Content marketing: a complete guide to winning strategies

In the last year, 46% of companies have increased their content marketing budget compared to the previous year, and one in four plans to hire new dedicated staff. This is not surprising: content generates 67% more monthly leads for those who publish it consistently, it costs less than other forms of advertising and it consolidates lasting relationships with existing and potential customers. But precisely because writing has become cheap, automatic and fast, the difference between improvisation and a strategic method is clear. Publishing “something” online doesn’t mean activating a content marketing practice, but only producing noise. In this guide, we clearly define what we mean by content marketing, explain how to set up a sustainable and measurable plan, and analyze examples, tools and verified data. Because visibility is built over time, but can be lost quickly. And today no company can afford to lose it.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic approach that involves the planning, production and distribution of informative content useful for achieving specific marketing and business objectives. It uses different formats and channels, and its effectiveness lies in its ability to provide real value to users, answering their questions, solving problems or simply offering entertainment.

Transform your articles into performing assets

All the tools for successful content marketing strategies. Data, performance analysis, SEO and AI tools in a single platform

Find out more

Unlike other promotional tools, it doesn’t just describe or directly sell a product, but aims to build an ongoing relationship with an identified and relevant audience. It is the practical implementation of content strategy, which develops and promotes content with the aim of attracting, engaging or converting the audience.

At the center of the logic is a simple operating principle: offer value before asking for attention.

Articles, videos, podcasts, guides and multimedia resources become tools through which a company can make itself visible, credible and distinctive for the people it is targeting. From a business perspective, this content isn’t an end in itself: it serves to generate measurable actions such as lead acquisition, increased sales, post-sales loyalty or strengthening brand authority in a specific market.

Content marketing is not a random collection of publications, but a coherent strategy that connects people’s interests with the company’s positioning needs. It integrates messages, formats and channels to build an informative experience that accompanies the audience from discovery to decision. It is an active part of the funnel and a central element in any solid inbound marketing strategy.

What content marketing means: definition, value and techniques

What characterizes this strategy is its intentional structure: the content must not only be well written or persuasive, but must also be created in response to a verified need, followed by targeted distribution and precise measurement of the results generated.

It is therefore a strategic marketing approach focused on the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and, in this way, to generate profitable action from customers. This process uses valuable and relevant digital resources such as text, images and videos to attract users, who are engaged thanks to the proposal of valuable content that offers a real advantage to the recipients.

Content marketing usually comes in four basic forms: written, audio, video and image. Most companies use different types to interact with their audience on platforms such as social media, websites and advertisements. This form of marketing places the customer at the center of a brand’s message: instead of flooding them with messages full of advertising or trivially presenting a product or service, it provides them with valuable content, relevant information and involves them throughout the customer funnel, from the awareness phase to the decision-making phase.

How content marketing differs from other digital strategies

Although it shares tools and channels with other online marketing practices, content marketing differs in purpose, method and position in the user relationship cycle. It is not pure advertising, because it does not aim to transmit commercial messages in a unidirectional way. Nor does it coincide with influencer marketing, which instead relies on the visibility of individuals to convey more implicit messages.

Compared to inbound marketing, with which it is often perceived as synonymous, content marketing represents a key but not exhaustive component. Inbound is a broader model that includes SEO, automation, nurturing, landing pages and every aspect of the conversion flow. Content, on the other hand, focuses on the intentional production of content capable of triggering or strengthening an interaction.

It also differs from branded content, which favors the narrative or emotional component and is more often developed in limited-time campaigns to generate engagement or notoriety. Content marketing, on the other hand, maintains a continuous, systematic function with measurable performance objectives.

Finally, digital advertising is positioned on paid channels and aims for immediacy of action. Content builds engagement through consistency and relevance, intercepting people when they are looking for answers, solutions or insights related to real problems.

How content designed for marketing is made: the distinctive characteristics

Quality content, in content marketing, is not what “likes” the most, but what best achieves the objectives for which it was designed.

It is not just informative: it appears, is structured and behaves according to the objectives it has to achieve. Its first characteristic is its relevance to the target audience. This means that it answers explicit or latent questions that emerge along the path of knowledge and evaluation of a service, product or need related to the company’s activity.

The second quality is consistency with the phase of the funnel it is aimed at: effective content is aware of the role it has to play in guiding the user — informing, reassuring, convincing and activating them. Visually and narratively, it maintains a tone aligned with the style of the brand, both in terms of language and communication methods.

Finally, the traceability of the content is fundamental, that is, the possibility of measuring the impact it has generated, in terms of views, engagement, conversions, increase in reputation or organic performance in search engines.

What is content marketing for?

To simplify and summarize, it is believed that content marketing is one of the most practical ways to increase the authority of a website in the long term, and it is certainly one of the most used tactics: According to some research, over 70% of companies actively invest in this strategy, which 86% of professionals believe concretely increases brand awareness, one of the levers for achieving lasting success.

This set of techniques therefore works as an engine that fuels the visibility and engagement of a website through the creation and distribution of valuable content, obviously starting from the definition of a correct strategy and the development of an editorial plan that involves the production of targeted, useful and interesting content for the defined audience.

Furthermore, content marketing helps build and maintain a solid relationship with users, who can be educated, informed and entertained, strengthening the perception of the brand as a point of reference in its sector: this approach helps improve brand awareness, increase traffic to the site and, ultimately, generate leads and conversions.

How and why content marketing works

Quality content of great value allows you to acquire customers in order to bring income to a website: this is the basic concept of content marketing, which usually works because it doesn’t directly sell a product or service, but offers valuable resources to people so that they recognize our brand as a reliable solution for their needs and desires.

This form of marketing involves the creation and sharing of various types of media resources and editorial content, such as articles, news, videos, guides, infographics, photographs, ebooks, but also webinars, seminars, podcasts, messages on social media and so on.

The goal is to capture the attention of the end user through the free offer of interesting content that is not necessarily of an advertising nature, but informative or illustrative, and which can create interest in the product or service we offer, attracting potential customers.

Through this content we can reach new people and users, capturing their attention and transmitting something about us, our brand and our distinctive corporate skills. In this way, we can increase our web reputation and strengthen brand awareness, improving the public’s perception and consideration of our abilities and services.

Other general objectives that can be achieved with Content Marketing include the acquisition of new customers, lead generation and customer retention (i.e. the loyalty of existing customers).

Reasons to invest in content marketing today

The adoption of a structured content marketing plan responds to a need that today affects companies of all sizes: to stand out in a saturated digital space, to maintain stable organic visibility and to generate concrete interactions in the absence of reliable automatic tracking.

In Italy, more and more companies are expressing their intention to internalize content creation or invest in external strategic support. According to surveys by the Content Marketing Institute and leading European observatories, content marketing represents one of the main items of expenditure among digital activities – even in traditionally less mature sectors.

The choice is often dictated by factors related to the efficiency of the investment: relevant content generates qualified leads in a non-invasive way, reinforces the memorability of the brand and lends itself to scaling over time with an incremental logic.

But there is an element that goes beyond the tactical performance effect: content becomes a long-lasting narrative repository, reusable, updatable, adaptable to multiple channels. It acts on three distinct levels: it informs, positions, converts.

Those who invest today in content that responds to real needs can build a lasting organic presence, reduce their dependence on rising advertising costs and create their own editorial assets, impervious to the volatility of external platforms or algorithmic blocks. In a context where reliability decides the difference between clicks and trust, content remains the most accessible tool for building a measurable competitive advantage.

Short and long-term benefits

A content marketing plan generates benefits that extend beyond direct acquisition and include consolidating positioning, building trust and stabilizing organic presence over time.

In the short term, it can help reduce the cost-per-lead, predispose the user to contact and contain the costs of paid campaigns thanks to a higher quality of incoming traffic. Companies that activate structured editorial paths tend to observe an increase in newsletter opening rates, better information retention on social channels and a drop in abandonment metrics on high-information-value pages.

In the long term, content becomes company property, accumulates visibility, generates backlinks, feeds the domain’s authority and improves organic interaction. Unlike a time-bound advertising campaign, good content – if optimized, updated and well-positioned – continues to generate value for months or years, even without further investment.

The perception of authority that derives from a good content strategy also manifests itself in ways that are not immediately traceable: recognizability in search engines, spontaneous mentions, increased average engagement on new assets and growth in the willingness to leave one’s data when encountering reliable content.

Concrete metrics: data on effectiveness

The competitive advantage of content marketing lies in its measurability. Unlike traditional branding initiatives, each piece of content designed for marketing purposes can and should be monitored according to clear parameters: engagement, average time spent on the page, lead generation, organic traffic growth, qualified reach.

