You are blogging and creating content, but you feel that nothing is working the way you want. Your sales aren’t increasing, your newsletter isn’t getting new subscribers, and it seems like you’re wasting time.
If that’s the case with your content marketing, take heart that you can pick up from where you are and start over at any time.
Determine your why
When you are creating any piece of content, do you know what its purpose is? Every content choice must have a reason to be successful. Is the content there to inform your audience about a problem? Is the goal of the content to get more subscribers? Perhaps the point is to sell a new product or service? If you don’t know what the point is, it will be hard to get someone to take action.
Understand your audience
When you produce any content, it’s imperative that you know who you’re creating it for. Try to develop buyer personas and write content for the “customer of one” rather than for a nameless person you don’t know. This can help you develop highly personalized content that gets results.
Know your niche
You may think you know your area of expertise, but the fact is that a niche can change quite a bit over time as technology improves. Stay current in your industry so you’re ready for changes and trends that may unfold.
follow your competition
The best way to differentiate your content marketing from your competition is to watch what they are doing. Join your competition’s lists and look at the content they are submitting. Can you determine if it is working well for them or not? Can you decide how to do it a little better?
Know the buying process
There’s an established buying process that your audience will participate in, even if they don’t realize it, and it’s important to realize where people are in the buying process. Usually it works something like this:
- Awareness
- information search
- Assessment
- Decision
- purchase
Also, after the purchase, your customer will re-evaluate whether or not they should buy from you again.
refine your strategy
If you don’t have a strategy, or feel like what you’re doing isn’t working, take the time to work on refining your strategy so it works better. Base this on the information you have collected about your customers, the niche, your products and/or services, as well as the buying process.
Promote the content you create
Content can’t just be created and that’s the end of it. Use promotion strategies like on and off-page SEO, social sharing, and other means to promote content to get seen.
Create compelling content
Nobody wants to consume boring content. Make sure the content matches the needs of your audience, speaks to them on their terms, and provides value itself to your audience.
Ultimately, content marketing is about the long term. Results are not going to happen overnight. Continue to produce consistent, relevant, high-quality content that is purposeful and provides value, and you’ll see the results you want.