Great content provides value to the reader or observer while supporting the vision and values of brands and businesses. It’s an owned asset that helps a single-person startup or a veteran multinational company communicate who they are and what they do in meaningful ways.
Although anyone can write or share facts as content, those materials aren’t always the best option to reach a specific audience. Blogs, videos, infographics, images, bar graphs – numerous choices are in your content marketing toolbox. It helps to focus on your particular strengths first before expanding those offerings as your audience grows.
Steps to Take When Incorporating Content Marketing
Instead of allowing your content marketing efforts to be a series of trial-and-error decisions, start working from a firm foundation. These ideas can help get you started when investing in this essential resource for your business.
1. Get to Know Your Customers
Content marketing is effective when a business knows what its customers need and prospects want. Before creating anything, take some time to listen to what everyone expects from your company.
What problems can you solve? Are there challenges that keep your customers up at night?
When you have those answers, you’ll need to go where your audience is to distribute that content. That could be a specific social media platform, different forums, a blog on your site, email, or many other choices. Think about the language they use, the content type they prefer, and what phrases could capture their attention on search engine results pages. [[1]]
2. Provide People with Brand Definitions
People connect to brands and businesses that demonstrate shared values. Have you defined the mission and vision you want to follow?
Without a clear value set that guides your content generation, the efforts to solve problems or provide resources will feel inauthentic and disingenuous.
Your content creates a voice that defines who you are. If it doesn’t communicate your vision and values accurately, the information could drive people away instead of drawing them closer. [[2]]
How do you want to be known? Are you an innovator, a creative professional, or a business that takes an integrity-first attitude?
What qualities do you want prospects and customers to think about first when they see your content?
When you can answer those questions, you’ll provide people with the brand definitions they need to build a relationship with your company.
3. Develop Specific Strategies
The biggest mistake found in new content marketing efforts involves keyword targeting. You’re not going to rank well for high-value single words, even with a significant investment in this resource.
Let’s say you’re opening a new pizzeria in your hometown. The odds of ranking first for “pizza” on a random search are astronomically low. Even with the latest local emphasis in search engine algorithms, you’ll get buried by all the franchises and chains in the area.
What can you do to be competitive?
Content should be specific, developed around phrases instead of words. If you follow a particular style or recipe, you might develop resources around the “best Neapolitan pizza in Hometown, USA.” [[3]]
If you have a family recipe or another unique selling proposition, incorporate those elements into your content. That helps your business be found more often because your information answers specific questions from search engine users with more accuracy.
4. Amplify the Information
Once you’ve finalized a strategy for your content marketing investment, it’s time to enter the creative process! This effort aims to add value to the consumer experience when interacting with your brand and business. [[4]]
That means the content must be relevant. It should be appropriate for the channel used to distribute the information.
Once the information is posted, a combination of earned, paid, and owned media helps get the information in front of your best leads. Another option is to work with industry influencers to leverage their connections and networks to increase brand awareness.
5. Keep Adjusting
Content marketing often fails because businesses take a “post it and forget it” attitude with this resource. If you don’t know that the information reaches your targeted audience, how will you see if your objectives are met? Tracking target metrics and key performance indicators is essential for this effort. You can focus resources in more appropriate areas by identifying what delivers the best results (or doesn’t). [[5]]
Whether you write a blog or record a podcast, content is what drives people to your brand. If you can show everyone why you’re better than the competition while delivering added value with each interaction, you’ll have an excellent chance to turn prospects into customers.