According to HubSpot, 82% of customers say they have a positive perception of a company after reading personalized content. 53% of marketers who regularly update their content have seen an increase in direct engagement.

The most significant metrics concern performance over time: a well-positioned page can influence conversion rates even three to six months after publication. Content marketing also allows for the highly accurate measurement of elements such as cost-per-lead (CPL) in inbound paths, average scroll and interaction rates, and the correlation between editorial content and the performance of completed forms.

In the digital strategies of B2B brands, 87% of marketers state that content has contributed to brand awareness, 74% to demand generation and 52% to the retention of existing customers.

Content marketing and SEO: strategic convergence

The dialogue between SEO and content marketing has evolved from simple complementarity to functional integration. Search engine optimization today requires content that interprets complex queries, covers specific information needs, maintains a consistent format and meets the editorial requirements imposed by qualitative ranking systems, such as the E-E-A-T principle and the Helpful Content system introduced by Google.

A page structured to persuade a user to perform an action must, first of all, be visible. SEO provides the data to identify real questions and the most effective formats; content marketing builds an effective editorial response. The integration of the two disciplines allows for the monitoring of thematic verticality, improvement of indexing, and the emergence of the company for searches with high semantic relevance.

The recent introduction of AI Overviews in Google’s SERPs – synthetic summaries generated by linguistic models – further accentuates the need for content designed to be included, read, cited, or described as reliable sources. In this scenario, well-written content is no longer enough: it must be structured in a semantically rich way, supported by evidence and consistent with the quality signals rewarded by the new information presentation systems.

The most relevant statistics for content marketing in 2025

The statistics confirm what we have just described, and above all they highlight even more how and to what extent content continues to “reign” – yes, Content is (still) king – in most marketing strategies, making this technique a crucial aspect of any digital marketing strategy, both for those who manage a small local business and for those who work on behalf of a large multinational.

This is quite intuitive, if we stop to think about the fact that content is indisputably the lifeblood on which the web and social media are based and that, as Jeff Riddall also reminds us, modern SEO “has effectively become optimized content marketing, as Google demands and rewards companies that create content that demonstrates experience, expertise, authority and reliability for the benefit of their customers”.

The strategic value of content marketing is clearly reflected in the operational choices of companies and in the results recorded globally, and updated data shows that content production continues to be a priority for digital investments, with a measurable impact on brand, acquisition, loyalty and organic performance. Some figures, more than others, help to outline the extent of the phenomenon and the sense of the concrete choices that feed it:

• Over 70% of B2B and B2C marketers use content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy.
• 46% of B2B marketers expect to increase their content marketing budget in 2025.
• Companies that manage an active blog collect on average 67% more monthly leads than those that don’t publish regularly.
• Updating existing content improves engagement in 53% of cases.
• 92% of B2B content marketers produce short articles; 76% include videos; 75% include case studies in their editorial plans.
• Videos are considered the most effective format by 58% of experts working in high-performing companies.
• Among companies that use content as a commercial lever, 74% claim to directly generate demand and qualified leads.
• 49% of companies recognize organic content as one of the highest ROI sources of digital marketing.
• Over 80% of content marketing teams use artificial intelligence-based tools for ideation, optimization or output.
• 54% of professionals identify lack of resources as the main barrier to effective content marketing.
• 27% of high-performance content is recent (published less than a month ago), demonstrating the importance of freshness in editorial formats.

All of this data not only shows a growing trend, but also confirms how content marketing has become a structural component in business communication systems. Companies that adopt it methodically obtain more solid visibility, qualified traffic and better opportunities for commercial relations in every phase of the conversion cycle.

The (recent) history and evolution of content marketing

Before becoming an organized discipline, content marketing was an instinctive practice and some companies started creating informative content to enter into a relationship with the public even before the term existed. The most frequently cited example is the 1900 Michelin Guide, conceived not as a promotional vehicle, but as a useful tool, offered free of charge to promote automobile mobility — an indirect but concrete benefit for the tire manufacturer.

However, modern evolution as a strategic approach only developed with the digitization of communication processes. With the advent of Web 1.0, company websites were limited to presenting their identity and what they had to offer; the initial phase of one-way communication was followed by a progressive push towards interaction, accessibility and the creation of content aimed at answering real questions.

The semantic leap occurred when companies realized that providing useful content meant occupying spaces of interest before even offering something. From content as a support for advertising, we moved on to content production as a lever for branding, SEO and lead generation; from simple accompanying material to a resource designed to generate value directly or indirectly.

Over the last fifteen years, the standardization of inbound marketing, the global spread of search engines and the systematic adoption of editorial strategies internalized or guided by external teams have transformed content marketing into a real system. Today it is no longer considered an accessory option, but a fundamental module in any sustainable digital marketing architecture.

From informative communication to strategic asset

In the early years of the commercial web, companies therefore limited themselves to publishing content for the sole purpose of information: the typical structure was that of the “showcase site”, where descriptive texts played a passive and often static role. The content was produced once and did not form part of an editorial process, nor did it have a long-term vision.

Evolution began when it was realized that content could answer specific questions even before a person came into direct contact with the company. Content began to operate in the margins between marketing and customer service, becoming a tool for offering assistance, reducing friction in the decision-making process and speeding up conversion.

Over time, content was inserted into more complex cycles: acquisition funnels, retention strategies, lead nurturing paths and automated sequences. With increased integration between SEO, customer relationship management and multichannel production, it became clear that content is not just what is published, but what drives interaction at every strategic stage.

This transition — from “read” content to “activate” content — has completely transformed the internal perspective on publishing. Marketing teams now structure newsrooms, toolchains, predictive analytics and proprietary formats. The best content is not the one that tells “what” a company is, but the one that demonstrates “why” a person should trust it, continue to follow it and let it guide them.

What has changed with the post-cookie era and with AI

The progressive abandonment of third-party cookies, combined with the massive adoption of generative tools based on artificial intelligence, has profoundly changed the dynamics of production, targeting and measurement in content marketing.

Whereas previously it was possible to intercept user behavior through external tracking, today companies must invest in content that attracts through relevance, not through pursuit. Implicit profiling is being replaced by a declarative logic: communication is with those who have actively expressed interest in terms of searches, subscriptions, measurable actions within a controlled publishing ecosystem.

At the same time, generative AI has drastically reduced the marginal cost of writing, allowing a consistent amount of content to be created in a short time. But quantitative multiplication does not imply quality or effectiveness: without careful governance — guidelines on tone of voice, objectives and metrics, as well as revision of information and statements made — mass-generated content ends up looking the same and losing impact with the target user.

In this scenario, marketing content is once again valued for what it really is: attracting legitimate attention, competing for relevance, remaining visible over time. Generic content stops performing, while content designed to cover specific search intents, latent questions or transactional needs becomes the key asset for achieving positioning, relationship and conversion.

Editorial quality, the ability to customize content and depth of information are once again emerging as true differentiating factors. Despite technology, or perhaps precisely because of its widespread use, writing to be useful has once again become a competitive advantage.

How to do content marketing: the basics of strategy

The content marketing strategy is based on three fundamental elements: measurable objectives, a defined target audience and content designed with method, consistent with the phases of the purchasing process. It is not, therefore, a simple editorial plan, but a system in which production and distribution respond to a precise logic: increasing the perceived value of the brand while guiding the user towards concrete and measurable actions.

The operational flow combines initial analysis, person profiling, definition of key metrics, content processing, choice of channels and the construction of a sustainable plan over time. The most effective strategies don’t just aim for immediate acquisition, but build an information ecosystem that accompanies the user at every stage of the journey, maintain consistency in communication and measure each step to progressively optimize results.

Many companies struggle precisely because they skip the strategic phase and focus only on production. A well-structured strategy, on the other hand, allows you to differentiate the tone and depth of content based on audience signals and intentions, adapting languages, formats and frequency to what really works for a specific audience segment.

It is in this functional architecture that content takes on a doubly active role: transmitting value and transforming that interaction into traceable behavior.

Setting objectives and roadmaps

An effective strategy starts with the definition of clear and verifiable objectives. It is necessary to know from the beginning what you intend to achieve: generate qualified leads? Increase the average time spent on the site? Reduce the cost-per-conversion in paid campaigns supported by organic content? Depending on the specific purpose, the type of content to be produced, the channels to be monitored and the metrics to be monitored are determined.

