4 Strategies For Strengthening Your Content Marketing Efforts

Developing a content marketing strategy isn’t a choice anymore for businesses and organizations. One crazy stat that has recently surfaced is that more than 80% of B2B marketers say they have a content marketing plan, here comes the crazy part, only 26% have their plan documented. What’s that about??

With the instant access that most people have on phones, tablets and computers, it is critical to create content that consumers can find and, even more important, create and publish content WHERE your consumers are online. As the saying goes, “if a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around does it make a sound?” Creating this content takes dedicated time and effort even with a written out plan.

Below are four simple strategies for strengthening your content marketing efforts. Again creating content that is meaningful to your consumers and is effective takes time, but I am hoping that these four tactics will help you in creating killer content.

• Define objectives and goals for your content marketing. Ask your team these the hard questions about your content marketing plan. Why are you attempting to create content? How will this content help our business goals and objectives? Does this content help consumers and create value in their lives? Simply put, creating content is not enough, creating content that improves business should be the ultimate end goal.

• CLEARLY define your target audiences. If your business is like ours, you may have multiple target audiences. Some that are young entrepreneurs, small businesses and large corporations. Each piece of content that is created and published by your brand MUST have a target in mind. Not all content is created equal one might say. By knowing who your audience is will make creating stellar content more realistic and results will show more clearly. Simple tactic but highly effective.

• Do your Audience Research. Ask your team this question, “What are the needs of our audience and potential consumers?” If you cannot answer this question clearly, more research is necessary before your content will catch on with your audience. Sometimes, more often than not, data can only take your knowledge so far. Invest the time to have REAL face to face conversations with your audience. Talk to current customers, clients and even prospective consumers. Gaining this insight will rapidly increase your content creation.

• What makes your content different/better? Yes this tactic is a question. Think about the brands that you like. Now think about their competitors. Why do you like the first brand over the second? They are doing at least one thing better and different than their competition. How will your content be different/better than your competitors’’ content? Create content that adds value to their lives. Be helpful. Be the expert. If your team cannot answer this question with certainty, keep thinking and brainstorming until you can. Then, and only then, will your content reach the right people and become remarkable.

These are only four strategies to strengthening your content marketing efforts. There are hundreds more and each of them work to some degree. But these four above, will help the process get started on the right foot, or correct your process from here moving forward.