3 Things to Consider Before You Get Serious About Content Marketing

If you’ve read our blog, we have long recommended that you get serious about your content marketing strategy. In 2015, it’s even more important than ever. You have to assume that your competition is starting to see the light, and that they are planning on ramping up their content campaigns. Reason being, content is probably the most effect way to spark engagement with prospects and customers. Content marketing, if executed properly, is an organic method of building loyal relationships within your market, which can translate to a healthy increase in sales and a boost to your brand.

So, you may be reading this in excitement—all ready to go. You’re ready to start pumping out content that is going to bring new customers busting through your doors, ready to buy.

But breathe, wait a second. How ready are you exactly? Is your content marketing strategy ready for takeoff, or is it only primed for a crash landing? There are some things that you need to know before you start rolling out content. You don’t want to get started on the wrong foot; otherwise you’re wasting your time and budget.

1. Who is your content for?

When we say content, it could be blog articles, reports, videos, podcasts and several other mediums. This content needs to be delivered to the right type of people to be effective. Knowing your audience allows you to deliver targeted content. Knowing what makes your audience tick gives you a wealth of different topics or themes that your content can cover. Whether it’s a 30 minute video or a 300 word article, it needs to be tailored to what your customer base is looking for.

Without having a thorough understanding of your audience, you’re practically aimless and without direction. That’s not a good place to be when you’re trying to create content. When creating content, you’re constantly looking for ways to engage your audience; you’re trying to get your audience actively involved with your brand. Getting them actively involved requires that you craft creative content that pushes all the right buttons.

You narrow down who your audience is by conducting thorough market research. What’s the average profile of the person who buys your products? Are there any sweeping similarities between them? What’s the general reason that they are interested in your products? What compelled them to visit your site? How do you compare to your competition? What are the most common questions customers have when they buy your products?

Knowing audience will take you a long way.

2. How does it fit into your overall marketing scheme?

Your content strategy shouldn’t be stranded alone on an island. Look for ways to connect your content through other marketing channels, like your traffic generation, your email marketing and your social media.

If you are trying to rake in traffic through localized rankings, for instance, think about ways to incorporate your local keywords into your content. If you have a blog, pepper your posts with keywords. If you’re marketing through Facebook, link to any new content from your page; actively encourage people to share the content. Doing this makes your content more versatile and more powerful.

3. What’s the endgame with your content?

Don’t just create content just to do it. There has to be an endgame, goal, and ideal result. Know why you’re going to invest so much energy and time into your content, because knowing what you want to accomplish will help to keep your goal on a straight path. If you want a healthy ROI, you have to thoroughly map out your strategy and see how you’re going to your content into a consistent revenue stream. If you want your content to build upon your brand, then you need to create content that will make your brand more authoritative in your target market. With content marketing, if you don’t know what you want to extract from your time and financial investment, then it’s a waste.