Once the objective has been defined, an operational roadmap is created that divides the activity into phases: mapping of topics based on search intent, choice of the most suitable format for each message, allocation of internal or external resources, activation of writing, editing, distribution and tracking tools. The roadmap doesn’t just have an organizational function: it’s the guide document that avoids dispersion, overlapping and improvisation.

In more mature workflows, it also includes a feedback loop between content performance and subsequent strategic changes. Each piece of content produced is evaluated not only for its immediate performance, but also for how much and how it has contributed to a broader goal, and this allows for continuous iteration and improvement.

Know your audience: buyer persona and segmentation

Focusing only on content, and not on the people for whom it is intended, risks producing inconsistent results. Therefore, profiling the audience is the key step in defining the tone, depth and communicative objectives of each piece of content.

Buyer personas are synthetic models of real users, descriptive representations based on concrete data and qualitative observations; it is not a question of constructing imaginary figures, but of systematizing the patterns of behavior, needs, decision-making contexts and recurring critical issues within the company’s target audience.

In a fragmented scenario, segmentation allows us to distinguish audiences not only by demographic data, but also by maturity stage, access channel, and stated or implicit information objectives. Effective content marketing defines different content for different clusters, also changing formats and distribution methods: a technical prospect reads differently from a strategic manager, and an early-stage buyer has different information needs than someone who is close to making a purchase decision.

Only by knowing these variables in detail can you create content that doesn’t “tell the user”, but rather dialogues with them using the right vocabulary and timing.

Aligning content to the customer journey

An effective strategy aligns content and informational intentions with the real phases of the purchasing process and the customer journey, which as we know is no longer a rigid model, but a reference to orient the tone, function and level of detail that each piece of content should have.

In the initial phase (awareness), the audience is not looking for a commercial solution, but for information to understand a problem or explore an opportunity. At this stage, content must be clear, accessible and educational: introductory articles, checklists, short videos or concise social posts capable of intercepting latent needs. Blogs, video clips, infographics — if well optimized — can act as a natural entry point.

During the consideration phase, the user identifies possible evaluation criteria and begins to compare alternatives. The propensity to investigate increases, but the attention span remains variable. Effective content combines authority and synthesis: practical white papers, comparative guides, mini-cases, recorded webinars on common questions. In this phase it is possible to offer gated material (content under registration) to activate lead generation.

The last phase (decision) requires much more targeted messages. Here the user wants evidence. The content must help them evaluate the specific value of the offer, the different benefits, any proof of concept: detailed information sheets, guided demos, video testimonials, offers linked to the action. CTAs become central, but always framed by clear arguments and concrete feedback.

Each phase has its own grammar of information. Forcing BOFU content on those who are still uncertain leads to them leaving the path. Offering only TOFU content to those who are ready to act generates frustration. A mature management knows the difference and personalizes the message, not the form.

What are the types of content marketing content?

An effective content marketing strategy is not only measured by the quantity of content produced, but also by its ability to adopt the right language, in the appropriate format and on the most suitable channel for the objective. Typological variety is a functional resource, not a decorative one: each piece of content must be designed to adapt to the device it is viewed on, the user’s informational intent and the specific stage of the journey.

Both in B2B and B2C contexts, content can play different roles: to make visible, to intrigue, to explain, to reassure, to demonstrate credibility, to generate conversion or to activate a recurring relationship. For this reason it is important to immediately distinguish the macro-categories: typologies by support (text, audio, video, visual data), by duration and scheduling (evergreen, reactive, seasonal content), by access and involvement methods (open, gated, interactive content).

This variety does not imply a dispersion in communication: on the contrary. The more consciously the format is diversified, the more the brand’s ability to preside over points of contact between people and the useful information they are looking for is strengthened.

Textual, audio, video and visual content

The choice of format directly influences the user’s perception, understanding and availability of attention. Textual content remains the operational basis of content marketing: blog articles, e-books, white papers, long guides, written interviews, narrative case studies. Their strong point is indexing on search engines, depth of argument and the possibility of spreading reading over time.

Audio content, such as podcasts, offer a more flexible format. They are particularly effective for building editorial loyalty and accompanying the user in “listening” moments independent of the screen; they are suitable for telling stories, in-depth analyses, discussions with multiple voices and serial formats organized by interest.

Videos – in all their variations – are currently one of the most effective formats in terms of reach, engagement and conversion. From short videos for social media to long-form information, from demos to educational content, video concentrates message and presence in an immediate way, and is often reused in other formats.

Visual content – infographics, editorial images, graphs, diagrams, concept maps – enhance understanding and increase the memorability of the message. They can be used as stand-alone elements or integrated into other editorial assets, making textual content more readable, shareable and attractive.

Each medium enhances a different type of understanding. The choice depends less on the trend and more on the nature of the message you want to convey and the user’s attention span at that specific stage.

Evaluating time: evergreen, seasonal and reactive

In the strategic planning cycle, content is also distinguished by duration, timing opportunities and production logic. Evergreen content is designed to remain valid over time: it deals with structural topics, answers frequently asked questions, explores key concepts in the sector and, if correctly updated, continues to perform months or years after publication. Typical examples are blogs, knowledge bases, pillar pages and informative articles with high semantic density.

Seasonal content refers to recurring or cyclical market patterns: sales, events, scheduled campaigns, predictable trends, holidays. They are planned in advance and require strong integration between the content, social, SEO and performance teams. Although they are limited in time, they can bring high traffic in a short time and generate significant peaks (for example, pre-Christmas themed specials, offers in peak periods, peak season content).

Reactive or “real time” content is different, but equally important: comments on current events, content on emerging trends, industry news. They are often associated with social media and newsletters, and require speed of production and the ability to intercept ongoing conversations. They offer immediate visibility and relevance, but are short-lived, so they need to be balanced with more solid and structural content.

Managing this mix of content in a conscious way allows you to maintain a presence on several levels: long-term visibility, coverage of key moments and constant monitoring of industry news.

Diversification for users: open, gated and interactive content

The way in which the public accesses the content – and the spaces in which the interaction takes place – also has a significant impact on the strategic function of the content itself. Open content is freely accessible, navigable and indexable: it allows you to build organic authority, intercept traffic from search engines and increase spontaneous reach. Articles, embedded videos, social posts and infographics fall into this category. The value is in dissemination.

Gated content, on the other hand, requires an action from the user in exchange for access. The classic case is content that is accessible after filling out a form or subscribing to a newsletter: e-books, downloadable checklists, white papers, demonstration tools, reserved areas. These materials are used to activate data collection and build an active CRM asset. The higher the quality and specificity of the content, the greater the willingness to “exchange” contact and attention.

Interactive content includes quizzes, configurators, surveys, calculators, guided choices and personalized dynamic content. These have a double benefit: they increase the average time spent on the site, thanks to active involvement, and allow behavioral or declarative insights to be gathered that are extremely useful for segmenting subsequent flows.

The choice of the level of access and interaction depends on the type of value transferred, the immediate objective (reach, registrations, feedback) and the position of the content in the user’s path. An explanatory article does not need barriers; a technical guide can represent a fair “exchange” between user and brand. And in some cases, it is precisely the interaction that defines the content.

How to develop an effective content marketing plan

An effective content marketing plan is based on three conditions: a correct understanding of the company’s starting point, a realistic and coherent planning of activities and a constant management of the operational phases. If it really wants to guide the action, every strategic document must know how to read the time, resources and structure of the team, otherwise it becomes an impactless presentation file.

It is a complex process that takes into account the audience, the brand’s position, the available formats, production capacity, distribution and monitoring. And we must not forget sustainability: in addition to establishing what to produce, we must also define how to do it in a continuous, coherent way that is compatible with the available resources.

A method is needed that allows for well-considered decisions, a stable publication rhythm and the measurement of each phase as part of a verifiable and replicable process. It is not the number of contents that determines the success of an editorial project, but the intention with which they are created, the frequency with which they are updated, the way in which they are distributed and the real adherence to the needs of the target audience.

Each step has a specific function: to avoid duplication of content, to intercept real search intent, to coordinate internal/external contributors, to scale up everything that works and deactivate what produces a weak signal. All these elements, if treated in isolation, generate fragmentation. Only an orchestrated plan allows vertical content to be transformed into a continuous strategic narrative.

1. Audit and preliminary analysis

Every solid strategy starts with a structured analysis of the existing situation and an accurate mapping of the starting point. Auditing existing content allows you to identify which assets are already available, which ones are performing well, which ones are obsolete, and which ones can be reused or updated to generate new organic traffic, so as not to build on fragile or redundant editorial bases.

