Content Marketing

Content Marketing is part of an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) strategy. In essence, it is the creation of content to achieve strategic goals. Those goals might be brand awareness,  an increase in website traffic, an increase in subscribers, or an increase in leads. Strategic objectives are important because they allow us the ability to monitor and measure our efforts for any changes that need to be made.

Content Strategy

Before embarking on a content marketing effort, one must always begin with a written strategy. Some very important questions to ask yourself are: Who is my customer? What does he/she like, read, or watch? What problem are you solving? Why are you the best? How are you solving it? It is imperative to get to know your customer(s) before you begin creating content, It is the only way that you can attract them to your website and your product(s) or service(s).

Buyer Persona

Coming up with a buyer persona is an important part of you content marketing strategy. It is not recommended to try and answer the previous questions yourself, but to actually interview or survey your current or potential customers. Also, give the buying persona a name — it helps you humanize and empathize with your target market. For additional help with buying persona’s, please visit the site of David Meerman Scott , a true pioneer of online marketing with a  vast array of experiences and resources.

Landing Pages

Once you  have your content strategy and buying persona ready, it’s time to create the pages to attract your target audience. It all starts with the URL. It has to be clear and relevant, so try and match it to a search term that your audience might be searching for. That way you will rank higher in the search engines for those terms.

Now, you must begin writing your content. Make sure you include the keywords you researched during your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts in the content you are creating. Not a good writer? Then think about hiring a journalists fulltime or a freelance writer to help with your content marketing efforts.

Content Calendar

One thing that everyone struggles with is consistent content creation. The best at ranking high in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) are the sites that consistently put out relevant information. Create a calendar and commit to creating content that is convenient for you. Once a month, once a week, or once a day, it is completely up to you.

Social Media

Sitting around and doing nothing never helped anybody. It is highly recommended that you distribute and disseminate your content across social media channels. Open up a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a LinkedIn page, and Instagram account. These are highly used platforms that can give you good organic reach if you develop a good following. If not, you can always pay to get your content seen by more people, which is usually very affordable.

There is nothing to fear. As long as you identify your goals, and you have a strategy written down, you should achieve your objectives. Just make sure to constantly monitor and tweak your strategy as needed. Good luck out there!