When you started your company blog or first joined social media as a business, how organized were you? Did you have a content marketing plan, or did you just sign up for a Facebook business page, thinking you’d figure it out as you went along?
While experts have been touting “Everyone needs a content marketing strategy” for years, fewer articles have focused on how to get a good content marketing strategy in place. Whether you’re flying by the seat of your power suit or planning this out step by step, these 7 tips will help you take your content marketing strategy from good to great.
Create a schedule of upcoming posts and look for gaps and repetition
Every great content marketing plan starts with an editorial calendar. You need to make sure that your posts aren’t bunching up, with too many promotional posts one week, and too many customer questions the next. Break up the bunches so that you are getting a consistent variety of content to attract different readers.
Make sure you know what you’re measuring, why, and how often
Content marketing can have a variety of purposes. It can entice people to spend more time on your website, draw in new viewers from elsewhere on the Web, and answer basic customer questions to help take some of the heavy lifting off your support staff. But whatever you want your content to do, write it down. Make it an achievable goal, and then decide how you’ll measure progress. Do you want to measure first time customers and look for an increase, or do you want to see how frequently customers say that your FAQs kept them from needing to call customer support?
Tighten your customer focus
Who are you creating content for? Are you writing for other customers? Other experts in your field? People who’ve never heard of your product? People who’ve been using your service for years? Remember the marketing mantra of the digital age: nothing is for everyone. Decide who your content is for, and write it for that specific person, to interest and engage them.
Now, it is possible that even though each piece of content should have a tight focus, your actual content platform could serve a wider variety of followers. Some websites rate their pieces from amateur to expert to give readers an idea of whether or not this particular piece is likely to meet their needs.
Make sure your content is interesting to your customers
You can have the most fascinating article on candied yams that the Internet has ever seen, but if your audience is turning up and expecting an article on the best way to clean and oil their sewing machine, your audience is going to be disappointed.
Whenever you write content for your business, it’s important to make sure that you’re writing for your audience. On your personal blog, write and post whatever you want. But when you’re writing for your brand, consider which keywords and topics your audience has expressed interest in previously, and what they’d like to hear about in the future.
Comment on content that others have created
When you’re struggling to find something to say, signal boosting something that was created by someone else in your field is always a good move. Add something to it if you can, even if it’s just to say “I tried out this technique and saw a big boost in my efficiency,” to let your audience know why you’re sharing it. You are then justified in leaving a comment on the original item with a link to your piece and you might even get the person and their followers to come visit your page, which can expand your audience.
Find a new social media platform and challenge yourself to develop new content for it
Not every platform works for every brand, but if you find that you’re in a rut, challenge yourself. Brainstorm ideas of how your company could use Periscope, or Snapchat, or Instagram, to do a better job of serving your customers.
Evaluate your content for accessibility
How much do you know about making your website easy to use for people who are visually impaired? To the uninitiated, this might seem like a contradiction in terms, but the truth is that those who are blind and visually impaired have a variety of tools that they can use to surf the internet just like those who have full sight. Small changes to your website, like using alt-text on your images, can make your website more approachable for those tools.
What suggestions would you make to help someone take their content marketing from good to great?