This activity includes various operations:

• Inventory and analysis of published content. Quantity, variety, format and current performance of existing assets are surveyed, including company blogs, e-books, newsletters, information sections and off-site resources.
• Quality check. Readability, updating, tone of voice and SEO potential of existing content are evaluated.
• Verification of current performance. By combining data from SEO, analytics and CRM tools, we analyze views, conversion rates, rankings, shares, conversions, average time spent on site and direct or indirect impacts on user actions.
• Mapping of topics covered and comparison with the search intentions expressed by users.
• Analysis of competitors by tone, structure, semantic focus. The topics covered by similar companies are compared in terms of business type, search engine authority, language and multichannel presence, highlighting any content gaps.
• Technical evaluation (accessibility, on-page SEO, mobile optimization).

Part of the analysis concerns effective semantic coverage: how many relevant topics are covered in a way that is consistent with the main search intentions? Where do they stand in relation to direct competitors? How much organic traffic do they generate today? What are the target keywords they rank for?

An effective audit also includes content pruning: identifying obsolete, duplicated or de-indexed content, in order to remove, consolidate or update it. This improves the overall quality of the site, lightens the information architecture and concentrates authority on the pages that are really strategic. At the same time, the formats already in use, the tone adopted, the frequency of publications and the possible presence of content gaps between what is distributed and what the public needs (such as a total absence of middle-funnel content, or an excess of top-funnel content based on keywords with no potential) should be analyzed.

The objective of the preliminary analysis is not to tidy up, but to trace the real condition of the editorial project, to understand where the reusable assets are, where the gaps are and which content, even high-performing content, needs to be updated to remain relevant.

A good strategy adopts a complementary logic: it enhances what exists, discards what is not effective, plans what is needed. When an audit is skipped or simplified, the resulting plan is based on perceptions. And perceptions, in content marketing, do not convert.

2. Strategic planning

From the initial photograph we move on to the actual editorial planning, which cannot be limited to scheduling the releases. This is the moment in which the general marketing and communication objectives are transformed into editorial lines, formats, channels and operational roles, through a series of positioning choices and operational intelligence that defines which content to produce, for whom, how often, with what voice and on which channels.

Planning is the modular representation of company objectives translated into content. On the one hand there are the communication needs (branding, differentiation), on the other the business objectives (leads, sales, retention): the content is the bridge that connects them.

For this reason it contains qualitative elements (choice of register, tone, level of detail) and quantitative elements (frequency of publication, media distribution rate, tracking points, related KPIs).

The process is based on four fundamental operational axes:

• Formats

Identifying the types of content doesn’t mean choosing “what to publish” in the abstract, but determining which media best support each objective. A textual in-depth article is useful for conveying knowledge and positioning oneself in terms of SEO; a short video is more powerful on reactive social media; a structured email can qualify a commercial interaction in an advanced phase.

The choice of format is a compromise between user experience, production effort, content destination and funnel objective. A long-form guide works better in TOFU and SEO, while a short video can trigger a purchase decision if used in the BOFU phase on a product page.

An effective format is not necessarily the most visual or articulate one, but the one that best suits the information consumption habits of the audience-cluster. A well-optimized article can have more impact than a video series that is not properly distributed. The decision must also consider the possibility of generating secondary content from the same asset: a recorded webinar can become a mini-series of videos, social media posts, a summary article, an e-book. Editorial scalability is a precise criterion for choice, not a chance event. And variety – if governed – does not generate confusion: it distributes effectiveness on multiple levels.

• Channels

Once you’ve chosen “what to publish”, you need to decide “where” to distribute it. Not all content should appear everywhere and each channel activates different logics and imposes narrative and visual constraints. You need to decide: where to publish stable proprietary content (such as blogs and downloadable PDFs), where to act in a “satellite” way (for example social media, digital PR and co-marketing), where to allocate paid efforts (sponsorships, native, performance boosts, retargeting).

Campaign blogs, social platforms, PDF assets, YouTube, podcast directories, proprietary groups: the content must follow the user’s path, without being forcibly replicated everywhere, as mentioned above. The selection of channels must respond to the behavior of the target and the credibility of the medium, not its notoriety, and has a direct impact on the audience reached and the conversion structure.

An infographic can work beautifully on LinkedIn but be inert in Google Discover; a long-form guide makes sense in a blog or newsletter, but not in an Instagram carousel. Channels are not neutral containers: their language and ergonomics profoundly influence the reception of the content.

Expanding channels without criteria produces dispersion. Selecting them with measurable objectives builds path and impact.

• Style and message

The editorial tone reinforces the brand’s personality and also serves to orient perception. In addition to “sounding recognizable”, in fact, it maintains consistency between the contents: the way in which the company explains, narrates, structures its arguments influences the construction of credibility.

In the most advanced plans, a structured guide language is defined: register, lexicon, technical level, average length, use of analogies or storytelling, recurring linguistic or visual patterns, quantity of integrated sources, argumentative structure.

It is the point where tone, lexicon, approach and structure blend to translate personality, seriousness, position, distinctive value and archetype of the brand.

An effective editorial style is not always flat or invariable, but it is always consistent: the way a concept is explained, a joke is used or avoided, a source is cited, long and short paragraphs alternate, all these things form the identity of the communication. And identity generates trust.

A content style guide — even a minimal one — helps internal and external authors, AI-assisted systems and copywriters to maintain consistency across all formats.

• Frequency and governance

Planning cannot ignore production sustainability and, without a clear rhythm, any strategy is more exposed to failure. In this phase, it is necessary to establish how many publications per week or month are realistic, how long they will last, what kind of output they require and who — internally or externally — will be responsible for them.

Governance indicates the flow: who writes, who reviews, who approves, who publishes and with what tools. In the absence of this structure, publications become occasional, and the strategy evaporates into productive chaos.

Structured content curation is also an integral part of strategic planning, because not everything has to be produced from scratch. Selecting, synthesizing and enriching authoritative third-party contributions (white papers, external statistics, citable articles) increases authoritativeness and avoids the dispersion of resources. An intelligent curation strategy — always attributed, always contextualized — can multiply the value of your publications without duplicating costs.

Defining “how much to publish” affects sustainability. A plan that is too ambitious burns resources and produces planning stress; one that is too loose loses impact on the public and visibility on search engines. A sustainable plan, on the other hand, does not produce the maximum “as many times as possible”, but the maximum “where it is really needed”.

3. Production and distribution

Now we start operating, with the awareness that creating effective content is not a linear or exclusively technical process: here too, each phase must be consistent with the objectives and adaptable to the channel. The most effective editorial flows involve different stages: gathering sources and data, outlining the structure, first draft, SEO and strategic revision, validation, formatting, distribution.

Production starts with a process of assisted ideation: internal brainstorming, analysis of the most searched queries, identification of soft topic clusters or latent questions, the “content gap filling” or “skyscraper strategy” technique, structured briefs.

This is followed by the drafting, which must align with SEO, UX and storytelling requirements. Here, the validation of editorial ideas is important, both qualitative and brand-based, based on concrete objectives and solid documentation: briefings – internal or for collaborators – must contain, for example, main titles and keywords, target audience, informative intent, publication channel, expected CTA, indicative length, SEO specifications and requested graphic or multimedia assets.

Each piece of content should be part of a coherent whole: a standalone article has a limited life, while an interconnected series can generate greater visibility and depth. Tracking is done through KPI sets integrated into the project at the design stage.

During the writing process it is essential to maintain the link with the strategy: each piece of content must make explicit its function in the funnel; each textual element must reflect the defined tone; each material produced must be ready to be reused, updated, promoted. Revision — grammatical, stylistic, SEO — is not a marginal addition, but a phase built on shared parameters.

After publication, the distribution phase begins along the defined channels, which serves to build paths to and from. Social posts differentiated by tone of voice and target, newsletter snippets, editorial cross-links between related content, evergreen updates: this is also an editorial action.

Distribution can be direct (via blog, SEO, push notifications or newsletter), amplified (via social media and earned media) or supported by selective paid promotion (retargeting of top-performing posts or sponsored content on LinkedIn or Google Native Ads). Obviously, it follows different logics depending on the destination:

• Native content for the site must be optimized for search intent and UX.
• Those intended for social media require narrative and visual adaptation.
• Those designed as PDFs or gated materials must be accessible after a specific action (lead form, registration, onboarding).
• Serial content should be published with narrative and temporal consistency.

In this phase, redistribution through content syndication should also be considered, i.e. the structured sharing of your content on third-party platforms — sector portals, media partners, collaborative channels — that multiply its visibility and access. If well managed, and with consistent canonical or UTM links, it allows you to broaden your readership without losing editorial control.

