A Beginner’s Guide on Getting Started with Content Marketing

A well-thought-out content strategy is vital not only to the growth of businesses but also to its survival for years to come. Nowadays, digital technologies are rapidly evolving, creating more opportunities for brands to create relevant and useful content, which can help them acquire and retain customers.

This is precisely what proper online content marketing is for — it’s about creating, curating, and distributing content with the intention of doing the following:

• Introducing a product or service to potential customers so that they’ll become aware of it.
• Changing or enhancing potential customers’ idea about the product or service so that they’ll consider buying it.
• Convincing potential customers to finally buy a product or pay for a service.
• Building loyalty among the customers
• Enhancing relationship with the customers so that they’ll become advocates of the product or service.

Unlike advertising, content marketing takes on a different tone. Advertising, as we know it in its classic form, is more of a “hard sell”. It involves exposing potential customers to advertisements to trigger conversion.

Content marketing, on the other hand, focuses on creating a story surrounding your brand to build relationships with potential customers. This is done by providing them information that is relevant to their circumstances and is valuable to them because they need it in some way. In doing so, people reward the provider of information with purchases, loyalty, and advocacy.

But how do you get started with your own content marketing strategy? There are several tips you can follow:

Understand what your brand needs to accomplish

Don’t jump too quickly into creating content simply because you think you need to or because your competitor has started doing the same thing. Your content marketing strategy should be guided by a business-driven goal you need to accomplish.

• Is your goal to introduce your brand-new business?
• Do you want to guide potential customers into completing the purchase cycle?
• Do you want your current customers to become your brand’s ultimate advocates, sharing your updates without you hinting at them to do it?

Remember to always ask yourself how your content marketing project is going to help your achieve an objective.

Understanding your brand’s core purpose is important because it will help you appraise and scrutinize your content to figure out if you are on the right track and doing the right thing. Does your content strategy support the primary purpose of your organization’s existence?

Know the kind of content that your audience looks for

This campaign will not work without high quality content that is capable of connecting to your audience. There are a few steps you can work on to give you a picture of what kind of content your audience would like:

A. Identify your target audience

Don’t be tempted to attempt targeting just “anyone and everyone.” You should have a clearly defined audience for the content you’re planning to create. Do you want to talk to your buyers or to the influencers? Do you want to target single moms? Couples with kids? Young urban professionals? Doctors? Florists? Or are you planning to target carpenters?

You should be as specific as possible so that you can craft content that is properly tailored to that particular group of audience.

B. Perform a competitor analysis

Take a good look at what your industry competitors are doing. Examine the kind of content they are producing, where they are distributing it, and with whom they are sharing it. Reverse engineering their content paths will often provide you with great hints as to how to tackle your own strategy. Do note though, that not all paths your competitors do should be copied, as this might end up giving your brand a negative impression to customers.  

C. Conduct a content audit

You need to check what’s already on your website in order to evaluate your content marketing maturity or even your SEO’s effectiveness. , which can spider your website and capture URLs so you can quickly see what your current content is all about. You can also check each page if they are optimized for search engines. You might have great content, but if they are not appearing on search engine results pages properly, then you might not be reaching your intended audiences.

 

Determine how you are going to distribute your content

 A. Choose a platform

According to Indian App Developers — You should figure out how you are going to deliver your content to your target audience. What are the best platforms to use and content types to create? Are you planning to set up a blog, create a Facebook and Twitter page, or write news reports and whitepapers?

B. Tap into influencers

You should also determine how you plan to get influencers to share your content. These key individuals have great reach over potential customers, so building a relationship with them is important if you want your content distribution efforts to be amplified.

 C. Listen to conversations

Be mindful of the trends or conversations that are currently taking place in your industry. Checking out relevant forums, for instance, provides a perfect opportunity for you to discover what questions your target audience want answers for, what’s causing them problems, and what’s keeping them excited. Again, identify your industry’s influencers and engage with them by sincerely providing them with things that are of value to them. For instance, you can provide expert answers to their questions or help them promote their businesses.

Now that you have an overview of the process that you need to work on, it’s time to get those creative minds working and formulate a content strategy for your audience.

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