Creating a content marketing strategy is much like creating a marketing strategy. They both begin with your audience. Having a clear understanding of who you are trying to reach makes it less troublesome to create this strategy. Some small business owners and most B2B companies already have detailed personas as part of their marketing, and these are very useful when creating your content marketing.

The next phase to crafting a good content marketing is the message. Again, similar to marketing, but with the exception that content marketing may be driven by the platforms your audience spend time on or the kinds of content they consume. A B2B company might provide helpful business articles on their website’s blog or on LinkedIn, and a consumer company with net generation customers would perhaps create a way to tell their ongoing brand story with images on Instagram.

What action would you like your prospects or customers to take once they become aware of your content? This is where content marketing differs from the traditional marketing approach. The goal is to get your audience to engage where they take some type of action that shows an affinity with your brand or its ideas. In the examples above, the brand on Instagram is looking for more than likes or even comments, but shares or even their audience sharing their own images. The B2B company entices their prospects with a call-to-action on every blog post, offering a more extensive piece of content, like an eBook or white paper, in exchange for contact information.

The final part of a good content marketing strategy is analyzing the data in order to measure the success. These goals need to align with your business, so you can talk about success in the same terms as others in your organization, especially executives. Don’t tout your eBook downloads when everyone else focuses on marketing-qualified leads. Don’t boast about likes when the business goals are about productivity. These metrics should be agreed upon beforehand, so you will know if your content marketing efforts are meeting company goals.

The main philosophy behind content marketing is that you provide something of value to your prospects and customers to build trust and ensure retention and advocacy. The C-suite understands that customers now hold the power in the relationship and this is the new way to build it. Cold-calling, product-focused marketing and pure brand-awareness advertising are no longer the means to success in business.

1. Facing and Dealing With Resistance

It’s important that all content marketing team members are on board, including the executives. Everyone involved with the creation of the content needs to understand that customers hold the power and this is the new way to build the strategy. Pure brand awareness, product-focused-marketing and cold-calling are no longer the means to being successful in business. The main philosophy behind content marketing is that you provide something of value to your customers and prospects to ensure retention and advocacy and to build trust.

It may not be the executives of your company who resists the content marketing ideas. Other marketing colleagues may expect you to fail because content marketing is a cultural mindset, not everyone in a business is ready for it. So a good plan would be to start by piloting something small. Pick a product, or persona, or market and create helpful content. Make sure you agree on what success looks like from the start, and you have enough time to generate those results.

2. Frequent Mistakes Made By Content Marketing Marketers

The most common mistakes marketers make is not putting themselves in the mindset of their prospects. This is how they end of creating content about products. Prospects don’t really care about your products They care about solutions to their own business problems. If your content doesn’t address that, they will not care about it.

Another mistake is not building your own brand’s audience in order to ensure you’re using the proper metrics. The goal should be related to leads and sales and separate from the social network metrics.

Hazel Burgess

Hazel Burgess
FOUNDER/SEO DIRECTOR

Hazel is the Founder & SEO Director at Envisager Studio, a premier website design agency specializing in WordPress website design, development and internet marketing. In her spare time, she writes about search engine optimization, website design, and internet marketing.