Inserting semi-automatic social publishing systems, integration with e-mail marketing platforms or cross-promotion on partner blogs helps to maximize the initial reach, while insertion in thematic collections, pillars and source silos optimizes progressive visibility in search engines.

4. Promotion and amplification

Reaching users today means working on three levels: organic interception, direct distribution and strategic amplification. And the promotion phase can’t be left on the sidelines – it would be like depositing books in a library without catalogs. Users don’t come across content by chance, but you have to design paths, create visibility, intercept attention.

Promotion takes place on two tracks: organic and paid. The first includes SEO, deep linking, mentions, social sharing, co-marketing, digital PR, and thematic repositories. The second can include semantic campaigns, native placement in target media, sponsored posts, content seeding programs, and selective re-targeting. Then there’s the push plan, which reinforces messages through segmented newsletters, browser notifications, and retargeting automation.

A balanced strategy doesn’t promote everything: it identifies strategic content that has a measurable function (for impact, SEO, funnel or lead generation) and builds a coordinated micro-campaign around it. The rest is distributed naturally, following the hierarchy of the plan and a logic of return.

This phase doesn’t take place “after publication”, but is part of the strategy from the start. You need to decide what makes sense to promote, with what objective, for how long, with what supporting assets and with what call to action. Otherwise you’ll be spending traffic on content without a narrative container.

Integrate content marketing automation

The growing volumes of content and the variety of touchpoints require automated processes, not only for publishing but also for orchestrating complex activities over time.

When content becomes numerous, multi-channel and complex, it becomes crucial to use a system that manages it in a scalable, repeatable and controllable way, without eliminating creativity but supporting work on repetitive tasks, optimizing flows and responsiveness of the delivery cycle.

Automation allows you to:

• Program editorial flows (scheduled, recurring, seasonal).
• Plan sequential and personalized distribution via email, push and social media
• Segment the audience based on interactions and interests
• Distribute specific assets at the most relevant moment of the customer journey
• Activate triggers for lead nurturing (based on behavior or time data).
• Recover inactive users with personalized informational campaigns.
• Feed an editorial CRM that records the history and performance of each piece of content.
• Measure the path of the content in relation to the user in real time

The most commonly used tools operate on different levels: planning (shared calendars, editorial alerts), creation (templates, AI assistant, integrated briefing systems), distribution (dynamic newsletters, multi-channel social schedulers, automation for welcome series or re-engagement journeys), measurement (performance dashboards, UTM tracking, centralized multi-channel analysis).

Marketing automation platforms (such as Hubspot, ActiveCampaign or Mautic) allow you to distribute content dynamically, link performance to the real network paths of users and, above all, free up time for what really matters: designing better content. Obviously, no tool can compensate for an unclear plan: automation enhances what already works, it doesn’t solve what doesn’t exist.

Practical applications: content marketing for B2B and B2C companies

Content marketing is a transversal discipline, but its function changes completely depending on the type of market in which it is applied. The differences don’t only concern the formats used or the tone of voice chosen, but the logic with which the contents are designed with respect to the decision-making dynamics of the public, the duration of the purchase cycle and the role that the information plays along that path.

In the B2B environment, content has an advisory function: it supports qualification, inspires trust, and reduces perceived risk. In the B2C environment, content works mainly on immediate interest, identification and rapid usability. In both cases, production must be perfectly integrated into the commercial and distribution system, but it obeys completely different narrative principles, persuasion times and purposes.

In business-to-business marketing, the purchase is almost always a decision mediated: rarely made by a single individual and rarely concluded after the first contact. In this scenario, content takes the form of preparatory leverage. Its task is to activate the process, create the conditions for a reliable relationship and support the user — often a manager or a technician — in each of the phases that will lead him to a decision.

The most effective materials in this context are those that show specific competence, familiarity with complex issues and the ability to construct informed arguments. White papers, industry studies, comparative content and in-depth articles on technical pain points become central assets, not only in the TOFU phase but also when the contact is already being evaluated. In the B2B environment, content doesn’t need to amaze: it must reduce uncertainties, make data and scenarios readable and transfer authority without slipping into self-promotion.

A distinctive aspect of B2B content marketing is that it often works before the intention to purchase is formalized. It creates culture, positions the brand as a point of reference, builds familiarity. Its impact is not always traceable in the short term, but it has an effect at critical moments in the procurement process: when an internal request is generated, when choosing who to ask for advice, when comparing similar offers. An effective plan is not limited to the production of technical articles: it accompanies the sales team, integrates the CRM and provides useful data to improve segmentation and commercial priorities.

In business-to-consumer, content does not have time to be meditative: it must attract attention quickly, generate interest and capitalize on the emotional momentum within often short time frames. Effective B2C content follows two main logics: that of immediate utility and that of experiential connection.

One of the key points is responsiveness. While in B2B narrative consistency prevails, here the ability to “speak” at the right moment is everything. Seasonal campaigns, trend-based content, vertical formats on social channels, UGC and micro-formats designed for sharing intercept the public where and when they are most active. The information is not necessarily in-depth: it is accessible, relevant and adapted to the context.

The relational dimension plays a central role. Production often focuses on content that expresses the values of the brand, describes scenarios in which the customer can identify, or offers iterative micro-interactions: tutorials, short tips, user experiences, “behind the scenes”. From this point of view, content is not only used to sell a product, but also to build a shared language and strengthen the presence of the brand in the public’s experience.

It should be considered that in B2C the multiplicity of touchpoints amplifies the complexity: brief, immediate interactions, but repeated over time. For this reason, an arena like TikTok or Instagram can have the same weight as a well-written product sheet. But writing, even in summary form, remains decisive: a caption, a comment or a well-calibrated headline can determine the trigger for interaction.

How to measure the results of content marketing

Understand how each piece of content changes the status of a user – informs, retains, convinces or activates them – and use this information to decide what to keep, what to update and what to improve. In short, this is what it means to measure the KPIs of content marketing, which is much more than just associating them with tables, counting views or calculating the number of shares.

It means asking yourself which content has had a real impact on business objectives such as leads, sales, loyalty, brand authority or positioning.

Every strategy must establish from the outset what constitutes “success” and how this can be verified. This requires a clear definition of the key performance indicators (KPIs), the choice of measurement tools and the logical attribution: which content contributed to what, to what extent and in what sequence within the user’s journey.

Without a robust analysis system, content marketing is reduced to a self-referential creative exercise, while with a well-structured measurement framework, every editorial action becomes traceable, interpretable and improvable.

What are the main KPIs

The metrics to be considered depend on the type of content, the phase of the funnel and the specific objectives: a free guide intended for users in the awareness phase will not follow the same measurement logic as a downloadable case history in lead generation.

An indicator is useful if it allows you to accurately read the relationship between content and objective.

Metrics related to traffic, for example, make sense when the goal is visibility or organic reach. Analyzing sessions, sources, and the progressive growth of positioned URLs allows us to evaluate the ability of the content to attract attention and generate discovery paths. But if we don’t also observe how the user behaves after clicking, the metric remains incomplete.

This is where engagement metrics come in, which are decisive for evaluating the quality of use. Average time spent on the page, scroll depth, real interactions with the content – such as comments, clicks on contextual elements or progress through modules – help to measure the degree of attention and actual involvement. However, even engagement, if isolated, risks not telling us anything in terms of business. We need a third family of metrics: those oriented towards conversion.

Not all conversions are transactional. They can be newsletter subscriptions, downloads of an asset, viewing of a video in sequence, or requests for a demo. It is essential that each piece of content has its own precise objective and that this objective is traceable. Only in this way is it possible to distinguish between content that generates numbers and content that produces effects.

Finally, there are the reputational metrics, the most difficult to codify, but often decisive on longer time scales. Increased exposure to consistent content gradually improves trust and propensity to act, even if the conversion happens elsewhere or later. The identification of an increase in brand searches or the increase in organic mentions signals a latent but consistent impact.

In summary, therefore, the main content marketing KPIs are divided into four functional areas:

1. Traffic KPIs

• Unique sessions
• Traffic sources (organic, referral, direct, email, paid)
• Views per content

2. Engagement KPIs

• Average time on page
• Scroll depth (percentage of actual reading)
• Interactions (likes, comments, saves, shares) in social content
• Average number of page views per session
• Bounce rate

3. Conversion KPIs

• Subscription rates to newsletter or funnel
• Downloads from gated content
• Clicks on internal CTAs
• Conversion rate for lead-oriented content

4. Relationship and perception KPIs

• Brand mentions linked to the content
• Community growth (followers/mailing list)
• Active feedback: comments, replies, spontaneous mentions
• Referrals directed by the content (ambassadors, editorial PR)

It isn’t necessary to measure everything in the same way: what matters is to link each piece of content to a purpose and associate it with appropriate indicators. The quality of a piece of content isn’t measured in likes, but in its ability to support a relevant relationship and produce action.

