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Content marketing is an essential component of the marketing mix that all too often does not get the credit it deserves. Because measuring an ROI that is directly tied to the quality content you’re putting out can be difficult to do, people underestimate the value of this form of marketing. But with Google set to do away with third-party cookies in Chrome and Apple allowing iPhone users to opt-out of tracking on apps, content marketing will only play an increasingly important role in your overall marketing strategy going forward!
If you’d like your content to stand out in the crowded digital space, keep reading to learn more about how you can improve your content marketing strategy!
Establish Strategic and Tactical Goals
Creating content just for the sake of creating content won’t help you achieve the results you’re looking for. To improve your online reputation, attract the right audience, and successfully get your brand’s name out there, you first need to establish strategic and tactical goals.
When thinking of your strategic goal, you need to ask yourself how the piece of content you’re creating will work within the overall strategic framework you have in place. Strategic content goals can be things like ranking for a target keyword, generating links, driving social media traffic, and/or converting traffic into leads.
Tactical content marketing goals can be thought of as the action you want your reader to take. This can include generating newsletter sign-ups, sending traffic to key pages, and/or clicking a link.
Use Platforms That Make Sense
Content marketing isn’t cheap, and you want to make sure you’re getting the most out of the time and money you’re putting into it. As tempting as it may be to post on the largest social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, showing up on all of them might not be necessary or the best use of your resources.
To ensure you’re reaching the right audiences and achieving your desired KPI’s, you need to consistently check on your analytics and evaluate whether the effort you’re putting into certain platforms is paying off. If you find that the majority of your social media marketing traffic is coming from one specific platform after looking at your analytics, you need to put more effort into that platform!
Remember–more doesn’t always mean better.
Have a Consistent Tone of Voice
When it comes to content marketing, consistency is key. To build trust with your target audience, you need to have a consistent tone across the social media platforms you use as well as your blog.
Whether your brand has a whole team of content creators behind it or you’re solely in charge of it, you’ll want to establish clear guidelines about the look, feel, and tone of your content. Questions you should ask yourself before setting these expectations include:
- What do you stand for?
- How do you want people to feel when they interact with your brand?
- How can you differentiate yourself from competitors?
Creating guidelines will help ensure your customers have a strong understanding of what your brand is and what you believe in. It will also help streamline the content creation process!
Stick to a Schedule
The tone of your content marketing pieces isn’t the only thing you’ll want to be consistent with –you also need to be consistent when it comes to posting! Customers like consistency. They want to know when they can expect new content from you, just like they want to know what your brand is and what you stand for.
To fulfill your customers’ desires in this area, create a content schedule and stick to it! This schedule doesn’t have to be the same across every channel, but your customers should have a good idea of when they can expect new content from you. For example, maybe you publish a new blog every Tuesday and put out Instagram posts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
If you consistently put out high-quality content that your customers want to see and stick to a schedule, they will keep coming back for more!
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Create Buildable Content
Circling back to strategies and tactics, one mistake that a lot of marketers tend to make is putting too much emphasis on the tactics they are using to achieve their goals as opposed to the strategy. While it’s fine to test out different tactics, like creating infographics or writing list posts, you also need to think about how the content you’re producing fits into your overall strategy.
The content you create needs to fit in with all your other content. Every piece of content you produce should be related in some way beyond just the topic that’s being discussed. For example, if you write a blog about how to do A/B testing for email marketing, it would be a good idea to follow it up with a blog about tools you can use to run an A/B testing email campaign. Many of the people who read your original blog will also be interested in reading the second blog as well.
Connect and Engage With Your Audience
Content marketing isn’t meant to be a one-sided conversation. In fact, the only way to know if you’re delivering content that your audience wants to see is to ask them. You should actively encourage feedback and pay close attention to how your content is performing.
Your audiences may not be the same on every platform you post on, so you should also consider that when coming up with your content marketing strategy. By tailoring your content to suit different audiences, they will be more engaged with what you’re putting out.
As we approach a cookie-less future, half-baked marketing won’t cut it and your content marketing strategy will need to be up to par. If you aren’t already utilizing these best practices and continually reevaluating your strategy, there’s no time like the present. At the end of the day, the more effort you put into the strategy, production, and promotion of your content, the better off you’ll be!