I have had the opportunity to work with many businesses in different industries, and one of the most common gaps in their content development is answering questions that their clients and customers have often. Almost every business owner can come up with at least a handful of questions they get asked over and over again, and this is a great place to start in the development of content for most small businesses.
Beyond that starting point, here is how you can approach your content marketing strategy in an easy way;
- Define the Goal. What do you want your content to do for you?
Are you developing content as a resource for people doing research? Is your content meant to generate new leads for your business? Is there a phase in the customer journey where you don’t currently have content? Is your content meant to help elevate your rankings in Google? Is this part of your search engine optimization plan? Determining your goal will help inform your overall strategy.
- Define your audience. Who is your target market?
This might be revealed as part of the process of defining your goal, but the further you can hash this out the better you are able to create content specifically for your target audience, which in turn will lead to better engagement.
- Define your message. What are you communicating?
Now that you know the goal and who you are speaking to, what is the best way to say it? Once you know what needs to be said, you can determine the format, the voice, and the context of your messaging.
- Choose a medium/channel. Where will you share this content?
Your audience may love images, or videos, or podcasts. Ultimately, you’re able to leverage content in many different forms, but you may determine that your audience likes to consume their content on YouTube, or Pinterest, or Instagram, and from your research, you’ll determine where your audience is, and how to best fit your message into the appropriate channel.
- Measure Your Results. Did it help you achieve your goal?
Any interest in content marketing would suggest that you have the desired result in mind. The way to get better at producing content is to measure the results and adjust from there.
Measurements you should be considering are; Did you get engagement? Did the content improve your rankings? How many leads were generated? These are just a few of the types of questions you should be asking to assess the performance of your content. You should be looking at your results to find what worked and what didn’t work, and use these insights to inform the development of your new content or the repurposing of the content you have already created.
These simple 5 steps are an easy path to help you get started with your content development. I know there are many options, opinions, courses, experts, and shiny objects out there, but if you keep it simple and just get started, you’ll be developing great content that works for you and your audience in no time.
If you find that you still want some help with your content marketing, please feel free to reach out or request a free consultation. We’ll help you get set up and on the right track.
