Be Content With Your Content Marketing Plan
When you’re pumping out content on a regular basis, you may go through moments of questioning if your content is on track. To give your audience reasons to rely on your content, judge it from the perspective of these four content pillars.
Does your content educate?
Answer what your audience is asking about your product / service.
With your experience in your industry, you may have noticed certain practices that aren’t great or systems that could improve efficiency, share this with your audience.
People love stories and they want to hear yours. Talk about your learning curve in your field, it makes you appear more human and less like a stranger on the internet.
Does your content entertain?
Who doesn’t love a good meme? Meme marketing is here for the long run. However, be mindful of how the meme may age over the years.
Create interaction. Your audience wants to talk to you and not a bot. If time permits, ask your audience to send you any questions they may have, or share their experiences on a particular subject.
If memes and GIFS don’t fit into the tone of your business, create a giveaway. Readers will share the content with their friends whom they think may like your business. This increases interaction with your content.
Does your content inspire?
Don’t be afraid to get vulnerable. Talk about who you are, and why you do what you do.
Show your audience how your company is growing. Talk about the milestones, the team count, the collaborations you’re undertaking. They’ll be cheering you on, as well.
Tell your audience where you derive your strength and inspiration from. Introduce them to the podcasts you follow, books you read, and habits you’re trying to develop.
Does your content promote your brand?
Be shameless about your intent. Your content exists to educate, entertain, inspire AND bring in business. As much you get personal in your content, also point it to your business.
Start an email list so your audience can get periodic updates about where you and your business are headed / or tips on a specific topic. (Have you signed up to my email list yet? See what I did there?)
Share content from your users on your business social media. Users like when you’ve noticed that their posts relate to your business or industry.
After investing effort in crafting content, it’s a shame to let it exist in just one format. As the content creator at the back end, repurposing content can feel a lot like being a repetitive parrot, saying the same words over and over and over. But that’s not what it looks like to your audience. They’re finding you through one of the four platforms that you post on.
Optimize your content by repurposing it. Always start with the format that will have the maximum word count, like a blog post. Then convert it into content with the second-highest word count, maybe a newsletter. Now, move onto social media. Because of the character counts, choose text and images that are relevant (remember most often, your reader will be scrolling through, and not specifically looking for your posts). You can also link your social media posts to the original blog post (Bitly helps cut down those long URLs). Content repurposing holds you back from creative burnout, since it ensures longevity until the next round of muses inspire you.
Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing is great for your brand awareness, but how does it add value to your reader? With so much information out there, why should the reader depend on your content? The reader could have landed up in any corner of the internet, but they’re reading your content. So make it worth their time.
Make your content findable
Implement SEO best practices like H1 headings and metadata. (Here’s a guide to help you understand SEO basics! It’s an affiliate link so I get a commission with no extra cost to you). Learn more about on-page and off-page SEO.
Make your content readable
Don’t get too carried away with sprinkling SEO techniques into your content to the point where it sounds unnatural. Follow a branding style guide to keep your tone consistent.
Make your content understandable
Being an expert on a particular item, it’s tempting to just want to dive in. But think of the reader as being completely unfamiliar with your brand before reading your content so spell out the basics and then dive into the layers.
Make your content actionable
Turn your reader into an interactor. Have a call to action that leads to business generation or them reaching out to you.
Make your content shareable
If your reader isn’t making use of your services, they may know someone who will. Give them an incentive to share your content.
Would you like more clarity on content marketing and brand strategy? Book a 1:1 strategy call with me.
