By Lauren Fenthum<---- To view/save infographic
CLICK HEREContent marketing is not just a hot topic. It is an essential part of today’s marketing mix. Successful brands are able to generate relevant content in order to attract their consumers and thus leverage their business.
The benefits of content marketing can be used to build your brand's online presence, make your business more reliable and trustworthy, increase traffic to your website, improve your businesses SEO, generate new leads, increase conversions and build backlinks. It is a strategy that is a reliable and cost-effective way to build your brand and stand out in the cluttered market place. Below are a few tips to help create an effective content marketing strategy for your brand:
Define Goals and KPI's - This is the best way to kick start your new strategy. Understand your goals and what direction you want to go in. What do you aim to achieve through using content marketing? Once you understand your goals it will be easier to formulate a strategy.
Understand Your Audience - In order to reach your goals, you need to understand your audience. Clearly defining your audience will help you create content that is relevant and valuable to them. Look at different parameters like age, gender, interests, lifestyle etc. to gauge where they can be found and what is most likely to attract them to your brand. Understand their needs and priorities and the problem that you can solve.
Content Audits - Review and assess your previous content. By assessing your previous plans you can determine what to do differently and what your audience responses to most. This will help you formulate an effective strategy that is directly relevant to your audience.
Competitive Analysis - What are your competitors doing, that you aren't and what are they doing well? What are the types of content they are releasing and how are audiences reacting to it. Remember to ensure that your content is unique and different from your competition in order to stand out and grab your customer's attention.
Keyword Search - What words are generating the most traffic and creating a conversation, do your research and use this to leverage consumer engagement, this will lead to more qualified leads.
Brainstorm Content Ideas - After doing research, narrow down what is attracting your audience and how you plan on grabbing their attention. What is relevant to them? Now that you know who and where your audience is you can produce content that caters specifically to your target audience.
Type Of Content - What are you going to publish, will it be blog posts, infographics or videos? Try using multiple channels to drive more engagement and achieve a higher audience reach.
Remember creating a sound content strategy is going to take time and maybe a bit challenging, however, it is always a good idea to stay on top of your strabismus and relook them in order to stay relevant. Identify what is working and what isn't and optimize it to obtain better results
