In today’s culture marketing messages are absolutely everywhere. Every time you turn on the TV, boot up your web browser of choice, or even just walk down the street you are almost instantly bombarded by thousands of brands, slogans, and carefully packaged products designed to attract your eye and extract your hard earned dollars. The marketplace is more crowded and competitive than it has ever been, making it incredibly difficult for new brands or ideas to break through to their target market.
Consumers have become so oversaturated by marketing messages that they’ve begun to tune out traditional marketing. Today’s average consumer own a DVR to skip advertisements, uses ad blocking software while surfing the web, and generally ignores, avoids, and tunes out banners, buttons, and traditional print ads.
As traditional marketing has become less effective, a sound content marketing strategy has become increasingly integral to the success of any new or growing business. Content marketing is often misused by companies that can’t escape the “sell first” mindset. The key to successful web content lies in understanding what your audience wants and where they’re coming from. Provide valuable content to the reader and they will keep coming back for more.
Below are six keys for building an effective content marketing strategy, and for testing your current content marketing approach to ensure maximum value:
1. Know When To Get Help
Batman and Robin, Luke and Han, Frodo and Sam. The great ones always know when they need a little help. One of the largest mistakes a business owner can make is trying to do everything on their own.
Relax for a moment. Take a deep breath, and a little step back.
Understand your individual strengths and weaknesses.
Do you love to produce content on an everyday business? Are you a strong, personable writer? Do you have the spare time to think about new kinds of content and different ways to add value for your readers? If the answer to any of these is no, then you should seriously consider looking for help.
2. Evaluate Your Competition
Fundamentally, there are two approaches to content marketing with regards to your direct competition:
- Understand where the market is currently being underserved, and provide content that addresses that unmet need. This approach avoids competition.
- Understand where your competitors are weak and where they are strong. Identify where you can excel.
Of the two, the first is the path of least resistance. Generating content in that area will almost immediately lead to growth if the interested audience is sufficiently large. After all, you’re the only show in town.
However, the reality is that understanding everything in such detail is rarely that easy. New, brilliant ideas and markets can be in short supply, and even if you identify only a single one your success can snowball but can also lead to new competition.
The key is to honestly evaluate strengths and weaknesses of both you and your competitors’ market positions. Are they cutting into parts of the market that you should dominate? If so, why? By assessing where their content isn’t meeting customer needs, you’ll get new ideas on how best to convert their followers into your followers.
3. Is Your Content Generating The Leads That It Should?
If you’ve had professional help, understand the wants and desires of your market, and positioned your content in a way that plays to your competitor’s weaknesses, it’s likely that you’re generating real value from your content marketing strategy. But let’s be honest, if you’re reading this you’re probably interested in generating more leads from your content!
If your content marketing isn’t panning out at present there are three primary possibilities:
- The quality of your content is good, but it hasn’t been exposed to the market. Give it time to breathe, and look for ways to publicize it effectively.
- The quality of your content is good, but it isn’t speaking to your audience’s deeper needs and compelling them to action. Seek to understand your audience’s core motivations and desires, and look for ways to reposition your content so it speaks to them.
- The quality of your content is poor, and your audience doesn’t care for it. Consider reaching out to your audience to understand exactly what they’re looking for, and look for ways to improve overall quality. Never throw away money on shoddy content, find additional help if necessary!
4. Track Your Numbers
Most of us work in a bottom-line industry, and at the end of the day it’s critical to understand where the hard numbers are.
It’s absolutely critical to track your numbers and understand what they mean. How much content are you publishing? What’s your current conversion rate on views? How much engagement are you getting from your market? What areas have you been the most successful in? Least successful in?
In addition to knowing what the numbers are, it’s important to understand how to address each of those individual questions and shore up areas of weakness. Are you over-saturating yourself? What’s the sweet spot for your industry and content quantity? Should you select a specific area and focus on that? The numbers can help suggest answers to those questions. As always, if you don’t know the answers then find someone who does!
5. Does Your Brand Or Company Have A Clear Message?
Effective positioning of your content in the market is one of the keys to success.
A clear message is the sum of four key parts:
- Know your audience. Understand what they’re looking for, and where your product or service fits in their conception of the world.
- Define your offerings. Be clear about what you have and why it will help them.
- Develop a distinctive voice. Set yourself apart from others, and use your voice to communicate your values and company culture.
- Provide obvious value. Never make the consumer search for the “Wow!” Put it right in front of them.
If you don’t have the time, energy, or ability to create high quality content and define a distinctive message, consider hiring a professional web content writer.
6. Have You Found An Audience To Reach Out To?
Successful content marketing ultimately relies on the intersection of content with market. Have you identified your core audience, and do you understand exactly what they’re looking for? Regardless of how strong your current content is, if it’s not being exposed to the right audience you’re not going to convert views to sales.
If your content isn’t hitting the mark then you may need to implement advertising or other forms of outreach to grow your following. A particularly important avenue to consider is social media outreach, which can be a huge source of cheap and effective access to large markets. By building your following in the correct areas you can match the content with the appropriate audience, thereby generating clear value and increasing your conversion rates.
By knowing when you need help, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, improving your conversion rates, tracking the numbers, developing a clear message, and identifying a core audience you’ll dramatically increase your chances of building a strong and successful content marketing strategy.
This kind of thoughtful, well designed approach is what will ultimately help you break through the noise and send a clear signal to your target market. The market will always respond when they are offered real value, real ideas, and actionable steps that can be put into practice and evaluated for effectiveness!
