The five pillars of a successful content strategy
Content Marketing is the process of creating and distributing content to attract, engage, and retain a clearly defined audience. It has been touted as "the future of marketing."
Content marketing is more than just creating engaging content that will attract visitors and customers- it's about building, maintaining, and safeguarding relationships, a process that can be achieved through the creation of quality content.
Content Marketing Strategy: A successful strategy requires three main components:
The production or acquisition of high-quality original content.
The distribution/promotion of said high-quality original content.
Monitoring your campaign metrics (i.e., traffic sources; the number of social shares; conversions rates). You should also include data from Google Analytics in your analysis because it will provide invaluable information about user behavior and traffic sources.
The Five Pillars of a Successful Content Strategy:
Research- There are many ways to research content ideas that would be appealing to your target audience: industry blogs, forums, social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and search engines.
Customers- Your customers are the lifeblood of your business. You should keep a close eye on what they're saying and how they feel about what you're saying. Listen to them, engage with them and encourage feedback.
Community- What communities do you participate in? Are you a member of Quora, Reddit, LinkedIn groups, or any other community forums? This is a great way to not only make your name known but find out what kind of content your audience responds the most to.
Competitors- You should keep track of what works for your competitors and emulate their good ideas while avoiding bad ones. If they have a blog, read it and if you feel so inclined, leave comments on their posts.
Conversions- Your number one goal is to sell your product or service and then sell more than your competitors do. Asking questions such as "What can I do better?" or "Where can I improve?". Evaluate how well you think you're doing, the competition's performance, and what content gets the best results.
Research
The first pillar of a successful content strategy is research. There are many ways to research content ideas that would be appealing to your target audience: industry blogs, forums, social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and search engines. You should also take into account the customers of your company.
They are the lifeblood of your company, and you should keep a close eye on what they're saying about you. Listen to them, engage with them and encourage feedback.
Also, a great way to find content ideas is by participating in other online communities. For example, you are part of Quora, Reddit, and LinkedIn groups; this is a great way to make your name known but also find out what kind of content your audience responds the most to.
Customers
A company's customers are the lifeblood of that company, and you should keep a close eye on what they're saying about you. Listen to them, engage with them and encourage feedback.
Your number one goal is to sell your product or service and then sell more than your competitors do. Asking questions such as "What can I do better?" or "Where can I improve?" is a great way to ensure you're doing your best. Evaluate how well you think you're doing, the competition's performance, and what content gets the best results.
Another excellent resource for topics you can write about is the community forums.
For example, some of my favorite subjects to write about are how to use social media marketing and dealing with a problematic employee.
There was a time when I was having trouble with one of my employees who had many anger issues. I decided to create an article about dealing with an angry employee, and it was trendy!
Community
The third pillar of a successful content strategy is community. Why are communities so important?
For example, content is an integral part of the user experience, and to create high-quality content, you need to consider what people want. In fact, 55% of marketers said that they thought a good content strategy was the most crucial step toward their personal goals for 2020.
It is also about making your name known in your industry.
Marketers were asked what content gets the best results, and they answered with blogging as a top choice, followed by video marketing, infographics, and eBooks.
Forums are a great way to make sure you're doing your best. Evaluate how well you think you're doing, the competition's performance, and what content gets the best results.
If you're wondering how to develop ideas for a specific topic, forums may be beneficial.
Discussing the meaning of life sounds like a boring conversation, but it could probably help a lot of people when it comes to content marketing.
For example, I love to talk about the best social media marketing tools. There are many options on the market, and marketers need to know what is popular and why.
Forums are also great because, unlike Quora or Reddit, you'll need a membership to access them (this will help weed out harmful content).
A community website can also be helpful when you're trying to figure out what content gets the best results because it provides data on how many people viewed, liked, and shared your posts with their friends.
For example, if a particular piece of content doesn't go over well, learn from your mistakes and improve next time.
Competitors
Keeping track of what works for your competitors and emulating their good ideas is a great way to ensure you're not wasting time on topics that won't be beneficial to your business. A blog post about promoting content might work well for another company, but it might not fit in with the image that you want to project to your audience.
