While you may have the best team of writers to churn out content, all that content will not find traction on any platform if it isn’t distributed properly and optimized. After all, the purpose of creating good content is for it to be seen and shared by your readers.
Thus, it is important to have an effective content marketing strategy in place—one that makes sure the content you will be creating reaches your target audience.
Here are a few steps to creating an effective content marketing strategy:
Before Anything Else, Get to Know Your Audience
Just like in any other form of marketing, developing a content marketing plan also starts with understanding your audience. Knowing basic things – age, gender, income level, and social beliefs of your target market – can help you create content that is meticulously targeted to your audience’s interests.
Once you have the basic information, try to dig deeper by thinking about their common problems and how your brand or service can help address those issues.
When you know your audience well, every content piece you create is able to hit the right chords with them.
Keyword Research and Selection
Now that you have an idea of what your audience looks like, it is time to look for terms they use while searching for products or services similar to yours. There are many keyword research tools available to help you with that, and Google Keyword Planner is one of them. If you offer plumbing services in Los Angeles, list down all the keywords used to find plumbing services there.
After finalizing keywords, start integrating them into your content. Using the right keywords can really improve your search engine ranking.
Choosing Content Types
Knowing your audience and the right keywords are not enough. Figure out what content form your audience is more comfortable with. If they respond to visual content more than blogs or articles, why waste time creating all sorts of content?
Keeping track of your audience’s likes and dislikes helps you evolve your content marketing strategy as you move on.
Placement and Consistency
Another important thing is to know which platforms they are mostly on and whether it is Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. You need to be where your audiences are. If they are more likely to search for videos related to your product on Youtube, focus on creating more video-based content.
Apart from choosing the right platform, always ensure that you follow a content schedule and are not inconsistent in your posting. If you don’t keep your audience engaged, they are more likely to never return to your page.
While the above-mentioned steps are highly effective and useful, it is important to keep in mind that content marketing strategies keep evolving. If you want to learn more ways to improve and enhance your content marketing and social media strategy, check out insights shared by Manal Haddad, an experienced marketing professional with 25 years of experience.
He gives useful tips on how a true leader handles difficult situations and how to build great teams.
