It sounds great, but it can leave most of us at a loss when it comes to developing and implementing your own content marketing strategy as to exactly what to do next.
Everyone knows that the kingdom secret is very satisfying these days, but what steps and attention do you need to focus on to make it sing? See seven steps in the direction of a creative and successful content marketing strategy!
Define both short and long term goals
Are you trying to build an audience for a certain type of product or service? What are the steps you’ll take to get to that point? You need to know what you want both short term and long term if you want to reach your ultimate goals.
Finding out who your ideal audience is undoubtedly is the first very necessary step, in deciding how to market your product or service. This can be done in a variety of ways; analyzing customer behaviors, comments, requests, social interaction, and more. Once you’ve established your brand demographic, a lot more becomes possible. You’ll have more targeted content, ads, and best of all generate more leads.
Set the types of content you’ll be producing
There are many different types of content you can craft: blog posts, articles, social media directed posts, videos, podcasts, info graphics, and other assorted visual content. Go into this stage of your planning with both eyes wide open, looking for ways that your content can intertwine with your field, yet set your brand apart in a professional creative manner.
Create an editorial calendar
Committing to a set schedule does several things to help you. First, your audience will come to expect (and hopefully look forward) to hearing from you, and it will allow you to develop consistency and train Google to expect new and wonderful content form your end, which will help in SEO rankings.
Craft with SEO in mind
The days of blatantly writing an SEO-optimized page are over, but that doesn’t mean you don’t follow a few tried and true principles that will still help your content rank well and be shared.
Set up analytics to evaluate your effectiveness
If you don’t already have some sort of analytics program set up, now’s the time to do it. Even Google analytics will be fine; you just need to be able to see and understand your metrics and decide from this what’s working and what’s not.
Build a promotion plan for your content
It makes no sense to go to all the trouble of creating great content if no one’s going to see it. Craft a promotion and cross-promotion plan for all your content, making sure to include the social media aspect. Look to a popular podcast in your area to be a guest on. Consider getting involved with a known nonprofit to offer your services in some way. Last but not least, share, share, share! You’ll be glad you did.
Andrew Goldstein
Brand Strategist & Content Writer