Word of advice: Don’t fall for it.
Content marketing is so much more than owning a company blog. It is a comprehensive strategy that uses the written and/or visual content you create for your business to build your brand and cultivate a consumer following.
Yes, it includes having a spectacular blog, but don’t be too quick to eliminate video, pictures, and infographics from the equation. Relevant video and images can encourage high audience turnover on your content. Even voice-activated technology is becoming more and more necessary in a marketer’s content strategy today.
The real trick, though, is being consistent and giving your content that push in order to make the most of your investment, including guest posting and public relations.
This is what makes content marketing—good content marketing, at least—a bit harder (but not impossible) to carry out.
In this guide, we will walk you through the steps needed to help you transform your current content marketing into one that’s strategic and valuable to your target audience.
- Identify your goals for your content
Before you start anything, take the time to consider what your goals are for each piece of content. What target consumers do you want to reach? What message do you want to put out about your brand? What numbers do you want to hit on social media?
We recommend outlining all of your goals to give you a blueprint of the points you want to hit and the metrics you’ll need to track its success.
By identifying your content goals, you’ll be able to have a crystal clear view of whether your strategies and investment have paid off.
- Use the best content marketing tools
With good content marketing comes good content marketing tools. There are a number of technologies available that can help you achieve your content goals in a cinch.
According to a blog on Hubspot, some nice technologies to have are competitive intelligence tools, market research tools, or anything that provides insight on current trends.
You can try each of these tools and see which best fits your business needs and goals. You should also look into core technologies that are needed for quality content marketing, such as:
- Content management system (CMS): This lets you quickly set up a blog, publish content, and add site pages without needing the help of tech developers.
- Project management tools: When you’re in the hustle and bustle of creating content, managing campaigns, and updating social media, it can get hard to keep track of all tasks. A project management tool serves as your helper in clearing up the chaos.
- Design software: Relevant and engaging pictures and infographics are super important to reeling in your audience. Adobe Creative Suite and Canva are popular tools that are often used by marketing teams to achieve the best results.
- Video editing software: Compelling video content can help improve SEO and promotes higher engagement. In fact, according to Vidyard, audiences are 10 times more likely to share, comment, and engage with videos than blogs and other content. Some great video editing software include Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, and Vegas Pro.
- Analytics: You can’t have good content without an analytics tool measuring your efforts. Most of these tools provide comprehensive data that allows you to track and visualize your content’s performance with either charts or graphs. Based on the data provided, this makes it easier for you to identify areas of improvement and make better decisions.
- Create effective content across all forms
If you’re only creating content, written or visual, to give small updates on business developments or brief thoughts on a topic, you are missing out on its full potential.
- Blogs
Blogging has evolved in the decades after it was first popularized. What used to be a way for users to talk about their latest vacation trips is now an asset for businesses to improve their organic search rankings—and you should definitely take advantage of it!
Nowadays, many hire bloggers to create content that’s not only relevant and engaging, but also SEO-driven and helpful in driving organic traffic to their organization’s website. Types of blogs that make for good content marketing include how-to guides, list posts, infographics, and videos.
- Videos and other visual content
I’m sure we’ve all heard of YouTube, Instagram, and various other powerful platforms that are used to share visual content. When executed well, videos, graphics, and pictures are powerful tools for distributing your organization’s message and promoting engagement.
With videos and other visual content, companies can not only entertain their audience, but also inform them about relevant and interesting topics. This can help establish your organization as a leader or expert in the industry it belongs to.
Types of compelling video and visual content for your content marketing strategy include webinars, how-to infographics, video tutorials, testimonials, and product reviews.
- Voice technology
Voice-controlled devices are a new phenomenon in the technological world. With a voice device, you can make phone calls, listen to music, and perform other functions using JUST YOUR VOICE. This change in the industry comes with new opportunities and challenges for content marketing strategies.
Savvy marketers can use voice technology to surface their brands by using specific keywords, providing news and trivia of company updates, and promoting new products and/or services.
While new and developing, voice devices are certainly rising in popularity. It’s imperative to stay ahead of the ball and consider what voice-related content you can implement into your content marketing strategy.
- Create leads with campaigns
Once you’ve gained and captured leads with your content efforts, make sure to continue nurturing them with email and social media campaigns.
With email, weekly newsletters and drip campaigns are effective in driving organic traffic to your website, blog content, or social channels. It allows you to distribute your content that keeps your audience from leaving and enhances their engagement with your company.
Social media campaigns work similarly since it can act as a perfect distributor for your blog articles, guest blogs, videos, and other content. Just remember to remain authentic transparent with your audience. You can check out our 10 Best Free Social Media Monitoring Tools for more help in measuring your social channels.
By continuing to stay relevant in your consumer’s eyes, you’ll be the first on their mind when they’re in need of your product or service.
It’s important to regularly report and evaluate all aspects of your content marketing strategies, including your social channels and campaigns. This way, you can identify and tackle any plateaus or negative trends head-on and see what’s working (and what isn’t).
By following these essential steps, you will be on your way to achieving your goals! If you’re just starting out, take a look at our blog, How Niching Can Help Expand Your Small Business for some tips you might need for growing your business!