Ok, we’ve spelled out the negatives, the mistakes, and the pitfalls…so how do we avoid them and make sure our content marketing approaches are set up for success?
These three keys will help you ensure that you’re on a solid foundation before beginning a content marketing plan. Let’s look at each as well as tangible ways to implement them right away.
Analyze your specific reasons for creating a content marketing strategy and what you hope to gain
from it.
Before you dive into creating a content marketing strategy, it’s important to take a step back and consider why you’re doing it in the first place. And we’re specifically talking about your business, not anyone else’s, or just because this is considered “best practice.” Are you just jumping on the bandwagon because everyone else seems to be doing it? Or do you have specific goals in mind that you hope to achieve through your content marketing efforts?
For example: If your only goal is to generate leads in large quantities quickly, you may be setting yourself up for disappointment. While content marketing can certainly help you generate leads over time, it’s not a silver bullet. You’ll need to complement your content marketing efforts with other marketing strategies if you want to see real results.
On the other hand, if you’re focused on…
Building brand awareness
Establishing credibility
Connecting with your audience
Growing authority in your industry
…content marketing can be an incredibly effective tool. By creating high-quality content that resonates with your target audience, you can build trust and loyalty, and position yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
To determine exactly what your goals are and why you think you should start a content marketing strategy, begin with these two questions:
What are we hoping to achieve through our content marketing efforts?
How will we measure success?
By having a clear understanding of your goals and how they relate to business objectives, you’ll be better able to develop a strategy that is in alignment and delivers real results.
Be sure your content plan and goals are aligned with your target audience.
One of the biggest mistakes that businesses make with their content marketing efforts is failing to really hone in on and consider their target audience. If you’re creating content that doesn’t resonate with your specific target audience(s), it simply won’t be effective.
Again, this probably seems like a “duh” sort of statement, right? But if you’re not really considering factors like…
Where does our audience spend their time online?
Do they prefer to read long-form content or watch videos?
Are they actually on this social media platform?
…just to name a few, then you could be missing them altogether as will your content.
Additionally, you have to consider within that content plan if your ideas will actually serve this target audience. Before you map out any content plan or ideas, put yourself in the mind of that persona. Would they find this helpful? Would they even care to consume this? You should only plan to create pieces that you feel confident in saying “yes” to those questions.
Once you have a clear understanding of where your target audience is spending time, how they like to consume content, and so forth, you can develop a content plan that’s aligned with their interests and needs and that will actually be effective.
Predetermine your time investment and what you/your internal team can handle when it comes to creating content.
Creating high-quality content takes time and effort, so before you dive into your content marketing strategy and plan it’s important to consider how much time and what resources you have available to dedicate to it.
The reason this is key is to avoid wasting time and money. If you believe you’ll be able to write 4 blogs a month and put out several social media posts per week, that’s great. But do you know the real-time that’s going to take? Do you or your team actually have that bandwidth? If not, you’re already setting yourself up for failure and wasted time. While you may try to hobble along and get it done for a while, you’ll probably drop it all together as things get busy in your business. A year later, you don’t have much to show for your content marketing strategy. You’ve wasted that time that could have been dedicated to building an incredible content plan and funnel.
However, if from the very beginning, you recognize that you need help and additional resources, you can avoid that time lost and begin your content marketing strategy strong.
By having a realistic understanding of the time and resources required for your content marketing strategy, you’ll be better able to create a sustainable plan that delivers results over the long term.