Tools for measuring content effectiveness

All this is obviously impossible without tools dedicated to the analysis of digital content is not possible.

Choosing the tools with which to measure the effectiveness of content means determining from the start which signals to collect and how deeply to interpret them; no single tool can meet all the needs of content marketing, nor does it make sense to rely on advanced tools if the data is then left out of the strategic optimization process. For this reason it is useful to distinguish between tracking, interpretation and action tools – or, if you like, statistical platforms for monitoring, CRM and marketing automation systems, SEO software for monitoring semantic effectiveness and positioning.

Analytics platforms such as Google Analytics 4 allow you to observe traffic at a macro level, monitoring events, sources, durations and behavioral clusters. In GA4 the classic metrics have been recalibrated: for example, bounce rate is now implicit in engagement rate, and each measurement is based on personalized events, not page views. This allows for flexibility, but requires a precise configuration to obtain truly operational insights. Understanding whether a guide produces value does not depend on the number of views, but on what the user does during and after that visit: does he interact with the CTAs? Does he explore the topic in other articles? Does he start a path?

To track these effects beyond the first click, CRM and marketing automation systems come into play. By linking the data hosted in the CMS, it is possible to determine which content preceded the opening of a newsletter, which content was viewed before a soft conversion, and how often a lead returns to visit site resources before qualifying. Advanced CRMs even allow you to assign behavioral scores to users based on the frequency, depth and type of interactions with content. Through these signals, segmentation becomes predictive and progressive, rather than static.

At the same time, SEO platforms such as SEOZoom allow you to analyze the positioning of content in the SERP, identify related topics not yet covered, predict seasonality and declines, and suggest priority updates. They don’t just indicate whether a piece of content receives organic traffic: they also indicate why it receives it, which queries it works best for, and where the keywords are underused compared to their semantic potential. The same content can rank for ten secondary keywords, but be weak for the one with the most transactional intent: data is needed to correct course and content.

These tools are accompanied by visual analytics environments – such as heatmaps or session replays – that help us understand how users interact within individual pages. Where do they stop? Where do they click? Do they ignore crucial elements? Do they scroll without reading? This information doesn’t replace classic metrics, but it does amplify their interpretation. And then there’s Looker Studio by Google for personalized dashboards, combining multiple sources.

Each tool returns a different portion of reality. Value comes from the ability to combine perspectives, not from looking for a dashboard that answers everything. Without integration between source, behavior and assigned objective, no data really tells you what the content is doing. Or what it should be doing.

The choice of tools should not be made based on fashion. It should be calibrated according to the company’s ability to read the data and integrate it into the editorial decision-making process.

ROI and impact attribution

Let’s move on to one of the most delicate – and most misunderstood – areas of this activity, namely attributing the economic and relational value produced by content, which rarely produces conversions in a linear way: in most cases it acts in the medium term, influencing decisions in an implicit way, contributing to the authority of the brand rather than to the immediate generation of revenue. In other words, the return on investment (ROI) is not always direct, because the content often acts as an accelerator, “preparer” or mediator in the decision-making process, and therefore a single indicator is not enough, but an interpretative system that takes into consideration the sequence and context in which a content is used.

Many measurement plans still rely on the last-click attribution model, which assigns all the value to the content with which a conversion was concluded. This approach, if used alone, radically underestimates the function of the information materials that intervene in the preliminary phases of the funnel: those that anticipate, explain, and guide the user’s maturation. The result is that content with a very high relational value is labeled as “ineffective” just because it doesn’t close a sale.

Multi-touch models, on the other hand, allow you to identify content that recurs in the paths of active users, distributing credit over several stages. The most commonly used systems — such as linear, decreasing or position-based — assign a proportional weight to the order and the function that a piece of content has played in the journey. However, the adoption of these models requires comprehensive data collection, integration between analytical tools, CRM and automation, and a systematic classification of content by role and objective.

Alternatively, the use of assisted conversions or reverse flows (reverse goal path) allows retrospective analysis on the most recurring content before a key action. This too does not return the absolute economic value, but allows us to understand which content has a systematic recurrence in high-performance paths.

The best ways to address the issue therefore include:

• Multi-touch attribution models, which distribute the conversion value among all the content touched in the user journey (first/linear/position-based).
• Retrospective analysis, crossing data from CRM, analytics and automation, to evaluate the average influence of content on conversion.
• Reverse goal path, useful in Google Analytics to identify the content that frequently precedes key actions.
• “Assisted” models, which analyze the frequency with which content participates, without closing, in a significant action (download, subscription, contact).

In B2B, or in complex sales cycles, content is even more difficult to trace back to a single event: it intervenes several times, in different contexts, often without leaving a direct trace. The only way to evaluate it correctly is to observe how it modifies the speed of decision-making processes, the rate of response to commercial solicitations, or the quality of the leads generated. In many projects, the real ROI of content is not in sales, but in the reduction of the negotiation cycle. And this changes the logic with which the value is calculated.

Correctly attributing the result to a piece of content means having a granular vision of the user path, but also a corporate culture capable of reading data without forcing answers. Measuring ROI means calculating how much has been converted, but also how much has been saved in paid costs thanks to the workforce, how much time has been reduced in sales cycles, how much the brand’s ability to be chosen at high-value moments has increased.

No single tool makes the weight of intermediate content visible. But ignoring it leads to underfunding the very activities that enable future conversions.

What are the most common mistakes in content marketing

Now that we’ve clarified the theoretical aspect and the strategic framework, it’s inevitable that we also talk about the other side of the coin, because it often happens that we run into problems or errors that compromise the final result and nullify our efforts, both in companies without editorial teams and in projects managed by specialized internal figures

It is therefore important to learn how to analyze critical areas and resolve them as quickly as possible: there are countless guides on how to create and apply a content marketing strategy, but they have the problem of being generic, while the needs of a company are very concrete. Often, when you implement an intervention in this sector, you risk having to wait several months before getting a concrete return, and this means loss of time and investments.

We must therefore become capable of understanding why the strategy didn’t work even if we followed all the instructions, and therefore be able to improve it – perhaps without seeking another guide – knowing what didn’t work in our effort.

Often the problem doesn’t depend on the budget, or the quality of the individual ideas, or poorly written content, but on structural critical issues in the planning, narrative coherence or concrete management. Content placed out of context, conceived without a specific audience, published without distribution or left without metrics with which to evaluate it, or a publication that initially appears effective but over time reveals profound fragility: random visibility, opaque message, out-of-rhythm production, inconsistent content with respect to company objectives.

Avoiding mistakes doesn’t mean avoiding attempts, but building a system that recognizes wrong choices, identifies their causes and progressively reformulates the strategy. Some mistakes are repeated because they initially seem invisible. Intervening too late, when production is already active and distribution compromised, often means having to start over.

Here is a series of operational errors that arise from dysfunctional mental approaches, distorted views of what “really matters” and shortcuts that seem agile but lead to inconsistent results.

1. Overestimating the “beauty” of content

One of the most common misconceptions is to link the success of a piece of content to its form alone. Attention to graphics, visual quality or format design is often used as an implicit measure of the validity of the content itself, but aesthetically pleasing production does not equate to an effective message — much less to strategic content. A well-written article, a well-formatted e-book, a video with excellent graphics may appear flawless, but if they don’t address a real need, an unresolved question from the public or a real function in the decision-making process, they remain empty showcases.

The problem arises when form becomes the objective, not the support. Articles, videos, landing pages and posts are designed to be pleasing, coordinated, visually “right”, without asking whether they are actually useful for the public, coherent with the phase of the customer journey or capable of supporting the objective for which they were conceived. When content is evaluated based on parameters similar to those of a visual campaign, the very meaning of the discipline is lost. Readability is not enough if the message ignores the recipient’s expectations.

Often, this error is accompanied by a self-referential management of the plan: the story that the company wants to tell is not mediated by what people are looking for, but by what is considered relevant. It is written for oneself, not for the reader. This is why glossy articles, well-edited videos and perfect files for the board do not bring traffic, engagement or results.

The mistake is to take away space from the meaning, creating poor content, even if well-made on an expressive level. And there is no packaging that can compensate for this strategic misalignment.

