A 5-Minute Guide To Successful Content Marketing
When you think about content marketing, what goes through
your mind? Is it writing an endless number of blog posts and
articles that you’ll then publish on your website?
Or do you think about the process after you’ve created the
content, things like marketing and promoting your content
across many different platforms?
If you’re building your business from scratch all by yourself,
then I’m sure you’re feeling pretty overwhelmed by now. If
you work with a team of content creators and digital
marketers, then your life’s probably a lot easier.
But you’d still need to manage your team and make sure
your content marketing strategy is like a well-oiled machine.
To successfully market your content, then you need to make
sure you do all of the following:
You Need A Good Strategy In Place
Planning a content marketing strategy is essential if you’re
truly serious about making it work for your business. It’s so
easy to say you’ve got a plan.
But when it comes right down to it, when it comes to finally
taking action, you’re going to make up one excuse after
another all because you don’t actually want to do anything.
Without a good strategy, it will be so easy to get
overwhelmed.
Many a business owner has followed this tragic route:
They’ll start off with so much positivity and hope.
They’ll tell themselves they got what it takes to
succeed.
They’ll make their plans, they’ll even draw it out on
paper.
But a few weeks later, when they finally realize what they’re
up against, they’re going to cave in to the pressure. They’ll
run out of content ideas. They’ll get tired of creating content
day in and day out. They’ll get bored. They’ll tell themselves
the entire process is just too difficult.
A good content marketing strategy, however, will ensure you
know exactly what you’re going to be facing. That’s because
you’ll actually be taking the time to sit down and plan out the
major aspects of your strategy.
To begin with, you need to have a S.M.A.R.T. goal in place.
What does this mean?
Well, S.M.A.R.T. stands for:
S – specific, significant
M – meaningful, measurable
A – achievable, action-oriented, acceptable
R – realistic, results-oriented, rewarding
T – time-based, trackable
As you can see, that’s a lot of factors you need to consider
to make your marketing goals smart. If you’ve already set
your eyes on a particular goal, then ask yourself if it fits the
above criteria. If it does, then you’re good to go. Otherwise,
redefine your goals to make it smart.
It may seem like a lot of work now, but you’ll be saving
yourself from a lot of headaches if you decide to just go
ahead with your original, non-smart plans. To sum up this
point, invest the time necessary to come up with a
S.M.A.R.T. goal. Your future self will thank you for doing the
work up front Just take note, however, that just because you’ve defined a
SMART goal, it doesn’t mean that your content marketing
strategy is going to be a huge success.
Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on the work you’re going
to be putting in to make your plan come to life.
Know Who Your Audience Is
Your audience plays a huge role in your content marketing
strategy’s success. Without knowing who your potential
clients and customers are, you’re essentially fishing in the
dark!
When you’re marketing to everyone, you’re technically
marketing to no one. You’re not targeting anybody’s pain
points. Sure, you could get lucky every now and then, and
someone will take the bait and check out your content, but
how often is that going to happen?
You’re planning your content marketing strategy because
you want to maximize your efficiency and your effectivity. If
you don’t give a thought to improving these two metrics,
then you’re just wasting your time.
Here’s what you want to happen:
You want to reach the most number of people that belongs
to your target audience. You want to let them know your
brand exists (brand awareness). Then you slowly, but
surely, drive them down your content marketing funnel until
they make the decision to become your customer or your
client (conversion). That’s really all there is to it!
But of course, putting this plan into action is easier said than
done. So, how do you identify who your audience is?
Well, there are quite a number of methods you can use. If
you already have an established business, then you can
look up your customer data or your analytics and determine
what their most common characteristics are.
Then you combine all these characteristics into a ‘buyer
persona.’ You’re literally giving your audience an identity –
you’ll give it a name, you’ll create personal details, you’ll
give it a history, and you’ll give it a future.
All these details will help you determine why this type of
person is so interested in your brand. Then you can refine
your content, or maybe even your products, to reach more
of the same people.
That’s how important your audience persona is. It allows
you to create content that will speak directly to them. It’s not
going to be some ‘general content’ that won’t resonate with
anyone you’re currently targeting.
If you’re just starting out and you don’t have existing data on
your past and current customers, then you can do some
market research. You can also observe the kind of
customers your competitors are currently getting. Any of
these methods will help you identify your audience.
Once you’ve established who your audience is, it’s time to
get to know them better. You can immerse yourself in their
world. Hang out on social media or on online forums, listen
to what they’re saying, and find out how you can
differentiate yourself from the competition and win them
over to your brand!
The Kind Of Content You Should Be
Producing
There are many different types of contents you can produce.
