Content Marketing – Have a plan
A content marketing strategy is the idea that you are going to write content that will drive traffic to your website. It’s one of the most powerful marketing tools you can use, but the key to having a good content marketing plan is to…
Write according to your customers, not your product.
Make some assumptions about your customer, then research those assumptions. Understand the customer’s intent when searching for your products and services. Find out what else your customer would like to know, what they would want to read about. How can you help your customer make more out of your product? What are their related interests to your product. By building your content marketing strategy around your customer rather than around a product, you have a lot more to write about and a lot more ways to connect with your audience.
For me it’s simple. If a client has a website or wants a new website, the next obvious step for them is to know how to get more out of their website. So I have so much to write about (like this article for example).
For your business or product, you just need to find what interests and excites your customers and build a content marketing strategy around that. Your content marketing strategy could have useful tips on what to do with your product – for example, if you’re a fashion outlet, how to dress for certain occasions. If your product is selling a destination (a hotel for example), your content marketing strategy could focus on what to do and see in your city. Talk about the experiences, not about the room so much – unless of course its an amazing room! In which case, find the right balance.
Connect with a good content marketing strategy.
Having a good content marketing strategy can help you connect with your customers. Even if your product or service is very niche and you manage to write a few articles just on the nuances of your product, that information will only go so far – to really round off your effort, you want to have more in common with your customer than just the fact that they are buying the product you sell.
Try to build a community or movement around your content. Make your content shareable – I don’t mean by putting ‘like’ buttons on your page. I mean make it interesting enough that people will want to share it.
Good content marketing can lift a product.
If your product is a pretty boring one or un-sexy (recyclable garbage bags for example), or it targets the lower end of the market (cheap hotel rooms for example), it becomes even more important to have a good content marketing strategy – and draw the attention to the surrounding associated interests rather than focusing on the dry topic of your product (the zen of recycling, places to see in the area on a budget in these examples).
Bottom line is it’s really important to think about how you can talk about your product in a way that is interesting to your customers, and plan the content of your website around that strategy.
10 Tips for Content Marketing Strategy.
- Pick your niche – be an expert in your industry and stick to it.
- Know your target market – plan what you are trying to do for your readers.
- Don’t forget about your visual content – imagery is an important part of content.
- Attract visitors with useful information – focus on your customer’s needs before your own.
- Use good content marketing tools – use tools to help you collaborate within your team.
- Use your customers to your advantage – Show off your customer’s success stories.
- Publish content on a consistent basis – don’t slack off, be consistent with your content releases.
- Reuse your existing content – old content can still be relevant to new eyes, bring it to the foreground.
- Understand how social media fits in to your strategy.
- Know your end goal – Think about what you’re trying to accomplish.
