According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is a popular strategy among marketers to create and distribute valuable content. This approach posits that if you provide relevant, quality information consistently then your target audience will be more likely to shop with you. All SMBs need content marketing to survive. It is an efficient, effective, and economical way to drive traffic to your site. According to The Manifest, at least 53% of companies now use it as a means of attracting customers. Here are 7 steps you should follow for your content marketing strategy to work:

Establish Your Mission Or Goals

A content marketing strategy should serve a specific purpose and meet specific goals. Make these goals even more ‘SMART’, by making them Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant to your audience’s needs, and Time-based (SMART). SMART goals look like this:

  • Improve your search engine ranking to land on the first page within three months by improving site accessibility and content, as well as creating an effective online marketing strategy that is engaging for audiences and offers a positive experience
  • Acquire 1,000 email subscriptions in 30 days with social media ads targeted at relevant demographics if you’re looking to grow organically or using SEO tactics such as guest blogging, link building campaigns, or Facebook advertising
  • Increase sales by 25% from a specific market segment within two weeks

 

Identifying Performance Indicators

This is the most important part. This is the most important part of the meeting. You need to pick out a few key metrics that will really show how successful you are in getting closer and achieving your content marketing goals throughout the year. This might include (but is certainly not limited to):

  • Unique page views
  • Referral rate
  • Number of downloads
  • Net revenue
  • Conversion rates

Selection Of Audience And Content Channels

A Content marketing strategy relies on having a clearly defined audience. You aren’t trying to reach everyone and anyone; you are crafting a specific message which holds value for one group of people-your potential customers! Collect demographic data from your site or social media platform, but Google Analytics can also help out with this task.

Once you’ve figured out who’s reading your existing content (or who isn’t), then it’ll be time to get a sense of where you already have an online presence. Follow that up by homing in on the channels with the most exposure and engagement potential for what kind of business or industry you are in.

Create a Content Schedule

You want to avoid turning your followers off from the content you’re posting, so try following a schedule. For blogs, post every week at the same time on the same day and for social media posts, it’s best to vary them between once daily and a few times each week. Create a content marketing strategy schedule because:

  1. Consistency – helps train readers to come back, to anticipate new material, and indicate that you’re a reliable, active source of information
  2. Content Variety – Seeing the big picture helps you spot opportunities for variety to enrich your offerings
  3. Save Resources – A schedule is like a road map. Knowing what you’re going to do next helps you join the ranks of the 36 percent of content creators with efficient project workflows
  4. Track KPI – One of the features of a SMART goal is that it’s time-based. Visualize your time-based goals with a content calendar

Create Content To Distribute

It doesn’t matter how genius your ideas are if you don’t get the content right. Even Google won’t be impressed and will rank you lower in search engines, which can make it harder to connect with new audiences or grow an existing audience. For this reason alone, invest time and energy into crafting a great content strategy and copy for every project—whether that’s a blog post or white paper.

Track Results Of Your Content Marketing Strategy

Within the first hours of delivering your content, you’ll begin to see how people respond. Page views, likes, and shares represent some of the first metrics indicating engagement. Over time, you’ll also see conversion rates, qualified leads or closes (changes in revenue). There are many tools out there that can help you track KPIs, like:

  1. Google Analytics– It’s free and easy to measure page views, traffic sources, keyword performance, and more
  2. Databox– Databox offers an array of powerful tools for tracking almost any metric
  3. Excel– If you’re comfortable with Excel, you can create your own KPI tracking spreadsheets. This works best with metrics like revenue, subscriptions, or referrals

Refine And Repeat

With a great content marketing strategy, consistency is key – don’t release just one or two pieces of content and call it a day. Learn from your KPIs, tweak your content strategy and repeat! Over time you’ll build up that consistent foundation of valuable information in the form of articles for example that leave readers smarter about topics they care deeply about while also giving them an impression as to why these are subjects important enough to spend their hard-earned money on – all thanks to you!