Content marketing has shown incredible results for businesses. For example, content marketing results in a 62 percent lower cost than standard marketing by three times as much. The first thing you have to do is to develop a marketing plan for content. You can take the first step towards successful content marketing material this year with a good plan.
Marketers who prepare their initiatives or campaigns proactively are 400 percent more likely to succeed. If you want to be one of those who will produce outstanding returns in 2020 from content marketing, continue by drawing up a written plan. We will share some important steps in this blog posting to build an effective content marketing strategy.
Conduct an audit of content
You need an inspection to assess your current performance to consider what works and what won’t do to build a brand content plan for 2020. Such audits help you to prepare your strategy for content marketing.
Check the following things while auditing your content:
- Content that performs best
- Content that performs as average
- Frequency of content publishing
- Researched Keywords
Use a plagiarism checker to avoid plagiarized material because it is terrible for your content marketing strategy. More knowledge will help you build future content marketing plans because you know your current content performance.
Set content goals for products
You would definitely not get a return on investment if you have no target for content marketing. Your marketing activity loses its focus without targets, and its success or failure becomes challenging to evaluate. In the majority of cases, companies use content marketing for awareness of the brand, lead generation, and lead conversion.
Whatever your goals are, you have to set them correctly. A smart approach should be adopted, which is critical to establish successful goals. Obviously, the goals will focus on the selling funnel stage for which you create content. That said, the goals will dictate the type of content, how the content is being marketed, and other things you make.
Conduct research on audience
Another critical aspect of designing a content marketing strategy is to know precisely who the content is aimed at. Through undertaking comprehensive audience research, you can know your target audience. Following your research, you should have as many details on your ideal client so that you can arrange a buyer persona for each kind of ideal client.
Another way of conducting your research is to create a list of the kinds of clients for the content that you want to convert. The current customer base can be analyzed, and future customers or leads can establish goals.
Decide the content type
The writing was initially synonymous with written content. But various formats of content have become more popular over the years.
One argument is the visual material that is particularly popular. No wonder many people now prefer visual content rather than written content.
You can make several types of content, including:
- Videos
- Webinars
- Podcasts
- Presentations
- Infographics
The kind of material you need to use depends heavily on your specific audience. You should ideally use some different formats of content that work best with your target audience.
Use a different mix of content based on the platforms you use and the tastes of your viewers. In fact, it’s worth experimenting with various content types to see how the overall results impact them.
Set a timeline for content
One of the key factors of your success is regularity when delivering content to draw your audience. The performance of content marketing takes time, and you need to regularly publish great content to evolve. You can schedule your publication of material at your desired time using a content timeline. Your timeline also provides a digital description of your tasks in content marketing. Team members can then quickly improve on ideas, making the whole cycle more successful for the whole team.
You can either try Google Sheets or develop a timeline yourself or use a professional tool. You can Google for “content calendar,” and you will see various tool can be used free of cost. Get any one of them and start making a timeline for publishing your content. There are also plugins available for WordPress and Joomla if you use a content management system. You can generate content regularly enough with your content calendar to accomplish the expected outcomes of your content marketing.
Have a strategy to promote your content
Content generation is one aspect of content marketing, while its promotion is another important part. Many professionals would advise you to use the same time to create and advertise the content. You need one to promote it while having a plan to create content. Naturally, you should choose the best platforms to promote the content and reach your audience. Content can be promoted using various platforms such as guest posts, social media, search engines, email advertising, and forums.
Guest posts are essential pieces of content that will increase your presence on broader business sites. You can promote your content on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram by creating pages of your products. Search engines can be optimized by using content specially designed for searching users. You can send emails to your clients to inform about new products. Engage with your customers by answering their questions.
Finally, create advertising and spent some money to advertise your content and product as well. You must include the advertising on each channel in your promotion strategy.
Evaluate the success of your content marketing
You have to run a campaign to achieve good results from content marketing. You also have to monitor the success of your campaign after taking action. In fact, to monitor your campaigns, you need different measures. Because the metrics used to measure the success of your campaigns change when the objectives change.
In other words, the measurements you follow will depend on your goals. In your marketing schedule, you have to determine certain metrics, since you can track results as soon as the campaign begins. In doing so, you can quickly determine whether something performs as it should and tailor your plan to potentially boost the performance and ultimately achieve your goals. In fact, metrics can provide feedback on how to develop a future campaign plan.
Final Words
The development of a content marketing strategy increases the chances of meeting your goals effectively and efficiently. You need to know the current performance of content, target audience, use a timeline for content, promote content, and track results. In 2020, you will be able to attract more leads and customers by all these moves in content marketing.