content marketing

Making Content Marketing Work For You

In Blogging by Brian Town

You can never be too effective at content marketing, and this is a goal we at Michigan Creative are constantly striving toward. While your business may already have a content marketing strategy in place, you may notice that you’re not reaching the clearly defined audience you set out to. If you, as a business owner, find yourself in this position, keep reading to find out how to get yourself out of this conundrum!

Have A Foolproof Plan!

A refined content marketing plan is the best place to begin when it comes to making content marketing work for your business. The first aspect of your plan is to know your goal or mission; when you know your end goals, you will have an easier time determining your best strategy. Make sure your “buyer persona”, or target audience, is clearly defined so that the content you are creating is relevant to them and you are able to retain or convert them. While many individuals start out with blog posts, it is important to remember that there are other types of content as well, even as simple as offering older blog posts in the form of a polished eBook. Your content management system is also an important part of your plan, including curated content, publication, and analytics.

Consistency Is Key

When you have a foolproof plan, consistency should be easy. You must have a well developed, long term vision of your content marketing expectations; instant results will never be realistic. As long as you continue to follow the steps set out in your content marketing strategy, you’ll reach those long term goals.

3 Essentials To Keep In Mind

The pyramid approach by Joe Pulizzi and Robert Rose is made up of three levels; primary indicators (for c-suite reporting), secondary indicators (for managers), and user indicators (for the analytics team). At its core, the pyramid is concerned about three objectives:

  • Is the content driving your sales?
  • Is the content saving costs?
  • Does the content create happier customers, leading to better retention?

If you cannot connect your content marketing efforts to at least one of these three objectives, it’s important to look over your strategy and fix it.

The Sincerest Form Of Flattery Is..?

Imitation is the absolute best way to find your footing when it comes to your content marketing efforts. Observe what brands you enjoy are doing, what brands in similar industries are doing, or even brands that are totally off the wall; you’ll be able to see what types of content they are receiving the most traffic or interest from and, from that, figure out what will work best for your company.

Implement these tips and you’ll have paved the way to see how content marketing can be used effectively within your business!

– Marissa

Sources:
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-marketing-plan
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/08/more-impact-content-marketing/