Content Marketing Needs a Strategy

Why Content Marketing

5 Statistics for Why Content Marketing Works

Today’s small business owner can jump in and use content marketing for business promotion leveling the playing field with much larger competitors. However, before launching your campaign your Content Marketing needs a strategy, goals and tools for measuring performance and ROI of your content marketing.

Content marketing is a process of publishing useful information online in the form of articles, blog posts, or social media updates with the goal of drawing in business.　 Web content marketing, done correctly can replace print and traditional advertising methods at a fraction of the cost.

Web content marketing is like starting conversations on topics you hope will intrigue would-be customers and keep them engaged until they buy.　As they come to know your interests, values, products and services, they will remember you as the go-to person for what it is you offer.

Web content marketing is a great tool for building relationships with people you may never meet in person.　 It is a way small business owners can reach out and connect with their targeted audience by publishing value-added content their targeted buyers are seeking.

If you are still unsure of whether using content to drive traffic and sales works consider these statistics from Hubspot:

The average company that blogs generate 55% more website visitors
The average company that blogs generates 97% more inbound links
The average company that blogs generates 434% more indexed pages
43% of marketers generated a customer from their blog
57% of customers that blog monthly generated a customer from their blog and 82% who blog daily have generated a customer from their blog
61% of customers have made a purchase based on a blog.
81% of consumers Trust information and advice from Blogs

Overwhelmingly, the statistics above provide an extremely compelling reason to start a content marketing campaign immediately.

When jumping into web content marketing, you can wing it and just start posting everywhere, or you can be more methodical.　 At first, you may be tempted to participate everywhere online you can, but be aware, it may become difficult to maintain too many sites.　To assist and help you have successful launch we’ve outlined some steps below.

Set Goals

Your plan may include the following:

What is the over-arching goal for investing in publishing content? Is it to drive more traffic to your site and build trust with visitors and increase sales or is there another purpose?
What will be the frequency for publishing content?
Do you have schedule for publishing content?
Do you have goals and metrics setup for measuring performance? Metrics should include hard data such as:

Plan Your Strategy

Define which social media platforms you’ll use.
Decide who will be in charge of maintaining your platforms and how often.
Develop unique ways to talk about your products or services without being pushy.
Set aside time for engagement in two-way conversation or for replies to comments.

Promote Your Content

Once you have a few boundaries set about where and how you’ll participate in web content marketing, start posting good content for internet users to find.　 You might choose standalone article sites where you can attach your biography, or you might want to create a blog.

Content marketing also includes what you talk about in social media conversations.　 On social media platforms, you can be both personable and professional and stay focused on growing your business.　 Making good progress is about being strategic in what you share.

Engage with Current Customers

A natural way to promote your business is to start conversations with existing clients on social media.　 Show how much you care about them by staying engaged in two-way conversations.　 Get to know what your followers are up to themselves. Respond to comments as appropriate.

Balance getting to know your audience with business promotions.　 Ongoing promoting can quickly look like spam.　 Your audience can detect when there is a target on their forehead which may quickly turn them off.　 If you’re going to post an update about something you’re selling, spread your messages out.　 Some say limiting sales messages to every few days is plenty.

Be aware that even veiled messages can become obnoxious.　 That is, when you and a few friends continuously promote each other, the strategy becomes fairly obvious.　 The best way to build rapport is to engage with your followers.　 It’s not about showing off how great you are; it’s about offering something of value to those you hope to serve.　 Sending personal messages, when appropriate, can help followers feel important.

Web content marketing is a fabulous way to grow your business.　 Try it out.　 Review it often.　 Be smart with what you post.　 Enjoy your marketing campaign, and publish meaningful, value added content that helps your targeted audience and you will be successful.

Web Content Marketing Needs a Strategy