The term “Content Marketing” is becoming more and more nebulous as the industry grows and adapts to modern times and advancements in marketing and technology. What content marketing is in its first form is the sharing of your knowledge via blogs, videos, info-graphics, and guest contributed articles (article published on blogs and sites you do not own) to build your reputation as a thought leader in your industry.
This isn’t for people wanting to publish click-bait lists and blogs to simply gain follows or drive their personal stats. There is a place for that, but it is not within the realms of content marketing. The purpose of content marketing is to help people though your knowledge and expertise.
steps to get started planning
Brainstorm your ideas with a trusted colleague
Trust me, I know it all sounds great inside your head, but then you try and put it down in words or in a video and it all comes out jumbled. I have been there, too many times! Whenever I want to create a new impactful piece of content, whether it be a short story, blog post, or video, I have a few folks I trust that I bounce my ideas off of. Just talking it though helps you center your main points and lay out your first piece.
Create you content marketing strategy
Content marketing is a strategy that involves creating and sharing valuable and relevant content to attract, retain and engage a target audience and ultimately drive profitable customer action. Here are the steps to begin a successful content marketing campaign:
Define your target audience
Understanding who your target audience is, what their needs and interests are, and where they spend their time online is crucial in creating content that resonates with them.
- Conduct market research: Gather data on your target audience through market research, surveys, and customer data analysis. This information can help you understand who your target audience is, their demographics, behavior patterns, and pain points.
- Define buyer personas: Use the information from your market research to create detailed buyer personas, which are fictional representations of your ideal customers. Buyer personas help you to understand your target audience at a deeper level and create content that is specifically tailored to their needs and interests.
- Analyze your existing customer base: Look at your existing customer base to identify common characteristics, such as age, gender, location, and interests. This information can help you to refine your buyer personas and target your content more effectively.
- Look at your competition: Study your competitors to see who they are targeting with their content marketing efforts. This can give you insights into what is working in your industry and help you identify gaps in the market that you can fill with your own content.
- Test and adjust: Once you have defined your target audience, test your assumptions by creating content and measuring its success. Use the insights from your testing to refine your target audience definition and adjust your content marketing strategy as needed. Continuously monitor and evaluate your content marketing results to ensure that your targeting efforts are effective.
Determine your goals
Clearly define what you want to achieve through your content marketing. There are many goals, but these are the most common and lead to tangible revenue generation.
- Increased brand awareness: One of the primary goals of content marketing is to increase brand awareness and visibility. By creating and sharing valuable and relevant content, you can reach a wider audience, build your brand reputation, and establish your company as a thought leader in your industry.
- Lead generation: Another common goal of content marketing is to generate leads. By creating content that is valuable to your target audience, you can attract potential customers and encourage them to provide their contact information in exchange for access to your content.
- Customer engagement: Content marketing can also be used to engage with existing customers and build customer loyalty. By providing ongoing value through content, you can keep your customers informed and connected with your brand, which can lead to increased customer retention and repeat business.
- Increased sales: Ultimately, content marketing can be used to drive sales by providing potential customers with the information and resources they need to make informed purchasing decisions. By building a relationship with your target audience through content, you can increase the likelihood that they will choose your products or services over those of your competitors.
Develop a distribution strategy
Based on your goals and target audience, create a content strategy that outlines the types of content you will create, the channels you will use to distribute it, and how often you will publish.
- Owned channels: Utilize your own channels, such as your website and social media accounts, to distribute your content. This allows you to control the messaging and ensure that your target audience sees the content you want them to see.
- Email marketing: Use email marketing to distribute your content directly to your subscribers. Email is a highly targeted and personalized way to reach your target audience and is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your website.
- Social media: Share your content on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, to reach a wider audience. Social media is a great way to amplify your content and engage with your followers.
- Influencer marketing: Partner with influencers in your industry to distribute your content to their followers. This can help you reach a new and relevant audience, build credibility and trust, and increase the visibility of your content.
- Paid advertising: Consider using paid advertising options, such as Google AdWords or Facebook Ads, to reach a wider audience and drive traffic to your website. Paid advertising can be highly targeted and is a quick way to get your content in front of your target audience.
Choose your format
Decide on the type of content that you will create. Consider the type of content that your target audience prefers and what format is best suited to communicate your message.
- Blog posts: Blog posts are one of the most common forms of content marketing. They allow you to share valuable information with your target audience and provide a platform for you to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
- Video content: Video content, such as explainer videos or product demos, can be a highly effective form of content marketing. Video is a visually engaging format that allows you to convey information in an entertaining and easy-to-understand manner.
- Infographics: Infographics are a visual representation of information and data that are designed to make complex information easy to understand. They are a great way to communicate important information to your target audience in a visually appealing format.
- Social media posts: Social media posts, such as tweets, Facebook updates, and Instagram stories, are a quick and easy way to share short-form content with your target audience. They are a great way to engage with your followers and keep your brand top of mind.
- White-paper, a type of content marketing that provides in-depth information about a particular subject or issue. It is usually a longer form piece of content that is designed to educate and inform the reader on a complex topic. White papers are typically used to position an organization as a thought leader in a specific industry and to provide readers with valuable information that can help them make informed decisions. White papers are often used in B2B industries and are typically written in a more technical or academic style, using data, statistics, and case studies to support the arguments made in the paper. They are often offered in exchange for the reader’s contact information, which can be used for lead generation purposes.
- Guest contributed articles, also known as a guest post, is a type of content marketing where a company invites a third-party writer or expert to write and publish an article on their website or blog. The purpose of a guest contributed article is to provide the host website with fresh, relevant content and to give the guest writer exposure to a new audience. The guest writer usually writes about a topic that is related to their area of expertise and that would be of interest to the host website’s target audience. The guest contributed article is typically written by someone who is not a full-time employee of the company and is used as a way to add diversity and outside perspectives to the company’s content marketing efforts. The guest writer may also benefit from increased exposure, authority, and backlinks to their own website or blog.
Promote your content
Once you have created your content, you need to promote it to reach your target audience. Share it on your website, social media channels, email, and other relevant online platforms. Consider paid advertising options to reach a wider audience.
Measure and evaluate your results
Regularly track and analyze your content marketing results to see what is working and what is not. Use metrics such as website traffic, engagement, leads, and conversions to determine the success of your content marketing efforts and make adjustments as needed.
Continuously improve
Content marketing is an ongoing process that requires continuous improvement. Stay up to date with industry trends and best practices, and continually evaluate and refine your content marketing strategy to achieve better results.
Content marketing is a powerful marketing tool that can help you achieve your business goals and build a loyal audience. By following these steps, you can create and execute a successful content marketing campaign. However, it is important to remember that content marketing takes time and effort, so be patient, persistent, and continuously refine your strategy.
You’re not hopping right into Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc., or Time Magazine right away. You have to start in house. This is either the blog on your company website like this one your reading, or on Medium. Medium is a great spot to own your space within a great community. They show you some informative stats on your pieces and can add you to distribution lists to help you get your work out to channels that you otherwise wouldn’t. I have no financial interest in Medium. I have simply used it for our clients, and myself in the past.
your next steps in content marketing
Just sit back and watch the leads roll in and build your money bin, right? Not exactly. The first piece of content is just that, a first link in a long chain. A truly effective Content Marketing strategy is one that spans months and dozens of pieces of content. There are ways through digital and social media advertising to amplify your work of course, along with many other. Reach out to us today and we can chat through what you are after in your content marketing efforts.
