You must have a strategy that will take you from where your business is currently to your goal. If you do not outline a strategy you are randomly throwing out content without purpose. This can be a waste of time and money. Not to mention the frustration of spinning your wheels and not seeing your business move forward.
What is your goal?
The first step is to identify your goal. Why are you marketing? What specific action do you want people to take when they see your message?
Are you trying to increase your sales? Increase website traffic? Increase your opt-in page conversions?
What is your strategy?
A common goal of content marketing is to increase website traffic, so let’s use this as an example to outline a strategy. Here are pieces that you may include in your content marketing strategy.
#1 – Develop the content.
Write an article on a topic of interest to your potential clients. For best results from an SEO (search engine optimization) perspective, make your article at least 400 words in length and include a keyword once or twice. Use this article as an example of what I mean. I’m writing on content marketing, which is an area of interest to my clients and the clients I want to work with. My keyword for this article is content marketing and I know I’ve used it more than twice by now! I bet I’m going to have to delete it a few times before it’s accepted by some of the article directories:)
#2 – Leverage your content.
Now that you’ve made the time to create a quality article you want to leverage it to it’s fullest. This means re-purposing your content to reach as many people as possible and draw them back to your website. Here are options:
a. Blog
Add your article to your blog to go out to your blog subscribers via RSS feed.
b. Article Directories
Submit your article to article directories. Include a resource box at the end of your article to draw people back to your website for more information.
c. Twitter
Break your article down into tweets and schedule to go out to twitter with a link back to the entire blog post on your website.
d. Facebook
Take a couple tips from your article and share them on Facebook with a link back to your entire blog post on your website. One new tip per day.
e. LinkedIn
Change the title of your article into a question, create what I call a ‘teaser’ about your article content and share within appropriate discussion groups on LinkedIn . . . all with a link back to the entire blog post located on your website.
f. Social Bookmarking
For a little added oomph, bookmark your blog posts on social bookmarking sites, such as Digg and Delicious. This can give your website a little added SEO boost.
Want an example?
I provide a content marketing strategy for clients and you are welcome to use this strategy to help you outline your own – Content Marketing Strategy. If you want your strategy to be successful you must be consistent, which means making a time commitment to do implement your strategy on a regular basis. If this is a piece you are ready to outsource I’d be happy to assist you.
All the best,
Lisa Nelson