A solid strategy is the blueprint for your content marketing success. It helps you focus your efforts, streamline your content creation, and achieve measurable results.

Here’s a roadmap to getting started:

Define your audience

Who are you trying to reach?  Understand their pain points, aspirations, and where they spend their time – especially online.

Set your goals

What are you hoping to achieve with your content? Increase brand awareness? Generate leads? Drive website traffic?  Be specific!

Identify your content themes

Based on your audience and goals, select relevant topics and themes that your audience will find valuable.

Consider a content calendar

Create a structured schedule to keep your content flowing and provide consistency for your audience.  This might mean just plotting a few blog posts across the next 12 months, or something more extensive…. whatever it is, start planning!

Choose your content platforms or channels

Consider where your target audience is hanging out – are they active on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or do they prefer a print magazine? (Yes, offline channels still work too)

Best Practices: Crafting Content that Sticks

Now that you’ve laid the groundwork, it’s time to bring your content to life. Remember, quality and consistency are key, but these tips will elevate your efforts:

Don’t be a marketing machine

Authentically engage your audience by providing valuable content.  Remember, you’re building relationships, not selling.  Sure, we love marketing machines but think about the long game. What is the content ‘breadcrumbs’ you can build out, that make sense on their own, but when consumed over time add to memorable information that snowballs to support recall, recommendation, or repurchasing of your products, services, or brand.

Tell stories, not just facts

Make your content personal and relatable, tapping into human emotions and experiences.   I’ve loved TV advertising since I was a little kid. I think I had a sense of connection if the product on screen matched something in my house. I recall racing to the bathroom to grab our toothpaste whenever a Colgate ad would play so that I could dance in front on the TV with it.  Interestingly I’m still biased toward Colgate – talk about ‘cradle to the grave’ marketing! See what I did there? I just told you a story (which would have been more useful if I actually worked for Colgate-Palmolive Company).

Keep it relevant

Content should align with your target audience’s needs and pain points, providing solutions and addressing their questions.

Optimize for search

Employ relevant keywords and write SEO-friendly content so that people can find your valuable information easily.  We’ll write more on this in a future post, but think about the headings, phrases as well as keywords, whether you can include links to other items across your website, or to reputable and known other pages

Measure, track, and adapt

Use analytics to track the performance of your content and adjust your approach as needed. What works for one audience might not work for another.

Collaborate with experts

If you don’t have internal expertise, consider partnerships with other businesses or industry thought leaders.

Keep it consistent

Regular posting is key! Maintain a schedule to nurture ongoing engagement and grow your loyal following.

Content marketing may not bring instant gratification, but with persistence and strategic planning, it’s a powerful engine to build brand awareness, educate your market, solidify yourself as a thought leader, and drive organic traffic and engagement to your website.

So, grab your digital toolbox and get ready to build your online presence, one piece of valuable content at a time.