Any content marketing campaign requires a solid foundation of knowledge, preparation, and execution in order to succeed. Failure to lay this foundation can lead to misguided efforts, disinterested readership, and a waste of company and human resources.
If you are just beginning to develop your content marketing campaign, or you are looking for a fresh start, the process of building from scratch is actually not so complicated. By understanding the aims of content marketing, developing your corporate identity, building your platform, and establishing a process of content creation that’s optimized, your team can count themselves among the growing number of marketers who feel confident and effective.
Understanding Content Marketing
Content marketing is, on the surface, precisely what it sounds like: marketing through content. In a cursory way, content marketing is about developing blog posts, videos, slideshows, photos, infographics, webinars, and other media pieces that capture audience attention and build a positive association with your brand.
content marketing is the practice of developing engaging and meaningful relationships with your customers. Traditional advertising methods are designed to entice viewers using depictions of positive benefits and lifestyle fulfillment attained through a solution. Content marketing, on the other hand, enters into a discussion regarding the needs and aspirations of the customer through value-driven media.
Blogs are likely to be a major source of content marketing for your business. In fact, 82% of marketers who maintain a company blog see positive ROI for their inbound marketing efforts. Blogging involves the creation and monitoring of articles, both textual and visual, that deliver value to your customers. Additionally, your team will be tasked with responding to comments in the both the discussion section and on social media.
Laying Your Foundation
First ask yourselves, “what would we like to improve,” and let all subsequent efforts arise from the answer. For companies with low market share, the answer may be “awareness”. For businesses with unfavorable perception, positive association may be your goal.
Whatever answer arises from your unique position in the market, make sure that your goals are well-constructed. A common technique for ensuring this is referred to as making goals “SMART”. This stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound.
Gathering Your Resources
Content marketing, like any other marketing effort, costs money. With blogs, videos, man-hours, and paid promotion in the mix, it’s easy to expect that such an endeavor might be an unnecessary drain. However, research has shown that content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates 3 times as many leads.
Advertising campaigns may require the enlistment of an advertising agency, and interactive web properties may require the services of a web developer. In the content marketing arena, however, your knowledge is your resource. With a little writing talent and some creative minds at the helm, content generation is a process of taking what you know and putting it to paper.
Intellectual Capital
The formal definition of intellectual capital is the “the value of a company or organization’s employee knowledge.” In the specific context of content marketing, this refers to the proprietary and expert knowledge that your team possesses that you can wield to create unique content
Creative Talent
Intellectual capital refers specifically to the knowledge that your team possesses that is relevant to your vertical. Creative talent, on the other hand, refers to the talents your team brings when tasked with expressing that information in unique and meaningful ways.
Network Connections
One thing upon which blogs thrive is guest posting. Other creative outlets, including podcasts, webinars, and video series can also benefit from the utilization of prominent names and talents within your vertical. Utilize your available professional connections to your benefit and give both your guest and your company a platform on which to shine.
Building Your Platform
The next step in the process is to construct the platform for your campaign. In a general sense, this includes all social media accounts and web properties needed to distribute a variety of media types.
Blogging
Blogging has become a veritable essential to any content marketing work.It is important to note, however, that blogging is not for everyone. B2C enterprises, for example, may benefit more from a well-curated social media account. This is because, while blogging offers the opportunity to share and discuss in-depth topics, many consumer interests are better expressed through other types of media
Social
Social media accounts are much simpler that blogs, but no less important
Additional Media
Other media accounts are available at your discretion. YouTube is highly recommended considering the digestibility and potency of well-managed channels. Other options include SlideShare, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and Soundcloud, just to name a few. The priority of each of these channels depends on your team’s evaluation of their use in your practice, and none are mandatory in a content marketing context.
Creating, Monitoring, and Engaging
The next step in the process is an establishment of a creative engine. Once content marketing work begins, it is important to remain both consistent and focused on the needs of your readership in order to make an impact
Idea Creation
Idea creation is usually a team-wide effort, pooling the best ideas of everyone involved in order to select the best items for the week or month ahead.
Analytics
You will not master content marketing the first time through. Understanding your specific market and audience requires repeated iterations of idea creation, publication, and monitoring.
Distribution
This is where social media truly shines. What once was a static process of publishing on a website and hoping for the best has become a dynamic process of exploring and engaging with users through social tools.
While we’re all sitting on cloud-nine about our new content marketing campaign, it’s important to keep our feet on the ground. Ideally, every piece of content you create would be a home run, social posts would take off because of the intrinsic quality of the piece, and your company would grow overnight.