So, why are companies still investing in these initiatives? Because, every business manager knows that content marketing is important to their success. They just don’t know how to go about establishing a successful program.
Develop content that will attract your target audience
Content marketing requires thought. If you don’t know your target audience, you will fail every time. Once you have a good picture of your audience, you’ll need to look at content from the perspective of the customer. Establish themes (perhaps even a series of content entries that build on a theme and can be published over a period of time, topic focus, keywords to attract customers, and a style that attracts your customers (your target audience may prefer, fun, casual, serious, educational, etc.)
Find your voice and develop a unique approach that reflects what you consider to be your differentiators and market advantage. Produce content that engages your target audience in a discussion and makes them want to come back for more. If you can build a small, but dedicated group of readers and followers, they will share your content and your program will grow organically. Don’t go for the numbers…go for the true followers!
Don’t forget to look at what your competitors are doing. If you are going to keep your strategy and content fresh and make your program successful, you need to know what the competition is doing. Look at their content and see whether it is working well. If it is, try to determine why your target audience likes it. How is it different from what you are doing? Don’t simply copy what they are doing. After you have analyzed their success, put your own spin on it and see whether you can attract the same customers to your content.
Be proactive about content promotion
Once you have your strategy in place and your content created, you may think you are finished. But, nothing can be further from the truth. You can create great content and establish a solid foundation with a great content management system (CMS) but, in order for that content to have the desired effect, you have to promote the content. You want your target audience to find and read your content and you want to convert your prospects into customers. In order to be successful in your content marketing program, you must first create and then promote your content. If no one sees your content, your initiative will fail.
So, how does one promote content? There are numerous ways to help your target audience find and connect to your content.
Dedicate appropriate funding and resources to your content marketing strategy
Once you have your strategy in place and your content created, you may think you are finished. But, nothing can be further from the truth. You can create great content and establish a solid foundation with a great content management system (CMS) but, in order for that content to have the desired effect, you have to promote the content. You want your target audience to find and read your content and you want to convert your prospects into customers. In order to be successful in your content marketing program, you must first create and then promote your content. If no one sees your content, your initiative will fail.
So, how does one promote content? There are numerous ways to help your target audience find and connect to your content.
Website: Allow your website visitors to sign up for a newsletter. You can email content directly to your target audience and/or post fresh new content on the site in the form of product, services, educational content or special interest information designed specifically to keep your site visitors coming back.
Blog: Post a link to your blog on your FaceBook page, Twitter account or other social media, and include a link on your website to lead visitors to your blog.
Newsletters, Email Blasts and Special Promotions: Connect to your customers with content via email blasts, special email discount programs, information about events or programs. Make sure you offer special ’email only’ deals that will attract your customers to your site and make them read your content.
Articles and Resources: Write articles that target your audience and use keywords and promotional links on your site, via email and on your blog or social media pages to lead prospective customers to content they are interested in reading.
Visit and Comment on Other Blogs and Special Interest Forums and Message Boards: Comment on topics and themes and include links to, or mention of, your site(s) within the comment content.
Social Media: Make ample use of FaceBook, Pinterest, Infographics, Google +, Twitter and other social media sites to post and promote content. You can also promote posts on social media sites using inexpensive ads that will attract more visitors to your FaceBook page and result in more ‘likes’ and followers for your content.
Engage Bloggers and Content Writers: Contact bloggers and other content writers who focus on the topics and themes that will attract your target audience. Ask them if you can create a guest post, or ask them to re-tweet or post the content and links from your sites, blogs, etc.
In the first part of this article series, we focused on content marketing strategy, and establishing expectations, as well as funding and resources for content marketing programs. This second article focused on content promotion and target audience factors.
When done correctly, with an appropriate strategy, planning and execution, content marketing can be a significant factor in attracting and retaining customers and in getting ahead of the competition and expanding your market segment.
