Content marketing, like food, attracts people to the table. The decisions that you make regarding your ingredients will determine your content marketing success in capturing the attention and satisfying the craving of the audience you are targeting.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is the distinct technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action. If you want to produce content that your audience can’t wait to consume, you need to pay close attention to your recipe and all of its ingredients.
Let’s get you started with four key ingredients needed for content marketing success:
1. Understand the profile of who you want to consume your content
First and foremost, segmenting your audience and delivering customized content is critical to engaging them. If you do not customize your content, you’ll miss opportunities to connect with people, raise brand awareness, and boost your business by building credibility as a thought leader. What is your audience interested in? Try to understand what is driving their hunger for more information.
2. Have a plan for publishing
You have spent the time and effort writing insightful content so make sure to publish it where it can be consumed. Be sure to take advantage of your website and social media profiles to share your expertise and continue to build on your online presence. For example, post your content to a blog and then tweet the link to your business’s twitter followers with the appropriate hashtags. Studies show that tweets with hashtags get two times more engagement than tweets without. It is also noted that engagement drops if you use more than two hashtags so use them in moderation.
3. Make your content meaningful, useful and interesting
All of your published content should be “shareworthy.” That means that it is so meaningful, useful and/or interesting to your target audience that they will want to share it with their own colleagues, peers and other connections.
Start by planning your content well in advance. Consider important events or trends within your target industry. For instance, October is Women’s Small Business Month. During that month, focus content on the advancements made by women in business and celebrate women business owners. For additional tips on creating useful content look here. Think of this as the flavors in your recipe. You want them to be memorable.
4. Continue building your brand
After you’ve created content, shared it with prospects and clients, and developed quite an impressive reputation (Oh the sweet taste of success!) — Then what?
You need to maintain your new level of engagement. Your content should continue to reflect the company’s philosophies and practices as well as be maintained consistently. Investing in your content marketing strategy allows your business to continue building your online presence and ultimately earn more exposure and business.
What other ingredients do you like to use to spice up your content marketing recipe? Share with us in the comments below.
Graphic Source: http://the-iicrca-event.org/session/keynote-2-dean-mercado/
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