Getting started in content marketing isn’t particularly difficult. But getting started in a way that is actually productive can be difficult.
A content marketing campaign that is built poorly will quickly stagnate, providing no meaningful benefit, and will probably actually cost you money once you take into account the cost of producing content.
If you are thinking about starting a content marketing campaign, the following content marketing tips will help you get started.
1. Focus on the Content
Content marketing differs from traditional marketing, because the focus of content marketing is providing information that your readers want to learn.
Actual sales are a byproduct of customer loyalty, rather than a direct result of the marketing. This means you want to produce content that is colorful, unique, interesting, and helpful, in order to create reader loyalty.
2. Goal Oriented Content
One of the most important content marketing tips is define your goals before starting your content marketing campaign. You can do this by developing a mission statement or creating a list of goals.
Whichever approach you take, you want these goals to always be on the mind of your marketing team when creating content. A good trick here is to print the goals on a poster or write them on a large whiteboard so they are always visible.
3. Create and Follow a Plan
Much like traditional marketing, content marketing works best when you create a long term plan. This is particularly effective for content marketing because your goal is to create loyalty through valuable content.
With a long term plan, your content will directly reference older content and future content. This makes readers more likely to explore your website or subscribe to your content.
4. Understand Your Audience and Your Topic
Content marketing is only successful if your content actually adds meaningfully to the topic your audience is interested in. You can write all day about vintage cars, but if your tips for inspecting a vintage car are effectively the same as everyone else’s tips, your content isn’t useful.
Before you get started with content marketing, you have to understand what your audience is looking for and what others are saying on the topic.
A keyword tool like Google AdWords can help determine what your audience wants to read and simply studying your topic will let you know what others are saying about it.
5. Pick Your Platforms Carefully
Not all social platforms are made equal. Some social platforms will help your business grow, while others will actually cost you money. Choosing between platforms like Twitter or Facebook is primarily a decision based on audience.
You need to use the platform that your audience primarily uses, rather than trying to convince your audience to come to your platform of choice. The simple takeaway here is be familiar and comfortable with all social platforms, but only use the ones that are effective.