2. Lack of distribution and visibility

We often say it: in strategic copywriting, publication is not the end of the process. Creating content without accompanying it with a visibility strategy is equivalent to burying it. The “publish & pray” production logic – you write it, you put it online, you hope for the best – is not compatible with measurable results and is based on a passive vision of the public. It is actually dangerous to rely on the assumption that “if it’s good, someone will find it”, thinking that uploading a well-written article to a blog or planning posts on social networks is enough to get traffic or attention.

Many excellent contents are never read for a simple reason: those who created them did not foresee how to get them to the right audience. Either the chosen channel wasn’t compatible, the release time was critical, or the absence of internal links left it isolated. Search engines reward useful content, but they aren’t designed to discover it without clear signals. Each piece of content needs a real onboarding phase in the system.

Furthermore, distribution isn’t limited to proprietary channels. Ignoring the possibility of relaunching content through communities, newsletters, editorial collaborations, guest posts or sponsored actions on paid networks means giving up the chance to multiply visibility and the duration of your presence. Content doesn’t spread because it’s valid: it spreads because it finds a structure that supports it. And, on the other hand, content can remain immobile not because it’s scarce, but because it’s invisible.

3. Excessive generic content

Trying to talk to everyone is the quickest way to not interest anyone, because it usually ends up creating material that is not valid for anyone. Failure is common when content is written in a neutral way, lacking communicative tension, deliberately vague or sterilized by strategic considerations about tone, audience and function, which neither scratch the surface nor leave a trace.

This type of content fails in two ways. On the one hand, it fails to get noticed in the crowd of similar information (the classic problem in the attention economy); on the other hand, it fails to build a real connection with any specific audience. The user does not recognize him or herself in the problems discussed, does not read a familiar language, does not identify useful references to his or her own situation. And they abandon the reading, even if the content is formally structured.

Genericity often arises from a false caution: there is a fear that being too focused could exclude a part of the audience, but today identity is a strong lever for bringing content and recipient closer together.

Analysis of the problems with the effectiveness of campaigns

Broadening the scope of the analysis, we can follow the ideas highlighted in an article by Michael Doer on Search Engine Watch and focus on the four areas where the greatest obstacles in content marketing campaigns are usually found – with indications on how to identify and overcome weaknesses and critical points.

1. Problems with the structure of the workflow.
2. Problems with the quality of the content.
3. Problems with the distribution of the content.
4. Problems with content conversion rates.

One of the most common problems in novice content marketing efforts is inconsistency: we have “set the right goals, started measuring KPIs, but the team can’t seem to manage the workload, deadlines are often missed, the quality of the content is poor and we get little feedback”.

To improve, it’s not enough just to get the content team back on track: it’s more useful to understand what went wrong and why it happened, so that you can really solve the problem.

The advice is to examine the content marketing workflow through value stream management or workflow mapping, the value stream management strategy originally developed by Toyota engineers to make car production more efficient and then applied in every other sector.

How to create a workflow map

To create a workflow map you need to follow a few steps:

• Get the content marketing team together.
• Select a goal, for example the creation of a single article.
• Understand who is involved in the process.
• Collect feedback on all stages of the process.
• Visualize in a map (in the image, taken from Tallify, the example of a workflow for managing a support ticket).

It’s not so important how to draw the map – there are various specially designed software programs, but you can also make a simple diagram by hand – but to be able to identify and really include what happens in the workflow, not what should be in theory.

Once you have the map, you need to look for points of inefficiency: it’s possible that copywriters don’t receive assignments in time or that there is no quality control in the content pipeline. Whatever the reason for the criticality, workflow mapping allows you to understand what is going wrong and, after identifying the reason, it will be possible to test different ways to solve the problem and then measure the result and the effects of this work.

Overcome critical issues with quality content

According to Worldometers.com, over five million posts are published on blogs every day: to overcome all this noise, you need a quality post.

As we know, judging the quality of writing is highly subjective, but we can use some metrics to reduce the inevitable bias, as suggested by James Parsons, founder of Content Powered, who invites us to examine four statistics that could indicate that content quality is poor.

• Average time on page.
• Shares on social media (provided there are easy ways to share).
• Click-through rate for other articles on the blog.
• Average time on site.

If any of these metrics are not showing any sign of improvement, it is a clear sign that readers are not finding the content good enough.

Analyze and improve the content

Having identified the problem, it’s time to figure out how to intervene, first by analyzing the text to see if it is informative and readable, and then, if necessary, improve the content. In this case too, there are various tools that verify the readability of a text, but these are always mechanical evaluations that may not have concrete results in reality. The same complexity is found in judging whether a content is informative, because it returns to the field of subjectivity.

One solution could be to analyze the competition that is getting the best results to find out what kind of narrative elements they use in their strategy – for example, infographics, statistics, interviews with influencers in the sector, quotes – and try to include them in your own content, obviously adapting them to your own communication style.

A common mistake, especially for those new to the sector, is to focus only on creating content and neglect the other key aspect of this work, namely marketing: even the best of texts risks remaining without readers and not producing the desired effect if it is not adequately promoted and distributed.

It is therefore important to work on attracting readers and making the efforts made so far effective, starting by understanding if there is actually a problem with the distribution of the texts that is blocking their diffusion.

The main statistic that can serve as a compass is the number of backlinks and their growth, but it can also be useful to monitor the position of the content in the SERPs and the organic growth of site traffic from target pages. However, to get “a complete picture, you should also consider keyword coverage,” all of which can be done with SEOZoom tools.

If the content isn’t getting enough backlinks, you need to rethink your outreach and try to improve the copy of the email or find websites that might be more interested in the proposed content. It’s important to get measurable results, so remember to split test your email outreach campaign.

If it is the growth of organic traffic that is poor, there are various ways to improve the content: try to better focus the search intent, update the content to make it more current and incisive, optimize the title and meta description (which can play a crucial role in attracting visitors to the site from organic search results), add related keywords and so on. One way to save time and effort is to try improving just one of the aspects listed for content that isn’t working, and see which change produces the best results.

Examples and models of effective content marketing

Considering the excesses and problems to be avoided, we can also look at successful and winning cases, in order to identify planning logics, conscious choices, recurring elements and approaches that can be replicated in our sector. It’s not about emulating formats or titles, but about carefully observing how certain content has been conceived, distributed, adapted and sustained over time to become strategic assets.

From strategy to action

With SEOZoom you can plan, publish and measure all your content

Find out more

The most effective projects share at least three characteristics: editorial consistency, a clear relationship with a goal and the ability to expand the value of the content beyond its single session of fruition. Some are based on continuity of production (thematic blogs, vertical video channels), others on the depth of a single well-optimized resource (long-form guides, referential videos), others still on interaction with the reference community (dynamic hubs, episodic series).

There is no absolute winning format: there is a right format in relation to the objectives and the communicative structure of the brand.

Successful formats and campaigns

Evergreen content is among the most long-lasting and refined in content marketing: it is configured as an in-depth resource designed to last over time, remain updatable and cover highly recurring topics. An emblematic case is that of the “pillar posts” that act as semantic hubs on vertical topics, as in the case of thematic glossaries or operational roadmaps (for example, “How to develop a social media marketing strategy in 2025”). Editorial projects like these build trust, constant traffic, spontaneous backlinking and structured periodic updatability.

Alongside permanent content, there are branded series, narrative formats designed to build a more emotional bond, often conveyed on video or podcast platforms. In this case, the objective is not direct research but loyalty. HubSpot, in particular, has produced repetitive audio series on conversational marketing and the modern customer journey, generating a stable international community. Serialized formats ensure editorial continuity and predispose the user to wait for the next content, increasing the propensity for prolonged use and the habit of the brand’s voice.

Another particularly effective model is the publication of iterative content, such as annual reports on trends and benchmarks. The Content Marketing Institute is a concrete reference: each new report becomes an opportunity to create derivative content (articles, slide decks, webinars), with repercussions in terms of lead generation, engagement and reputation. Here the main content acts as a driver for related formats, in an expansive logic guided by data.

When content becomes a “narrative center” capable of generating new assets, promoting offers and nurturing relationships, the project takes on a structured, measurable and scalable dimension. These are the formats to study, even more than to imitate.

Useful case studies: those who know how to exploit content

Many of the most interesting cases of content marketing come from B2B contexts, where information is an essential part of the sales cycle. Salesforce, for example, has built an entire section dedicated to thought leadership, in which case studies, tutorials, in-depth analyses and interviews with analysts follow one another with evident thematic and stylistic coherence. The objective is not only to generate traffic, but to demonstrate vision and internal consistency, making the company’s values tangible through concrete content.

