Content marketing is about taking a more structured and tactical approach to your content and making sure that you have thoroughly planned and managed your content timetable. It’s no longer the next big thing but a fully-fledged part of the marketing menu.
Here are some essential tips to get your content marketing plan together.
Understand Your Audience
If you know who you are creating content for, you can create the right sort of content for them. Who is visiting your site? Who opens your emails? Aim to create compelling content for this audience.
Create A Style Guide
Consistency is essential. Poor grammar and spelling will put people off, but so will inconsistent tone, word usage and a variety of grammatical directions. Here at Elementary Digital for example, we try to steer clear of jargon and use straightforward language. There’s no ‘blue sky thinking’ here.
Always Carry A Notebook
Ideas come to you whenever and wherever you are, so make sure you are always prepared with pen and paper. This way, on the days you’re not feel so creative you have a handy compendium of good ideas.
Reuse And Recycle
Once you have created content, don’t just use it once. Try to repurpose it in a variety of ways, such as with an infographic, a blog post, a tweet, a video, or a webinar. Stretch it out and make it really work hard.
Think Evergreen
Create posts that don’t have a limited shelf life. Some content performs well over time, such as lists, posts about design trends, and reviews. These types of posts appear in search and keep people coming back over a longer period of time.
Find An Unused Niche
Check on Google for content that might be missing that users could be searching for. Find positions that sit with your business that you aren’t occupying yet and create content to fill it. Use analytics to see what your competition is targeting and create content to match.
Use Tools To Get Ahead
There are plenty of tools out there to help you discover what content you should be creating. Google Keyword Planner tool can help you to identify a list of phrases and words which you should be targeting.
Once you have a good list, have a brainstorming session with your team to come up with some exciting ways to target theses words and phrases.
Research Well
Keep your eyes open for what other people are doing that works. There are plenty of blogs detailing the highs of the content marketing world. Things like Red Bull’s campaigns, Superbowl adverts and British Airways ads always generate a lot of buzz online so keep up to date with them.
Be Original
Come up with content which is original and which stands out. Don’t just churn out pieces that everyone else is doing; come up with some exciting content of your own.
News Isn’t All
Reporting on news stories is fine, but these posts have a short shelf life and don’t really add much to the conversation. Try to be a thought leader, not a follower.
Content marketing is a valuable part of your marketing strategy. Don’t waste it by not planning and just blindly adding rubbish content to your site. Think creatively and you’ll find yourself doing much better on Google and in the business world.
This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: Getting Started With Content Marketing
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