5 Secrets to Making Content Marketing Work
Good content marketing can be the foundation for a successful business.
Instead of pitching your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues. (Content Marketing Institute) This is what can help you sell what you offer.
Surprisingly, 63% of businesses either don’t have a content marketing strategy or it isn’t documented. They’re just “winging it.” So, if you’re out there marketing on the fly, how can you know it’s working and that your content marketing efforts aren’t being wasted?
Here are some quick content marketing tips that will help your efforts pay off and reach your goals.
- Let your mission statement be the driver
Creating marketing content can lead you down a rabbit hole if you lose sight of the objective and overall goals. To stay on track, you should build your marketing strategy around your mission statement. Your mission statement should show your understanding of the needs and pain points of your target audience. Staying focused on your mission should help you provide compelling content that provides value to your readers and create quality content that converts. This is the basis for your content marketing strategy. - Get your content on the calendar
A content marketing plan will guide you to your goals and help you stay organized. The plan should include a content calendar to give you structure for what you will create, where and when you will publish blog posts, social media posts and other content. By detailing every piece of content you will create, you will actually be saving time and avoiding topic duplication since you’ve already planned out the topics you’ll cover each month in your content marketing. A content calendar will also ensure that you stick to a schedule for consistent messaging to your audience. - Create a content style guide
A content style guide is an important part of your content creation process. It should contain a brief overview of your vision and brand and what your company stands for. Your style guide should clearly outline the goals, purpose, and objectives of your content so your writers are clear about what you’re looking to achieve. The guide should be used to craft high-quality content that compels your readers to engage or take action so be sure to include details about your target audience. Include other essential information like what kind of voice, tone, and style you want in your content. This will help your content creators tailor the content perfectly to appeal to your reader and meet your needs. All of this is super important if you outsource your content creation. Your content writers will need a content style guide to understand you and your audience so they can inject your company’s brand personality into every word. - Be where your people are
We tell our potential clients this one all the time. It’s not the wisest idea to publish your content on every possible channel. If your audience is not on Twitter or Pinterest, there’s no point in wasting your time and effort marketing content on platforms that won’t bring results. Rather than distributing your content everywhere, determine what content channels will help you reach your audience and grow your customer base. Where do your customers spend their time online? Do they have preferred channels for the type of content you’re creating? Taking the time to determine the best content channels to result in lead generation is where you should focus your content marketing efforts. - Evaluate results and feedback
Determine what metrics you’re going to use to measure the performance of your content marketing efforts. This could be tracking conversion rates, new subscribers, sales, traffic, bounce rates, revenue or other areas that relate to your business goals. Metrics will show whether you’ve reached your goal or what you may need to adjust in your content marketing. Encourage feedback and get engaged with discussion from your readers by allowing comments on your blog and social media pages. Ask for customer feedback via email, sharing why it’s important and how you will use it. Taking feedback on board for consideration will help you learn about your audience and make better decisions to create high-quality content that increases engagement. Evaluating metrics and feedback will help you determine the success of your content marketing strategy by knowing if you’re actually hitting your targets. And shows your audience that you’re actively listening to feedback.
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Quick Recap to Content Marketing Success
An effective content strategy begins with your mission statement. Create a content style guide and schedule to stay on track with your content marketing. Publish your content on the right social channels and consistently communicate to keep your audience engaged. Measure your performance through metrics and getting feedback to ensure that every piece of content continues to capture the attention of your audience
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heidi Butzine is the Chief Marketing Strategist for Localista Media, a digital marketing agency that helps small businesses and organizations with marketing strategy and online presence. She is also Co-Captain of Social Workplace, a Southern California cowork/office/meeting space providing onsite business mentorship.
LinkedIn: Heidi Butzine
Twitter: @Localista/@SoWoHQ
Facebook: @LocalistaMedia/@SoWoHQ
