5 simple things to remember to implement a better content marketing strategy
If you are reading this, chances are that you really liked the title so much and you wanted to actually read more about it, or you are a normal person with an interest in marketing, struggling to understand the hottest word in the world or marketing right now: content marketing strategy. Or maybe both.
Who am I? I am a guy with an interest in marketing, who is trying to figure out more about content marketing strategy. Please fill free to leave a comment below to help improve my strategy.
This article is structured with 5 tips and it will help you to understand how to implement an efficient content marketing strategy.
1. Sharp focus — focus on one community of readers for each post
Do everything you can to understand your audience in your selected community. Take time to know them, their concerns and priorities.
But, how exactly can we understand our audience?
In an article on usertesting.com blog, the author, marketer Spencer Lanoue, points out how to understand your customers following 3 easy steps:
A. Identify their problems
B. Why others have failed to solve this problem
C. Understand your customers’ niche language
When you address these 3 points, you are a step closer to understanding your audience.
2. Content rhythm — Aim to create consistent and regular publications
We don’t fail at creating great content, we fail at creating a consistency behind our great content.
A great tactic in order to learn how often you should publish your content, is the evergreen 1–7–30–4–2–1 rule.
1. Daily = social posts
7. Weekly = blog post or short video
30.Monthly = newsletter, longer post or video, podcast
4. Quarterly = white paper, e-book, video series
2. Bi-annually=webcast, print publications
1. Annually = annual industry white paper or e-book, big event
Read more on the rule:
http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2009/10/creating-consistent-content-a-content-marketing-plan/
3. Repurpose — publish your content in different formats
This is pretty self-explanatory. You take your best-performing content and edit it to publish on other platforms and through other formats.
So if, for example, you have a blog post on 5 top tips, you can:
A. Create 5 brand new blog posts from each tip
B. Create a PowerPoint presentation presenting those 5 tips to be publish on Slideshare
C. Create an infographic
D. Or a videographic
E. At the end, group all the posts together and publish an ebook
This tactic of repurposing will also help you with your content rhythm.
Read more on repurposing:
https://www.quicksprout.com/the-complete-guide-to-building-your-blog-audience-chapter-10/
4. Testing — your way to the promised land
Again, pretty straightforward. If you Google the verb “to test”, the definition states:
“take measures to check the quality, performance, or reliability of (something), especially before putting it into widespread use or practice.”
And this is exactly what you should do with your content.
Remember these quick tips and you will be half way to your promised land:
• Look at what your audience prefer, not what you prefer
• Always test one variable at a time (e.g. “your headline, image, etc.”)
• Run a test for a minimum of 7 days
• What works for channel A does not necessarily work for channel B (people behave differently on different channels)
Read more on testing:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/importance-ab-testing-content-marketing-jonathon-mahon
http://www.mytotalretail.com/article/why-testing-so-important-do-right-56005/
5. Measure — always track and analyse your key metrics
This last point is strictly linked to the previous one. In order to understand your test results, you will need to keep measuring your key metrics.
Cathy McPhillips, VP of marketing at The Content Marketing Institute, explains the importance of measuring your data with a step-by-step approach:
• First of all, you’ll need to decide the frequency of your measurement (usually monthly, but for new channels and KPIs is good to look at them weekly)
• Then, you can start to document all the KPIs you want to analyse
- Against every KPIs, write the action that you need to take in order to achieve them
The tips above are different tactics to create an effective content marketing strategy. The most important thing to remember is that none of the above is applicable if you don’t have your own community, your own readers. So how to create a community for yourself?
The answer is simple; when writing, ALWAYS have an opinion, always pick a side.
It doesn’t necessarily matter whether you are right or wrong; in fact, when you have an opinion, you will always have people talking about you. People react to opinions, whether right or wrong.
Take an example from the political world that has nothing to do with marketing (or has it?): Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is always on the edge only because his opinions are controversial. What do we do in result? We talk about him, hate him or love him. He (hopefully) won’t build a wall on the Mexican border, but what matters is that people still talk about him.
Other examples (not so extremes) are hotels, new apps, social networks or any kind or new product. When people talk about them, it doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong, what matters is the word spreading to more and more people through opinions.
And this is one of the main reasons why Word of Mouth is considered the most powerful marketing channel of all between marketers and sociologists.
They can leave you a negative comment on your post or when they share it, but the fact that they take action on your words will help your post gain visibility and this eventually will help you form your own community.
Read more on WOM:
http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2011/12/word_of_mouth_is_the_best_ad.html
Don’t forget!
Connect with me on Twitter, https://twitter.com/Davide_Pochi and LinkedIn uk.linkedin.com/in/davidepochi.
Thanks, Davide
