract an audience through advertising, but without high-quality content marketing, it is almost impossible to convert them into customers and retain them. Especially when we are talking about the B2B sphere, as in our case. There are no impulsive purchases here, and the decision-making period is long, in particular,а because of the need to further rebuild the internal work system.
In this case study, we’ll talk about working on content marketing for CRM Solutions, a Ukrainian company that implements CRM systems.
The CMO of the project is Serhii Solovyov.
Our service is a remote marketing department: content marketing.
Case study navigation:
Approximate time to read the case — 10 minutes
Our customer
CRM Solutions is a company that integrates CRM systems. It helps enterprises automate business processes, scale, increase revenues and build quality customer service.
Stage one. Identification of needs
We had known the CRM Solutions project for a long time, and in the summer of 2022, we began discussing cooperation and partnership.
The customer approached us with a need to organize a team that would work towards a common goal. Therefore, we, as a remote marketing department, created a comprehensive marketing strategy to promote the business and started working on content marketing as a part of it.
Content marketing is a set of actions aimed at creating interesting and useful content for the audience and distributing it through available channels of communication with the audience, such as social networks, email, and channels in messengers with the following goals:
+ increase brand awareness;
+ attract and warm up new customers;
+ increase audience loyalty;
+ retain existing customers and motivate them to make new purchases;
+ and other business objectives.
Stage two. Research
Before starting work on the project, we conducted market research.
Taking into account the customer’s needs and the results of the research, we built the following strategy:
- develop positioning and communication strategy;
- fill social media with content;
- fill the blog with case studies and expert articles;
- write articles for affiliate placement.
Our team
After consulting with the customer and conducting research, we form a team of specialists who will be able to fulfill all the tasks.
Workflow
After completing all the preparatory stages, we started working on the implementation of the strategy, and content marketing became one of the most important areas.
1. Creating a brand positioning
Brand positioning is a tool that helps to fix a certain image of a product and company in the minds of customers, which allows a business to develop successfully in a highly competitive environment.
The position of CRM Solutions CEO Serhii Tymchuk is not only to select and implement CRM systems but also to teach them how to use them. The company refuses to integrate the system if it sees that potential customers will not work with it fully. That’s why CRM Solutions customers have a system usage rate of over 95%.
With this in mind, we created the following positioning:
2. Developing a communication strategy
Before we started creating content, we developed a communication strategy.
A communication strategy is a plan that defines how to effectively communicate with your target audience to achieve your goals.
It consists of the following issues:
1. Who is our audience, with whom do we communicate?
2. What audience needs does CRM Solutions address?
3. What happens if our audience ignores their needs? How will it affect their lives, what will they be deprived of?
4. What is the purpose of our sales communication?
5. What is the purpose of our communication for brand development?
6. What exactly should we broadcast to achieve this goal?
Excerpts from the communication strategy for CRM Solutions:
3. Creating content for social media
Social networks have a large number of registered users, many of whom are looking for the right products and services online and are quite solvent. Therefore, regularly filling pages with high-quality content is a must-have for any modern business!
The content in CRM Solutions accounts was posted irregularly and was not based on a marketing strategy. Therefore, we started an active process of producing content for Instagram, Facebook, and Linkedin. Not only is it published regularly, but it also follows the agreed strategy.
But before we started, we designed the pages by the brand’s corporate identity, added an attention-grabbing description of the company, and links to other company resources: the website, YouTube, and Telegram channel for entrepreneurs.
How does the process of creating content for social media work?
Step 1. We develop a content strategy for social media at the stage of marketing analysis.
Step 2. The content marketer creates a content plan in advance — a schedule for creating and posting company publications for a certain time.
When creating a content plan for social media, we write down:
+ date
+ heading;
+ topic
+ goal;
+ summary of the publication;
+ link to the document with the texts.
An example of a content plan:
A rubric is an extremely important thing for managing business accounts on social media. It allows you to harmoniously create and post content, following your marketing strategy and taking into account all the important and interesting topics for your target audience.
Thus, the sections can and should meet the goals set: creating a positive brand image, driving traffic to the website, and increasing the loyalty of existing customers. Therefore, we have created the following sections.
Company services. In this section, we describe all the services provided by CRM Solutions and offer to learn more about them on the website. This is how we warm up potential customers and encourage them to leave a request for a consultation.
But since this is commercial content, its volume on the page should not exceed 20%. Otherwise, the target audience perceives such a business account as too promotional, so they will not want to subscribe to it.
CRM systems. In this section, we describe the systems implemented by the company and their features. We encourage you to learn about the advantages, disadvantages, stages of system integration, and feedback on the website.
