Content marketing is something we talk about all of the time. All of the time. Look at our business and personal LinkedIn pages. Watch our Instagram and TikTok accounts.
We love content and content marketing.
Content marketing has become a buzzword in the marketing world, and for good reason. It is a powerful tool that can help businesses of any size to grow their audience, build brand awareness, and increase revenue. It may seem like a hard and daunting task to start, but there are so many benefits to a strong and consistent content strategy.
First, let’s touch on what content marketing is.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing refers to a marketing strategy that involves the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant, and consistent content aimed at engaging and retaining a well-defined audience. The ultimate goal is to drive profitable customer action through building strong relationships with the audience.
So why would you want to create and deploy a content marketing strategy? There are a few key reasons.
- To increase brand awareness.
- Builds trust and credibility with your current and potential customers.
- It improves your search engine rankings.
- It generates leads and increases sales.
- It’s more cost effective than other marketing methods.
Now that we talked about the what and why of content marketing, let’s discuss the how.
How can you create a strong content marketing strategy for your business?
Step 1: Define Your Goals
The first step in developing a content marketing strategy is to define your goals. What do you hope to achieve with your content marketing efforts? Do you want to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or improve customer retention? Whatever your goals may be, they should be specific, measurable, and aligned with your overall business objectives. They should also be documented in a Content Marketing Strategy, so you can revisit it and iterate over time.
By setting specific goals, you can measure the success of your content marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions to improve your strategy over time. We may not have all the data and metrics we used to, but we still have enough to create a holistic picture.
Step 2: Understand Your Audience
The key to successful content marketing is to understand your target audience. Who are they, what are their pain points and needs, and how can your content help them? By understanding your audience, you can create content that resonates with them and provides value.
To understand your audience, you can conduct market research, analyze your website and social media analytics, and engage with your customers through surveys and feedback forms. There are so many ways to ask your audience what they want and need – don’t be afraid to go right to the source.
Step 3: Develop a Content Plan
Once you’ve defined your goals and understand your audience, it’s time to develop a content plan. Your content plan should outline the types of content you will create, the topics you will cover, and the channels you will use to distribute your content.
Your content plan should also include a content calendar that outlines the specific pieces of content you will create and when they will be published. This will help you stay organized and ensure that you are consistently creating and publishing content. This also allows you to share this document with other team members and key stakeholders in your organization.
Step 4: Create Valuable Content
The heart of any content marketing strategy is the content itself. Your content should be valuable, informative, and engaging to your target audience. It should address their pain points and needs, provide solutions to their problems, and position your brand as a thought leader in your industry.
To create valuable content, you can use a variety of formats, including blog posts, videos, infographics, whitepapers, and more. The key is to create content that is both informative and entertaining to your audience. The other thing to keep top of mind is that your content is created with the platform in mind – creating native content is critical.
Step 5: Distribute Your Content
Creating great content is only half the battle. To reach your target audience, you need to distribute your content through the right channels. This may include your website, social media channels, email newsletters, and other platforms where your target audience is active.
By distributing your content through multiple channels, you can increase its reach and maximize its impact. Like Patrick always says – get more Marketing Miles Per Gallon by sharing content topics across many platforms. This makes the work a little easier!
Step 6: Measure and Analyze Your Results
Finally, it’s important to measure and analyze the results of your content marketing efforts. This will help you determine what is working and what needs improvement, and make data-driven decisions to optimize your strategy over time.
There are several metrics you can track to measure the success of your content marketing efforts, including website traffic, social media engagement, email open and click-through rates, and conversion rates. By analyzing your results and making data-driven decisions, you can continuously improve your content marketing strategy and achieve your business objectives.
It may take time – but it will be worth it.
Developing a strong content marketing strategy takes time and effort, but the rewards can be significant. By defining your goals, understanding your audience, developing a content plan, creating valuable content, distributing it through the right channels, and measuring your results, you can build a successful content marketing strategy that drives growth and revenue for your business.
Crafting a robust content marketing strategy requires patience and dedication, but it can lead to marketing wins like: an increased brand awareness, building trust and credibility, improving your SEO, and saving marketing money in the long run. By establishing your objectives, understanding your audience, formulating a strong and consistent content plan, producing valuable content, disseminating it via appropriate channels, and analyzing your outcomes, you can establish a thriving content marketing strategy that propels your business forward.
Need some resources? Download our Content Strategy presentation here. Need more muscle? Let us help you punch above your weight class.