Anyone who has ever told you that content marketing is easy lied to you.
It’s hard.
You create content designed to solve your target audience problems and then publish and promote it.
But you never really know which content will be a hit or a miss.
And that’s where the beauty of it is.
If your content hits, you can discover what your target audience considers relevant and replicate this success.
You can also use the misses to realize what works, what doesn’t, what needs to go, and what you can improve on.
In this post, I look at a process you can utilize to boost your content marketing strategy’s success. An approach that can help you meet your audience’s needs and attract quality traffic.
Read on to see what it entails:
1. Planning and Research
Your content marketing process should start with a plan defining the why, who, what, where, how, and when of content.
What does this mean?
Conduct thorough research into your:
- Target audience
- Content goals
- Content key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Types of Content
- Tools you will use
- Channels to publish and promote
Then, create a content calendar outlining the various types of posts you plan to publish. It should also allow your content team enough time to research, write, design, edit, and publish.
2. Content Creation
During this stage, you:
- Brainstorm topics
- Carry out keyword research
- Establish a voice
You then create engaging content that resonates with your audience, solves their problems, educates, and entertains.
It should also be content that can help your marketing and sales team drive more quality leads toward conversion.
3.Publish and Promote
It’s the time to share your well-curated and written content with your target audience.
Guided by the calendar, publish your content, and then promote it on various sites identified during planning. These can include social media, syndication sites, forums, Q&A sites, etc.
4. Analysis and Strategy Optimization
During this stage, use tools like Google Analytics and other content analytic tools to track content performance.
Then use the insights to optimize your content campaigns. Make changes according to the data collected, and replicate successful tactics for increased engagement and conversions.
Congratulations!
You now have a working content marketing process.
But is that all?
No.
There are various best practices you can apply during each stage for a more effective content marketing process, as explained in the infographic below. Check it out for an in-depth look at the essential stages of the content process and tactics to help you optimize them.
Knowing your target audience is definitely an integral step in content marketing. By knowing who you’re crafting your content for, you can easily create content that first perfectly with your target audience. thus increasing you chances of making a sale. However, it takes some extensive research on what your audience wants so you can give it to them in the form of contents.