Team. In this section, we write brief information about certain team members, summarize the interview, and encourage you to read it in full on the website. Such content shows that the people behind the product are open to communication with customers.
Customer testimonials. Here, we briefly describe the content of the video testimonial and offer to watch it in full on the company’s Youtube account to build audience trust.
Case studies and expert articles. In this section, we describe the company’s experience and briefly summarize the expert articles we write for the blog, and encourage you to read the full version on the website.
Step 3. Once the content plan is agreed upon, the content marketer proceeds to write texts for social media posts. When creating them, we rely on the communication strategy and positioning of CRM Solutions:
Examples of posts:
Also, the posts written and posted on Linkedin are duplicated on the personal page of the company’s CEO, Serhii Tymchuk.
Step 4. After receiving the texts, the designer creates a visual for social media following the corporate identity we have developed.
Examples of visuals for social media posts:
Step 5. The content manager posts the publications agreed with the project marketer to social media according to the planned schedule.
We also actively work with the customer’s YouTube channel, namely:
- we edit videos
- write descriptions for them;
- looking for appropriate hashtags;
- create timecodes;
- customize the final screen to switch to other videos;
- create playlists.
4. Writing case studies and expert articles for the blog
The challenges we faced when creating content for the CRM niche are, first of all, the need for a deep understanding of a specific product, full immersion in the features of its operation, and presenting information to the user in a clear language. Yes, it takes a lot of time, but we have adequately accepted and overcome these difficulties!
4.1. Expert articles
At the stage of acquaintance, the user knows nothing about the company and the product, so they are not ready to become your customer right away. It is at this point that it is important to get them interested with the help of free useful materials, including expert articles.
Also, publishing and SEO-optimizing useful and relevant content helps your website to appear in higher positions in search results, which increases organic traffic to it.
The process of creating expert articles
Step 1. We develop a content strategy for the blog at the stage of marketing analysis.
Step 2. The content marketer creates a content plan for the blog, which consists of a heading, topic, goal, and summary.
Step 3. After agreeing on a content plan, we proceed to write articles for the blog, also based on the communication strategy and positioning of CRM Solutions.
Step 4. The designer creates a cover for the article.
Step 5. The content manager uploads and organizes the finished material on the blog.
4.2. Case studies
When potential customer has realized their need, they are ready to buy a product. How can you convince them to choose your favor? Case studies will be useful here.
The main purpose of case studies is to push a potential customer to order. After all, they can reflect on their problem and provide evidence of how your company has solved it. Case studies should also demonstrate outstanding business achievements in project management.
The purpose of creating case studies for CRM Solutions is to show that the company selects, implements, and customizes CRM systems to meet the needs of different types of businesses:
The process of creating cases
Step 1. We collect available information or hold an online meeting with the customer’s representatives, who talk about their experience and demonstrate it with screenshots, videos, etc.
Step 2. After processing the information, the content marketer proceeds to write a case study, which has the following structure.
Step 3. The designer creates a cover for the case.
Step 4. The content manager uploads and organizes the finished material on the blog.
5. Creating articles for affiliate marketing
Posting articles on partner pages is one of the most effective tools for expanding your audience and attracting new customers. That’s why we chose it as one of the content marketing areas for customer promotion.
CRM Solutions partners are different types of businesses: marketing agencies, accounting consulting, telephony, etc. Taking this into account, we create articles that will be equally interesting and useful for the partner’s audience and our customers.
How does affiliate placement work?
Step 1. We find out for which partner we will write an article.
Step 2. We create topics based on the specifics of their business and coordinate them.
Step 3. We proceed to the actual writing of the material, leaving links to articles, case studies, CRM Solutions services, CRM systems implemented by the company, etc. in the context.
Step 4. Create a cover and graphic design for the article.
Step 5. Submit the necessary materials for publication on the partner’s platform.
6. Creating a creative video
Video content is a highly effective online marketing tool because it is easier and better perceived by the audience. That’s why we decided to create a creative video to further promote the project.
What are the stages of the workflow?
Step 1. Determine the purpose for which the video will be created. In our case, it is to popularize the brand, create a positive image, and attract new customers.
Step 2. The content marketer creates a video script, which consists of:
An excerpt from a script for a creative video:
Step 3. When the script is approved, we proceed to shooting and processing the video:
- sound editing if necessary;
- cutting out bad shots;
- adding a cover image or a video plate, which is created by a designer, at the beginning or end of the video.
An example of a video
Our results
In 5 months of working with content marketing for CRM Solutions, we have achieved the following results:
Social media:
Blog:
The Solve Marketing remote department continues to work in the direction of content marketing, so we will continue to update the case with relevant information. Read about other areas of work with CRM Solutions here and here.