Another example of when it's beneficial to know your competitors is if you're running a business with several stores or locations in multiple cities.
Creating content about how to best manage an office only works for companies with different geographic locations. A company with five offices can create a much more successful blog post by managing multiple locations.
A great way to keep track of what your competitors are doing is to read their blogs.
Check out a few posts and see if you can identify any patterns, good or bad, that they may have. If there are any negative habits that they are doing or any positive ones that you don't do, take note and implement them in your strategy.
It's also important to look at the content they're producing. The more time you spend on competitors' blogs, the better understanding you'll have of the way they run their business.
It's essential not only to emulate the good things but avoid implementing the bad things as well; for example, if your competitor has a great marketing campaign but then mistreats employees, it wouldn't be beneficial for you to implement their marketing campaign but not the part about dealing with employees.
Once you've considered your competitors' strengths, it's time to focus on yourself and what makes your business unique.
You're different in some way from all of your competition, so use this as a platform for your own content strategy. You might even consider going directly against one of the points that a competitor is emphasizing and doing just the opposite; if they stress excellent customer service, don't put too much emphasis on it in your posts- instead, show how quality customer service isn't always necessary... or vice versa! This will attract more people to check out what you have to say.
Conversions
A conversion is a term used to describe the action of turning a browser into a customer. The process can be broken into four steps: acquire traffic, convert visitors, deliver content, close the sale.
Your goal is to get prospective customers to contact you and provide them with valuable information to entice them to buy your product or service.
The first step in the prospect's conversion funnel is when they're on your page or blog and scroll down to read more about what it is you offer - click the link that says "Contact Us" on their page and start an email dialogue with them through the "Contact Us" form. The next step would be to submit a request for more information or to "Contact Us" through a phone call.
Once they've submitted their contact information, it's time to provide them with valuable content in the form of blog posts and videos- this includes things like how-tos, educational pieces about your niche, etc. The final step is for you to close the sale by asking for their payment. Congratulations! You have successfully converted a browser into a customer.
What's The Goal?
When writing a content marketing strategy, the goal is to create informative, valuable, educational, and just fun to read.
The five pillars of a successful content strategy include Research, Customers, Community, Competitors, and Conversions.
You can understand your customers' needs better than anyone else in the marketplace by researching what they want from your company or product.
If you build relationships with them while providing value through quality customer service and engaging social media interactions; if you know how to differentiate yourself from competitors who offer similar products/services like yours (i.e., large corporations vs. small businesses), then even the most miniature business owner can convert browsers into paying customers.
Content marketing is more than just creating engaging content that will attract visitors and customers- it's about building, maintaining, and safeguarding relationships, a process that can be achieved through the creation of quality content.
People must feel as though they trust you if they are going to share their information with you or purchase your product/service; by engaging in a comprehensive content strategy and utilizing different social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc., businesses can create strong relationships with their customers.
By providing exciting blog posts (not sales pieces), businesses can build up excitement for new products/services while keeping existing customers engaged.
Sometimes people don't want an immediate sale from your business- sometimes, they just need little tidbits throughout the year, so they know you haven't forgotten about them and that your business is always striving to improve.
No matter what you are creating, make sure it is creating an impact. Blog posts should be informative, engaging, and most importantly, have a call to action ( CTA ). Interesting posts will drive traffic to your website. Traffic is not always sales - but quality traffic will eventually turn into sales if you're doing it right.
The goal when creating content is to produce content that people want to read. This strategy should not feel like a sales pitch or sell your product/service to the consumer at every turn. If people think they are being sold, they will leave your website and lose a potential customer.
Creating content that drives traffic requires time and research- however, it can enrich both financially and build brand loyalty with existing customers.
Do you want to learn how to create content that will create an impact?
I’ve been doing this for years and I can tell you from experience, it’s not easy. But if you follow my 30-day course, I promise it will change everything. You won’t have to worry about coming up with new ideas or finding the time to write them down anymore because I’ll be there every step of the way. It doesn't matter what industry you're in - all of these strategies are universal and they work!
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