Another convincing example comes from Patagonia, a B2C brand active in the outdoor sector, which has transformed content into a narrative window on its ethical, environmental and production choices. The content doesn’t sell products: it explains the territory, materials, people and supply chain choices. The editorial value is high, and acts on the relationship with the community, not on immediate promotion. This results in highly shared content, frequent media coverage and a paradigm shift: it is the products that take shape within a vision, not the other way around.

In educational contexts, on the other hand, one of the most recurring (and replicable) cases is that of Moz with its “Whiteboard Friday”: a series of weekly videos where technical concepts are explained in a simple, visual, progressive way. The effect is twofold: continuous authoritativeness and user loyalty to the format. The content becomes a ritual, and the brand a reference.

These models don’t indicate a mandatory path, but they do show a common rule: content is effective when it interprets the editorial function in the system of relationship between brand and public. It doesn’t occupy a space, but generates a context. And that’s where the strategy really takes shape.

FAQs and frequently asked questions about content marketing

When dealing with large-scale publishing projects, it is natural that doubts arise about timing, tools, terminological differences and operating methods. Content, no matter how well written, only produces value when it is designed to fit into a coherent strategic plan, with measurable objectives and a real target audience. This is why content marketing is not simply “producing content”: it is organizing a system of relationships between what the user is looking for and what the company has to offer. Effectiveness is measured over time, not in the moment.

1. What is the difference between content marketing and content strategy?

The content strategy defines what should be produced, for whom, with what style and with what objectives. It is the structured planning of the brand’s editorial presence. Content marketing is the operational implementation of this strategy: it deals with the creation, publication and distribution of content on the chosen channels, with specific intentions (such as generating leads, increasing visibility, supporting SEO or nurturing a relationship). Without strategy, content marketing is incoherent; without active content, a strategy remains unexpressed.

2. Does content marketing really improve your SEO?

Yes, when it is designed in synergy with a well-defined SEO plan. Informative content – if optimized for search intent, correctly structured and distributed with internal logic – helps to rank for explicit or latent keywords and increases the overall relevance of the domain. Google favors content that reliably and usefully answers the user’s questions: content marketing, if well done, naturally intercepts these needs.

3. How long does it take to see concrete results?

It depends on many factors: domain authority, publication intensity, SEO optimization level, content quality and semantic competition. On average, a well-optimized page starts ranking in 4–8 weeks, but some content builds its value over time, accumulating traffic and loyal readers. The most solid results come after 3–6 months of consistent publication, especially for evergreen content. In the meantime, it is possible to measure micro-objectives: engagement, organic growth, improved CTR, initial leads.

4. What are the most effective types of content for B2B?

In B2B, content designed to guide reflection and provide evaluation tools works best.

Some recurring examples are:

• Educational articles about processes or technologies.
• White papers that explore trends or vertical issues;
• Case studies that show measurable results in similar situations;
• Comparative guides, industry benchmarks, mini interactive tools;
• Recordings of webinars or podcasts with recognized experts.

It is important that each piece of content is linked to a real professional need and is not self-referential.

5. What role do buyer personas play in a content marketing strategy?

They are fundamental. The personas help define who we are trying to reach, what their priorities are, the channels they frequent, the terminology they use. They allow you to write more relevant content, select the correct formats and calibrate tone of voice, depth and call to action. A good content strategy works concretely on the differences between segments: not all audiences should be treated in the same way.

6. Does content marketing require advertising to work?

Not necessarily, but in many cases targeted promotion is useful, especially in the early stages. Organic visibility is built over time, but amplification can accelerate the distribution of the most strategic content: BOFU content, pillar pages, downloadable tools, or high-value evergreen materials. Sponsorship campaigns (LinkedIn, Google Ads, native advertising) help test performance, validate formats and improve targeted reach, especially in highly competitive environments.

7. Can I use AI to create content marketing content?

Yes, but with very clear limits. Artificial intelligence-based tools are useful for: generating initial drafts, suggesting titles, rephrasing existing content, supporting the optimization of structure and consistency. However, they are no substitute for expertise, strategic vision and editorial validation. Artificial intelligence helps speed up flows, but it is not a substitute for qualitative writing. The content that gets results is relevant, specific and consistent with the tone and objectives of the brand.

8. What are the most important metrics to analyze?

It depends on the objectives. If we are working on traffic: views, SEO growth, CTR organic. For engagement: average time on page, effective scroll, internal clicks. For conversion: subscriptions, downloads, contact requests. For long-term presence: backlinks, mentions, growth in branded searches. No metric has absolute value; it is consistency with the objective of the content and its position in the funnel that defines its concrete relevance.

9. What is the difference between promotional and informative content?

Promotional content focuses on the offer: it describes a product, highlights its advantages and invites the reader to buy directly. Informative content, on the other hand, is created to resolve doubts, educate or explore a topic relevant to the public. In effective content marketing, both coexist: informative content attracts, positions and builds trust, while promotional content supports the action. The key is proportion and sequence: inform before you persuade.

10. How do you plan an editorial calendar for content marketing?

The editorial calendar organizes the production and publication of content in a way that is consistent with the objectives, the audience and the available resources. It starts with the identification of the fundamental topics (macro-themes and strategic keywords), assigning specific formats and channels based on the phase of the funnel, defining editorial responsibilities and realistic timing. A good calendar is not rigid: it is a living system, to be updated every month or quarter, never just a sheet to fill in. For a complete guide, you may find it useful to consult our pillar dedicated to the editorial plan.

11. Can any company do content marketing or does it need a blog?

Content marketing is not the same as blogging, and it doesn’t necessarily require a blog. Any company can activate a content strategy through guides, videos, optimized files, emails, podcasts or even through social media. The important thing is to have a plan and choose the format that best suits your audience and your resources. In certain B2B sectors, for example, an in-depth e-book and a series of follow-ups via email are worth more than ten articles.

12. Is it possible to apply content marketing to technical or “boring” sectors?

Yes, and that’s exactly where it often works best. In technical fields — enterprise software, engineering, manufacturing, compliance, logistics — there is little competition on the editorial level and a strong need for clear, concrete and in-depth content. Decision makers are looking for reliable information, impartial comparisons and real solutions. The tone will be different compared to a lifestyle market, but the winning strategy is the same: well-written, useful, searchable content that shortens the time it takes to make a choice.

13. Is it better to produce long or short content?

Length is not a parameter of effectiveness in itself. It all depends on the function that the content has to perform, the channel in which it is distributed and the point of the funnel it is aimed at. Longer content is better suited to answering complex queries, consolidating authority and covering topics with a high search volume: guides, technical insights and pillar articles can easily exceed 1500 words with excellent results in terms of positioning. Short content, on the other hand, works better on social media, to accompany the user in serial sequences, stimulate quick reactions or introduce topics. The strategy is not to choose “a format”, but to maintain consistency between objective, means and target.

14. How do you integrate content into the marketing funnel?

Each piece of content should be designed to accompany the user through a specific step, responding to different information needs along the conversion path. Top-of-funnel (TOFU) content educates, encourages discovery, generates visibility: introductory blog posts, short videos, infographics, mini-guides. Middle-of-funnel (MOFU) content helps to compare, evaluate, explore: white papers, case studies, webinars, configurators, comparative articles. Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) content guides the decision: technical data sheets, demos, offers, quotable calls to action, decision-making landing pages. A well-structured plan distributes editorial forces over the three levels, avoiding directing all content to the awareness phase alone or, even worse, only to sales.

15. How long should content last before it is updated?

The durability of content depends on its nature (evergreen vs. seasonal), the competitive context and user behavior. Some content retains value for months or years but, if not updated, it begins to lose ranking and trust. Ideally, every strategic piece of content should be audited every 6–12 months, even if only to verify links, data, sources and structure. In case of a drop in traffic, loss of positioning or being overtaken by more recent competing content, a complete update of the text and SEO optimization is needed. With tools like SEOZoom it is possible to identify content that has started to decay silently and decide in time whether to improve, consolidate or replace it.

16. Does duplicate content penalize content marketing?

Duplicate content within the same domain is not automatically penalized, but it can create problems for the search engine in terms of crawl budget management, indexing and semantic confusion. When two pieces of content essentially say the same thing or compete for the same keywords, Google has trouble choosing which one to show: this is the risk of cannibalization. The case of content copied from other sites or generated through non-editorial practices is very different: in that case Google can remove it from the index or ignore it completely. A serious content marketing plan involves the creation of original content, even when it comes from content curation practices: elaborating, contextualizing, attributing and proposing one’s own point of view. This is what guarantees quality, not just the uniqueness of the text.