As a business owner, one of the main forms of marketing that you should be leveraging is content marketing. You may have perhaps been leveraging it already but the results are not that good…
There are various ways to do things, there are a lot of strategies for different steps but only the right strategy will give you the right result. As you know, the world has gone digital. Most businesses have migrated from offline marketing to online marketing.
Why is that?
Because content marketing is giving them customers. Content marketing allows you to identify your ideal customers, know their needs and also, give them a solution. This leads to sales instantly!
Content marketing helps in providing your target audience with value, which builds trust between you and your audience. It involves creating content for the purpose of promoting a product or service hence building your brand.
Content marketing can be done on several platforms, mostly on social media like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and others.
Content marketing is the right way to promote your brand!
If it has not been given you the right result then there must be something missing from your content.
Are you a small business owner trying to be more successful?
Are you trying to hit a milestone in your business?
Let us look at easy steps to guide you on how to create a good and effective content marketing strategy.
Set Clear GOALS
The very first step in creating a good content marketing campaign is to have a set goal. You should have a clear goal of what you would like to achieve from the content marketing campaign.
The goals you set should answer the following questions:
What do I intend to achieve from this campaign?
What is the time frame?
Who am I Targeting?
You have probably heard of SMART goals… you will need this to create an effective content marketing strategy.
Specific: Your goals should be straight to the point.
The goal of this content marketing strategy is to increase the sales of our healthcare products.
An example of a vague goal is:
The goal of this content marketing strategy is to make more money.
Measurable: Your success is more defined when it is measurable.
How would you know if the strategy worked effectively or if it was below par?
Taking a cue from our example above, an example of a goal that is specific and measurable is- The goal of this content marketing strategy is to increase the sales of our healthcare products by 35%.
Achievable: It is good to stretch yourself beyond limits but being realistic is also key. You should know if the goal can be achieved. You are already in December and you want to increase the sales of a healthcare product by 85% before the end of the year. This is not very realistic as during December, people may not buy healthcare products as the focus is on something else. A brand selling food products, Christmas wears can set such a goal but it is not realistic for a brand that sells healthcare products, cars, and so on.
Relevant: The goal should be relevant to your brand’s success. Ask yourself these questions:
Can this help my brand to grow?
Does this goal even relate to my brand?
Time-bound: Let there be a duration, a time-frame for this goal.
An example is: The goal of this content marketing strategy is to increase the sales of our healthcare products by 35% in 2 months.
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
This is very important for brands, especially small businesses. Every brand has its target audience. As a content marketer, you should be able to identify yours. Know your audience, so that you’ll be able to create the best content to reach them.
What problem are you solving?
Who was your brand created for?
Who needs the product/service your brand is providing?
You can also determine your audience by conducting detailed analytics of your audience (click here if you need one).
Know the type of people who visit your website or your social media platform(s). You can do this by collecting demographic data on your followers on social media, email subscribers, people who visit your page, people who like and comment on your post (you can just reach out to us and we would help you with this). Data is very important as it allows you to make informed decisions.
CALL TO ACTION
This is an important feature in Content Marketing. A call to action is a marketing term for any type of strategy, used to get an immediate response or to get a sale. It is the desired action that a target audience is required to take, after every content marketing process.
Examples are: “sign up…. “ “Learn more at….“ “To place an order, visit the link below… “ and so on. This is very important to both small and large businesses.
Your goal for the strategy determines what your call to action will be, following our example above the call to action can be – Buy yours, Claim this offer, Get 20% discount, etc.
DETERMINE THE BEST CHANNEL FOR CONTENT DISTRIBUTION
Developing the right content marketing strategy means you need to know the right content platform. This is why it is important to know your target audience, knowing them will help you to know which platform they make use of, you can also do testing by starting the process and determining which platform works best.
This does not mean you should only focus on the channel that works best but you can put major resources into this platform; For some brands, your audience may be diversified, that is they use different platforms, this means you have to create a content marketing strategy that will work for these platforms. Learn how to leverage social media marketing.
DECIDE THE TYPE OF CONTENT TO CREATE
We have different types of content, we have :
- fun content
- educational content
- Inspirational/motivational content
We also have different forms of content like video, text, image, infographics, etc. If you are just starting, it is best to start with all the forms of content and know which one works best based on insights.
The type of content that will work best in your content marketing strategy depends solely on your target audience and brand. Some brands have a combination of the different types of content but this requires a proper strategy as you have to make sure it relates to your brand. There should be a type of content that is prevailing when compared to the other types of content.
Think about the content you need to create.
Some content marketing strategies require video marketing, some require video and text, while some require text only. We have successful content marketing strategies with only one type of content being published on their blogs and website. It all comes down to your niche and audience. Know the type of content marketing strategy you can use to attract customers and drive sales.
CREATE A CONTENT CALENDAR
A content calendar is simply a written schedule of the content you want to publish, when you want to publish it, the purpose of the content, and where you want to publish it. It may include captions and hashtags depending on the platform you are publishing it on. A content calendar will help with consistency, there are platforms that can help in the publication of your content on various platforms (Hootsuite, Buffer, Recurpost, etc.). As part of your content technique, you’ll need to know when to publish your content on the platforms you want to use.
Lack of planning is bad for content marketing. A content calendar would help you schedule when you want to post your content, and where you want to post it.
Content Calendar tools include Google Sheets, Google Calendar, airtable, and so on.
CREATE / REPURPOSE CONTENT
You can create your content.
Let us look at these steps as they would guide you to create your content:
- Research: You need to do useful research. Research your competitors-
What are they posting?
What type of content are they pushing out?
Research the topics that your target audience is interested in, research is the key to the heart of your audience.
- Create: After making valuable research, you can use the tips you have gotten to create your content. Ensure you put into consideration your brand’s voice and your target audience.
- Proofread: Check your content to be sure it is free from any grammatical errors, or mistakes. After proofreading, double-check or you can ask someone in your team to check for you again.
Repurposing content is also known as recycling content, it simply means redesigning or changing the form of one Content into another. You can make use of previous content but in a different way, you can change a blog post to a video depending on the form of content that your target audience prefers.
PUBLISH AND MANAGE YOUR CONTENT
Publish your content on the desired channel(s) bearing in mind that it is all about your target audience. Managing your content involves analyzing the success of each content. Analytics should be based but not limited to the following:
- Engagements
- Reposts
- Conversion
- Lead Generation
“Our jobs as marketers are to understand how the customer wants to buy and help them to do so.” – Bryan Eisenberg
