High achievement book, branding and business coach Gagan Sarkaria wanted to grow her blog and email list to allow her to promote her paid offers.  This is a content marketing strategy case study to share what we achieved.

While Gagan had an established agency brand website, the personal brand website was new and, therefore, organic traffic was relatively low.

Often, it can be much easier to grow a website or blog when there’s a lot of existing content that already attracts traffic, as you have the ability to find signals as to what keywords are worth pursuing based on current results.

She already had paid offers – digital products, coaching and services – along with two quiz-based opt-in offers. But her existing opt-in offers weren’t attracting the volume of leads she wanted.

The goal was to set up an online marketing system that would not only attract the perfect people to her, but nurture them and invite them to work with her. But Gagan wanted to do it with organic traffic.

The challenge with organic social media alone is it won’t attract the type of leads that can sustain a business. Not unless you happen upon a viral social media post.

Marketing isn’t about doing one tactic and hoping for the best. It’s about bringing together a complete marketing strategy that:

• complements what you offer,
• who your most aligned client is and
• how you best show up to share your message.

Being part of a client’s team over a longer period of time allows for a much deeper layered and more successful strategy that not only achieves short term benefits, but also serves to grow their business for the long term too.

Content Marketing Strategy Case Study Steps

There were a series of steps that needed to happen to make this content marketing work. Afterall, as I mentioned, you can’t rely on one tactic. This needed to be a multi-layered approach.

We worked on a content marketing funnel that would:

• begin with a content marketing strategy around keywords related to Zi Wei Dou Shu astrology, 
• transition into a simple opt-in offer on how to begin to understand Zi Wei Dou Shu, 
• nurture through an email marketing sequence
• invite them to a one-off Annual Life Map Reading, which uses Zi Wei Dou Shu astrology
• then invite them to a 3-month Life Map Reading coaching program

The blogging for this began in December 2019, with the first of a series of blog posts based on keywords that would bring in her ideal client published over the coming months.

One thing to note is that search engine optimisation isn’t about simply having some good SEO tools. Although, that’s a good place to start. You also need to know how to find the right keywords and how to link that into what you already have and what you have planned. This allows you to build content marketing plans that will bring in the right people who will take action and for that flow of “right people” to be consistent.

The Blog Post Traffic Growth

Blogging can bring short term spikes when your content is shared, particularly if you have a strong social media following and email marketing list. Both of these assets are part of the bigger digital marketing strategy for Gagan. So all blog posts get shared through these networks.

But the important part is the longevity of the content that’s created and that it can sustain consistent growth over time. To do this, I was able to identify long tail keywords that attract a lot of searches in Google, but had incredibly low competition so she could rank on page one of Google.

The traffic to Gagan’s website, based on the keywords she now ranks for, has meant her website traffic and business have continued to grow.

Those keywords have meant the website traffic increase from the month of December 2019 to one year later in the month of January 2021 was 990.74% and 729.02% pageviews.

And people are spending more time on her site reading content now, with an 11.21% increase in average session duration.

When we deep dive into the traffic strategies that are best working to drive these results, it shows that this growth has been largely attributed to organic Google traffic, where she’s had a whopping 3081% growth! While she had created content prior to this content marketing campaign, it wasn’t getting on the radar of Google to attract readers.

Content Marketing for Email List Growth

Our goal with a marketing funnel is always to lead someone to the next step. After all, there’s little point inviting people to your website, to then just see them disappear. I made this mistake early on in my blogging journey a decade ago.

This is where content marketing strategies should align with an opt-in offer that ensures your email list grows and your can invite more people to your paid offers.

So, this traffic growth attributed to an increase in Gagan’s email list, with an opt-in that converts at about 60% and is growing her email list consistently every week – if not every day.

She hasn’t had to spend a cent on advertising to achieve any of the above results.

One of the things many businesses do is put time and effort into a one-off campaign that brings in a surge of new email subscribers over a short period of time. But once that finishes, the email growth stops too.

There is certainly nothing wrong with using Facebook ads or Google Ads to grow your email list. I have many clients who layer their organic strategy with a paid strategy. It works well to boost your growth more quickly, which is important to many clients.

But one of the advantages of using organic traffic through Google and other search engines, is that people are already searching for the solution to a specific problem you can solve. We are, after all, in the game of solving people’s problems.

When we put an ad in front of someone, it’s not always what they want at that time – depending on how you’re targeting them. 

Content will drive the right people to you at the right time. Married with an online marketing system means you can then nurture those people and invite them to work with you – all for free and on a consistent basis.

How can you have your own content marketing strategy?

Have you enjoyed this content marketing strategy case study? Can you see what’s possible for you too?

If you’d like to set up your own organic content marketing strategies and systems in your business and would like some help in doing so, book a call to discuss my Online Marketing Coaching, using storytelling, strategy and systems.

Over 4-6 months, we’ll work on strategy AND implementation of your content and funnel. If you already have someone as part of your content marketing team, they’re also welcome to be part of the coaching sessions.

The result will be content marketing campaigns to build assets for your business that will repay you long into the future.

Here’s what Gagan had to say about her content marketing results in her own words:

Kellie is my favorite and go-to consultant for digital marketing and sales funnel needs. I have been working with her for over 2.5 years now. 

She is also a top-notch SEO expert who brings in a personalized approach to her services that fits her clients’ vast needs. I have two companies, four brands, with multiple services to manage. Kellie is an integral part of my business team, and thoroughly understands my business ecosystem! 

She is extremely talented, and knowledgeable of the digital and email marketing industry. Kellie takes time to understand her clients’ innate gifts, needs and business goals. Then submerges herself in their business to bring the best out as a storyteller to increase traffic to websites. She is perfect at blending strategy and systems, your message and what your audience needs. 

Whether you are an entrepreneur, a small business owner or run a creative agency like I do, work with Kellie one-on-one, or make her a part of your internal team to increase visibility, exposure and leads.

Not sure if you need help?

Not sure whether you’re doing OK with blogging or not? Do a content marketing audit or download the template below to get started straight away. You may be our next content marketing case study.

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