Whether you have yet to pursue it or have already mastered the excellent marketing technique that is content marketing, it is consistently growing. And with the years to come, it is safe to say that businesses will be seen embracing it if they haven’t already. It is still one of the most vital digital marketing tactics that effectively drive traffic to your webpage and increase your sales conversions.
According to statistics published on Smart Insights, 69% of businesses already have an official content marketing strategy. Thus, this percentage suggests that as people continue to understand the value content marketing generates, they will readily begin to integrate it into their corporate strategy.
7-Step Beginners Guide to start with Content Marketing in a Business
Therefore, if you are a beginner in this realm of digital marketing, then buckle up as we take you through a 7-step guide that will ensure you receive proper advantage of this technique.
Step 1: Set a definitive objective
To have a successfully integrated content marketing strategy, you need to set out definite goals and key performance indicators. No matter how solid of a strategy you place within the core of your corporate goals, you would need analytics to derive if it is successful or not. It is why one of the initial steps you would take is to determine the target figures and performance indicators that, upon analysis, give you conclusive results. Business goals are always a great way to start as an organization is already working to achieve them. Thus, incorporating them for content marketing can work similarly.
Step 2: Know your audience preferences
Next, it is safe to say that unless you know who you’re marketing for, you cannot proceed in marketing it successfully. Marketing has become such a vast area of networking and expertise that without having the correct specifications as to who your audience is, what their demands are, what are the current market trends and social media likes. All this information collectively is extremely relevant to the content you decide to make, share, and expect to drive conversions from. Unless it is as per your audience’s liking, it will not be worth all the effort you have put in.
Step 3: Plan the content marketing process
Like any other strategy that you are putting in place, content marketing has its own dedicated process planning that needs to be resolved right from the start. Because if you do not plan out initially and take a spontaneous start instead, then there is a high chance of your efforts going haywire without a proper pattern to follow. For instance, answering these questions will help you plan the process:
- Do I assign a whole team to the task?
- Do I hire individual content managers?
- What resources would I require?
- Who finalizes the content?
- How often should the content be regulated?
Step 4: Start with a blog
Now that you have your strategy in place according to who your audiences are and what their preferences are. You know exactly what you have to achieve through the content you will generate. Thus a gradual start is recommended to check if all that knowledge and application will work or require revision. Start with a blog as the centerpiece of your content marketing strategy. It acts as a one-stop-shop for all other types of content that you will generate by allowing linking that promotes your social media profiles, video content, and other content associated. If it works out successfully for a few of the initial blogs that it will assure that you are on the right track.
Step 5: Optimize for SEO
No matter what type of content you decide to make, search engine optimization is now the key to generating traffic for it. People don’t have time to sit back and conduct thorough searches unless it is for research purposes. Technological advancements have been so rapid since the past few years that have completely changed the ways of how people conduct random searches. Now the content should be optimized to appear on the SERP for more conversational queries instead of being associated with specific keywords.
Step 6: Audit for gaps
Now that you will be generating content consistently and maintaining your outlook, it is essential to pause for a necessary check back on all that you have put out. You can go back to step one to see the order of things you need to follow for auditing for potential gaps. Because if there a loose loop that has been left unaddressed, then it will continue to put your newer content at risk for going stale or under-utilized. It is why to enhance the optimum capability of your content to lure in the deserving traffic. You should conduct an audit analysis every once in a while.
Step 7: Strategize what works
Lastly, after the necessary audit, it is safe to say that you’ll know what pattern best suits your content marketing and what type of content is most appreciated by your audience. Having answered these skepticisms, you can go on to drop a few things that may require more effort to work for you and start attending to what is already working so that it generates the best profitability results for your business.
Conclusion
Content marketing is the least bit complicated if you learn and abide by a few general tips and tricks. With significant numbers proving profitable results, your content marketing strategy is sure to work for you in no time!
Author Bio: Melissa Calvert is currently working as a Digital Marketing Specialist at Crowd Writer. Having worked for many big corporations, she has gained expertise when it comes to content marketing. She shares her opinions and interest with a network of like-minded audiences online. You can check out her blogs for further reading.
