If you are looking to learn content marketing and discover how you can promote your brand through effective storytelling, then you have come to the right place.
Although you will find that most businesses are producing content to try and engage with their customers, the vast majority do not yet have a well-thought-out content marketing strategy in place that will enable them to have a noticeable advantage over their competitors.
If this is the case for you and your business, then you are more than ready to upgrade your content marketing skills and build long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationships with your target audience.
From how to learn content marketing, to how to use machine learning content marketing, the below step by step guide will teach you everything that you need to know to transform your content marketing strategy from satisfactory to sensational.
What is content marketing?
In contrast to one-off advertising that often results in a sudden increase in traffic and a short term boost in sales, content marketing is all about playing the long game.
An effective content marketing strategy is one that focuses on building strong relationships with your target audience through the use of high-quality content that is both relevant and consistent. Or to put it another way, rather than simply pushing your products or services in front of as many people as possible to increase your conversion rate, you prioritize offering added value to your users in the form of content.
This could be by publishing a weekly blog, posting informational content on social media or providing your customers with a free online tool that makes their lives easier. There are so many different options when it comes to creating great content.
It is also important to remember the other crucial aspects of building a successful content marketing campaign, including using the best link building practices and understanding local SEO, all of which we can help you with.
How to create a successful content marketing strategy
If you have already Googled “how to create a successful content marketing strategy”, you will be aware of the sheer number of different strategies that currently exist in the world of content marketing.
Although choice can be a good thing, in this case, too much information can be both overwhelming and counterproductive.
What you want, and need, is a clear and concise plan that will result in:
- Increased online visibility for your brand
- Improved brand awareness
- Enhanced credibility
- The development of long-lasting relationships
- The placement of your brand as a source of knowledge and expertise
Fortunately, all you need to do is follow the below eight simple steps, and all of the above can be yours.
1. Pinpoint your goals
As any business owner will tell you, knowing what you want to achieve in the next year, five years or even ten years, is crucial if you want your business to succeed, and it is no different when it comes to creating your content marketing strategy.
You need to create a clear list of goals, such as:
- A YOY increase in sales
- The generation of more quality leads
- A larger number of followers on social media
- SEO success
- Reduced marketing costs
2. Set KPI’s
KPI’s or key performance indicators should be the best friend of any successful businessperson, allowing you to keep track of your success and achieve your goals.
Therefore, it stands to reason that they should be an integral part of your content marketing strategy. From social media marketing to email marketing, and Google local optimization, you need KPIs for them all!
3. Create buyer personas
A buyer persona is a profile that represents your perfect customer. Semi-fictional, it should be based on real data and your unique insight into your specific niche.
Ways that you can create your own buyer personas include:
- Carrying out market research
- Checking your site analytics
- Making a buyer persona template
- Adding customer-specific information
The best customer persona should include elements such as their goals, values, challenges, sources of information and their behavioral motivators.
4. Identify gaps in your current content
Before you start thinking about planning new content, it is always a good idea to first analyze your existing content to see what works and what doesn’t.
Questions you will need to answer include:
Is your content being shared?
How is your content being shared?
What keywords are you being ranked for?
Once you have achieved this, you will be able to see where you are going wrong with common content gaps being:
- Missing keywords
- Questions that your audience are asking that you are not answering
- Content that could be ranking higher
It can be useful during this step to take advantage of machine learning content marketing, a process that allows you to analyze data, create insights and build a personalized strategy. All of which will enable you to create better content, both for your users and your SEO efforts.
5. Plan your content
The part of proceedings that you have no doubt been waiting for, planning your new and improved content.
When it comes to planning the content for your website, the most important factor to remember is that users want consistency. If you start publishing a blog once a week or posting a top tip on Facebook every day, your followers will begin to enjoy and expect this content. Therefore, you need to find a simple, yet effective way, to both plan and manage your content schedule so that you don’t let your customers down.
The easiest way to do this is by using a content calendar – you can download free content calendar templates online.
However, managing your content is only half the battle. You also need to be able to come up with a constant stream of creative content ideas if you want to ensure your business stands out from the crowd.
There are several methods that you can utilize to ensure your content is always on point, including:
- Check out what your competitors are posting about
- Follow industry news
- Look out for trends on social media
- Use professional content writing services
- Carry out keyword research
6. Create your content
Whether you have decided to create your content yourself or outsource this task to a content marketing agency, there are so many different types of content that you can choose to use to boost your business and connect with your customers.
From the written word to infographics, to the increasingly popular video, all of these methods of creating content can have excellent results as long you are prepared to put in the time and effort to make them both useful and memorable.
As a general rule, informational content works well as consumers are always looking for quick solutions to their problems. That being said, there is nothing wrong with posting a bit of fluff now and again to inject a bit of humor and brand personality into proceedings.
7. Optimize your content
The less exciting bit, but incredibly important for the success of your overall content marketing strategy, optimizing your content with keywords will ensure your carefully crafted content gets pushed up to the first page of Google. In contrast, many people can enjoy it as possible.
If SEO is not your forte, don’t worry, there are a few handy (and free) online tools you can use to make this process a lot easier. For example, Google Keyword Planner allows you to search for keywords and see how they might perform.
It is also crucial that any content you produce is free from any spelling or grammatical errors and that is “skimmable”, meaning that users can dip in and out into retrieving the information that is most relevant to them.
8. Promote your content
The greatest advice we can give you in terms of promoting your content is to be as aggressive as possible. No, this does not involve threatening your users with a message such as “Read this or else!”, but instead, means ensuring you distribute your content for maximum traffic.
Techniques you can use to promote your content include:
- Internally link across posts
- Utilize paid advertising
- Create snippets for social media sharing
- Turn your written content into a video
- Add a link to your new content from your most popular archived content
- Use email outreach
- Publish photo teasers on Instagram
- Share your content on your Tumblr feed
Congratulations! You are now equipped with the knowledge and tools you need to create a compelling and constructive content marketing campaign.
However, if you feel that you need a little help with either content creation or content promotion, get in touch with our team here today.
