How to Start a Content Marketing Strategy That Actually Works
When it comes to marketing your business, you have a lot of options. Digital marketing, social media campaigns, SEO strategy... there are so many ways to get your company in front of potential buyers and make people aware of what you have to offer.
However, with so many options comes a lot of confusion for business owners who don't know where to start or what works best for their brand.
Focus on the end goal from the very beginning. Once you know exactly what you want from your content marketing strategy, then everything else becomes easier -- including choosing the right tools and finding creative ways to actually implement your plan.
_Here's how you can start a content marketing strategy that actually works:
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Define your end goal
What is the ultimate goal of your content marketing strategy?
This is probably the first question you need to ask yourself before you can even think about expanding your content offering.
The end goal of your content marketing strategy should be to achieve one goal – to increase your sales.
If your content strategy is just to have a presence on social media, then you’re not really accomplishing much.
You need to define what a successful content marketing strategy looks like.
Understand your audience and their pain points
It's not enough to simply slap together a marketing plan and hope it works.
You need to dig a little deeper to figure out what your target customers want and why they are buying from you instead of your competitors.
One of the best ways to do this is to conduct market research. You can use Google Forms or Survey Monkey to get an idea of which problems your customers are facing, as well as how well your solution fits those pain points.
By recording the responses to these questions, you’ll have a better idea of what your customers are saying, why they’re buying from you and what you can do to improve your product or service.
Decide on your brand’s message and tone
Now that you know what your target customers are looking for, it’s time to figure out what your brand’s overall message will be.
While you might be tempted to throw everything at the wall to see what sticks, that’s usually not a great idea.
Rather than jumping into massive blog posts and video series, focus on creating a few content types that complement each other and work toward a single end goal.
Finding the right balance between types of content is key. While you don’t want to be stuck repeating the same information over and over again, you also want to make sure you’re not putting out too much content.
You want to make it easy for customers to see your brand, but not get bored and skip to the next piece of content.
Find the most important blog post for your strategy
When you’re creating a content marketing strategy, it’s important to select one blog post as your most important post.
Why is this post the most important for your strategy? This single blog post is at the heart of your strategy.
It’s what brings everything together and explains to your readers what your business does and why they need to buy from you.
Make this post your most important post for a few reasons. First, it’s probably the most complicated and time-consuming post to create.
Second, it’s the post with the highest return on investment for your brand. Your most important post should also be an article that will help expand your brand’s message and attract new customers..
If you solely focus on overviewing the features of your product or service, you’ll be missing out on potential buyers and lost sales.
Develop a plan of action
Now that you have your end goal clearly defined and you know how you want your brand to come across, it’s time to put a plan of action into place.
The first step is to develop a content calendar. Once you have a calendar, you can start scheduling the posts for each month.
This will help keep you focused on the most important posts for your business, as well as content for your blog that highlights the benefits of your product or service.
Once you have a calendar, it’s also a good idea to select a blog post that serves as a starting point.
This post will act as a baseline for your blog’s content, and allow you to track the performance of your posts.
Track and measure results
Now that you’ve put a plan of action into place, it’s important to track and measure the performance of your blog posts.
There are a number of blog analysis tools, such as BuzzSumo, that can help you track and measure the performance of your blog posts.
You can also use these tools to gain a better understanding of the type of content that performs best for your brand.
You don’t want to be repeating the same type of content over and over again.
Conclusion
When it comes to content marketing, you’re not going to get very far if you don’t have a strategy in place.
The article above outlines some of the best ways to get started with a content marketing strategy.
These include defining your end goal, understanding your audience and their pain points, deciding on your brand’s message and tone, and finding the most important blog post for your strategy.
Once you’ve hit the ground running with your content marketing strategy, you’ll be one step closer to achieving your business goals.
If you have any questions about how to start a content marketing strategy that actually works, feel free to share them with us below.
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