Easily accessible and up-to-date content pulls in website visitors. This helps attract leads and encourages conversions. No wonder, then, that 70% of marketers in 2020 actively invested in content marketing and nearly 40% believe it is an important part of their overall strategy, according to figures released by HubSpot. Further, studies have found that marketing spend in blogging is expected to grow by 14% in 2021.
However, more than 60% of businesses lack a plan to actively engage the audience. It is necessary to understand how to use your resources to build and distribute content. Here’s a look at the steps to getting started.
#1 – Know Your Audience
Align your offering and marketing campaign to prevailing consumer behavior with the help of analytics offered by social media platforms and Google, according to an article by AMA New Jersey. Marketers can also consider conducting surveys for different age groups, genders, income levels, education qualifications, or any parameter important in segregating their audience.
#2 – Define Your Goals
Understand whether you wish to increase brand awareness, get more traffic, boost consumer engagement, ensure social media engagement, or increase your brand loyalty. Knowing your goals can help you move to the next step.
#3 – Establish KPIs
Defining key performance indicators helps you check whether your efforts are moving in the right direction to meet your goals. These can include traffic, revenue, sales, and SEO. You can also use KPIs like overall visits, top posts, email subscribers, organic traffic, average page per session, and exit rate to measure the success of your efforts.
#4 – Choose the Content Formats
Content can be presented in various ways, like podcasts, webinars, infographics, online courses, YouTube videos or posters, according to an article by Entrepreneur. You can also choose blog posts, ebooks, case studies, and presentations. The right choice plays an important role in the success of your efforts.
#5 – Identify the Channels
Check which channels are most commonly used by your audience. For example, Gen Z prefers Instagram to Facebook. On the other hand, professionals use LinkedIn more actively.
#6 – Brainstorm Ideas
Come up with topics that will be interesting for your target audience. Use market research tools to determine which ideas are popular. Further, use tools for keyword analysis. This will help you come up with content that people actually want to read.
#7 – Allocate Resources
The content creation team will require writers, editors, graphic designers, and video animation experts. You will also need people who are good with analytics as well as a team adept at content distribution across various platforms.
#8 – Set Up An Editorial Calendar
Create a planned publishing schedule. This will include when to upload your content and on which channels. Make the best use of task management tools to schedule your content.
#9 – Distributing Content
Upload content on your corporate social media profiles. Organize email campaigns to reach more readers. Discover popular sites that allow guest posting. Share and promote your content to drive traffic.
#10 – Measure Output
Use Google Analytics and KPIs to measure the outcome. This will help you optimize your content strategy to align it better to your audience’s needs and drive conversions.
Create a comprehensive strategy with the help of professionals. This will ensure a more effective strategy for reaching out to and engaging with your target audience.
Author: Natalie Chrapla
