5 Steps on How to Make Your Content Marketing Strategy Work

There’s been a lot of things said about content marketing over the past years. And with Brian Clark of the popular Copyblogger site declaring “it’s not going away”, people, we have to listen.

That’s like it. So the loads of blog posts, white papers, e-newsletters, webinars, microblogs, and infographic copy, among many others, that you see stacking up online are no longer a fad or a buzz phrase.

What Content Marketing Is?

It’s true, content marketing is hugging the spotlight recently. What really this exciting dynamo is basically a lovechild of traditional and digital marketing.

Being the younger sibling of other marketing efforts around, content marketing strategy contemplates the significance of creating truly engaging and great campaign that is hype-able.

As well as driving traffic to your site, content marketing is another way of sparking and inspiring people, especially your brand followers and prospects, to talk about your organization.

Content marketing options are here to stay. And the advantages for your company are immense in so many different ways.

Making your content inherently, however, shareable will benefit from gaining the support from the friend zone, namely social media, public relations and SEO strategies.

Is Content Marketing Just the Other Form of Branding?

Maybe not exactly so. But let’s find out by digging deeper.

As opposed to common notions that branding refers to the name of your company, the tagline and logo, it’s pretty safe to assume it’s a also one way that companies use to creating positive perception.

OK, here are other common definitions marketers ascribe to branding: a promise, an expectation of an experience.

But on a deeper look of it, the essence of brands can go beyond merely having the colors right or site design right.

The meaning of the brand is its very essence. Words have meanings as much as it also do matter.

If you are wondering how the Apple brand resonates, the secret did not lies from its logo or even its product design alone. But that heap of credits should go to the constant stream of Apple product reviews that blogs and online news sites publish on a regular basis.

Third-party party validation of the Apple brand communicated through third-party content and shares help built the brand over time. It’s sentiments and raves that people shared about Apple that created the meaning of that brand. Advertising from Apple aided in reinforcing the meaning.

So what’s that got to do with content marketing as the new branding?

As marketers, the challenge for us is to convince and influence people to talk about us or our client’s brand. That’s why we influence, convince them to generate content about our brands.

So for our subject brand, our task as marketers is to create an Apple-like experience where the brand’s meaning is derived from how our customers or prospects perceive us.

By publishing our own content, we inspire our customers with brand experiences and help shape conversation around our brand.

This same effort can be pursued through content marketing. It becomes imperative now to commit to an active role by publishing or propagating content worth talking about. In this game, abstaining can mean missed opportunity.

How to Make Content Marketing Strategy Work?

Brent Gleeson and Carrie Peterson wrote in “Savvy Marketing Mix = Social + PR + SEO” that there are five ways to achieve content marketing strategy success.

1. Set Clear Goals. The part we’ve already heard a lot of times but we need to pay attention. Ask questions that you’ll answer later on. Questions serve as guide in setting your goals. It is also at this stage to ask yourself what performance benchmarks you want to use in measuring overall success. Be specific with your goals. Is it direct sales you are after or new sign-ups? All these must be established and set before starting with anything.

2. Do Your Research. Keyword research is important and its role to get the best results from your content or campaign. Tap your SEO team to help identity specific keywords or areas of opportunity to drive traffic to the site. Find out from your social media and PR staff what content makes sense to promote based on your market’s demographic, industry trends. Be ready to spot upcoming potential PR opportunities. Now you can initiate brainstorming.

3. Create Great (Trackable) Content. Realize that it takes a lot of pain, sweat and blood to produce great content. To help you crack the best ones, use all available tools at your disposal. You can also leverage your team’s creative minds to help solve an issue or concern for your content marketing.

4. Build Your Web Network. Once you are ready with your content marketing options, start building the “web” where you’ll push out your content. In building your network, start identifying your target audience and understanding them better. Do you already know where they spend most of their time online? After knowing where they loiter, identify the influencers in the space. Tap bloggers, journalists or the savvy Tweeps to build your clout. Now, follow them with sincerity and follow their blogs. Engage in dialogues and adopt proper social etiquette. Once you earn their trust, there are hopes that your band of influencers will share your content with their followers.

5. Get The Word Out! It’s now time to make the world listen to your unique story. Keep in mind that content marketing must always stick to the facts, strategic and calculated. Leverage your social media to good use and tap the “web” of networks you’ve built for your outreach. Craft a pitch to the influencers. Make sure to match your pitch to the personality and followers of your influencers.That way, these people will naturally or volunteer to share your great content.

How about you, what’s your experience in integrating all the disciplines of social media, PR and SEO into your content marketing campaign?

Source: https://www.agencypost.com/savvy-marketing-mix-social-pr-seo/