Annual Content Strategy to Increase Organic Demand Generation

Overview

WorkStep partnered with SmartAcre to develop and execute a content strategy that would take a demand-gen-first approach to boosting not just organic traffic, but also organic marketing-sourced pipeline.

Challenge

WorkStep, a leading provider of employee listening and engagement solutions for the frontline, operates with solutions to support both job seekers and employers. However, their organic presence was heavily dominated by the job seeker audience. The website and related content weren’t well optimized for their B2B employer audience, resulting in low-quality leads being generated.

WorkStep needed a way to regain control of their site traffic, focusing on HR and Operations Professionals without solely relying on paid advertising to cut through the noise. They turned to SmartAcre to help develop and execute a demand-generation-based content strategy with the long-term goal of driving organic-first marketing-sourced pipeline.

Approach

SmartAcre’s approach to SEO is demand-driven, with engaging content at the core. After all, organic traffic doesnʼt necessarily matter if the traffic generated isn’t the right audience, or if that audience isnʼt driven to convert.

To determine the ideal approach to driving organic demand for WorkStep, SmartAcre followed our proprietary methodology and began with an audit. We collected quantitative and qualitative data to better understand the ideal audience, what they talk about, engage with, and how they interact with search engines. We also analyzed which of WorkStep’s existing content performed the best in terms of engagement and lead volume across numerous channels, and which content didn’t.

SmartAcre also benchmarked key performance indicators revolving around keyword rankings for our core strategy terms and conversions to align with the demand-generation-first approach. In fact, with more targeted content, we were prepared for organic sessions to decrease.

Outcomes

Out of our audit phase, we recommended a comprehensive content strategy revolving around four key topics and related terms to focus on throughout the year, all targeting decision-makers in WorkStep’s target audience: HR and Operations personas within the Logistics & Transportation, Retail, Manufacturing, and Healthcare industries.

To make the plan actionable, SmartAcre proposed implementing the four core pillars through a focus on decision-led blog content rolling into a larger content asset with a lead magnet, or in other words, pillar content. This game plan included recommendations for 67 new blog topics and four bigger campaigns all aligned to the original four core pillars throughout the entire year.

The content strategy also came with a standardized campaign framework and guardrails for new content development to keep focus on the bigger goal.