The most popular one, of course, are blog posts. Most, if not
all, content marketing strategies include blogging. That’s
because it’s super easy to get started on.
If you don’t have a blog yet, you need to start planning how
to get one up as soon as possible. WordPress
(https://wordpress.org) is a great platform to get started on
blogging, it’s relatively simple to use, and there are tons of
plugins and themes readily available.
Blogging has a low barrier to entry. You simply need to
know how to write compelling content, upload it to your blog,
and hit publish. Of course, you’d also need to read up on the
basics of search engine optimization (SEO) to make sure
your blog posts get some search engine love.
Blogs are mainly text-based which means search engines
can easily index and scan your content. Blogs are also
updated more frequently than other kinds of sites, so it
keeps your content and your entire website ‘fresh.’
Another content type you should consider producing is
video. Now, video production isn’t as simple as blogging,
however, if you invest the time necessary to learn the craft,
then your content marketing efforts will be a huge success.
You want to know why?
That’s because YouTube is the second biggest search
engine in the world, right after Google! It gets billions of
searches per day.
If your content proves to be popular with your audience,
then you’ve literally hit the motherlode and you’d get tons of
free traffic!
When you’re just starting out and you don’t have the budget
to buy all the necessary equipment to produce studio-quality
videos, your smartphone camera will do just fine. Don’t
worry too much about the quality – focus on your message.
Even some of the biggest names on YouTube started with
shaky and grainy videos taken with their point-and-shoot
cameras or their iPhones!
Once you start gaining a following and you see a return on
your investment, you should consider upgrading your
equipment. But it’s totally up to you, of course. As the saying
goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
Then there’s the third type of content that’s really popular
right now: podcasts. Podcasts are perfect if your audience is
comprised of busy professionals who have very little free
time outside of work and family.
It’s great because they can listen to you while they’re on the
go. Whether they’re driving or commuting on an Uber, or
they’re busy lifting weights at the gym, they can still listen to
your content.
For podcasting, you would need to invest in a good
microphone, preferably one of those noise-canceling ones.
It helps your audience to focus on your voice, and it lends a
degree of professionalism to your podcast.
The good news is you don’t have to create new content for
each format! You could start off with your blog post, and
then repurpose that content into video and podcast format
(and any other content types you want to explore).
Oh, and don’t forget to add a call to action (CTA) within your
content. You can place it anywhere really – at the beginning,
in the middle, or at the end of your content (or all three
places)! You can do an A/B test and find out which CTA
locations result in higher conversions for your type of
content!
Don’t Just Create, Promote Too
There are two words in ‘content marketing.’ There’s
‘content,’ and there’s ‘marketing.’ We’ve already discussed
the ‘content’ part, now it’s time to focus on the ‘marketing’
aspect.
Some people think that just because they’ve produced tons
of content, their work is done. They think they no longer
need to promote content because they’ve read somewhere that if you publish high-quality content, you no longer need
to worry about promoting it. That’s so far from the truth!
The truth is that for every piece of content you publish, you
need to exert five times more effort on promoting your
content. If you haven’t noticed, there are billions of websites
on the Internet.
How can you make your brand stand out if you just wait
passively for people to come over to your website?
You need to be proactive if you want something to come out
of your content marketing efforts. You need to get the word
out there that you exist and that you’ve created all these
valuable, useful, inspiring content, especially for your target
audience!
Getting some traction when you’re new to the scene is going
to be an uphill battle. It’s relatively easier once you’re at the
top and you’re an established brand with a solid following.
So, you need to go out there and fight your way to the top.
You can’t afford to just sit back and wait for people to visit
your site.
The good news is you don’t have to do it alone. You can
leverage the power of influencer marketing to help get the
word out about your awesome content. Of course, building relationships with influencers in your industry isn’t going to
be easy either. But once you gain the trust of influencers
with a good, solid following, that can get the ball rolling to
making other influencers pay attention to you.
Generating viral traffic may be difficult, but it’s not
impossible either. Many brands have gone viral and built a
solid business literally overnight. If they can do it, so can
you. You just need to think outside the box, and find a way
to capture people’s attention!
Conclusion
Content marketing can be a gargantuan task for anyone not
prepared. However, if you’ll implement the strategies we’ve
outlined in this 5-minute guide, then you’ll be halfway to
success. Sometimes you may get bored, or you’ll lose the
motivation to work on your content, or you’ll get tired of
promoting on various platforms.
The key thing to remember is that content marketing is not a
race, it’s a marathon. You’re not going to see results
overnight. You’re not going to see it in a few weeks or even
a few months. So, have some patience, and continue
working on your strategy until you finally achieve success!