With so many businesses being online today, content plays a key role in driving customers to your website. It’s the means to which you get people to your site and build trust. This is especially important in a time when there is so much competition.
So, what is content marketing and how do you use it to get people to your site?
Blogs, video, social media posts and anything else that tells a story, informs, educates or entertains is content.
Why is content marketing important?
- It builds trust and credibility by showing you know what you are talking about.
- It enables people to engage and get to know you and your product before buying.
- Fresh content with well-placed keywords is more likely to get picked up by Google.
- It assists in driving more traffic to your website which can then be converted to sales.
It’s well and good to have good quality content but how do you deliver it so that it plays it’s part in adding value to your brand and entices customers to purchase? The best way is to have a content marketing plan.
A content marketing plan outlines your topic streams and what sort of content you will produce. It may be blogs, video, social posts, live streams etc. It also outlines how and where you are going to publish and promote them.
How do you go about creating a content marketing plan?
1. Firstly, determine what is the right content for your business. Conduct a review of your current content to see what performed well and what didn’t perform so well. Understanding the performance of current content will help with planning future content. Try to structure content around key activities in your business. If you are launching a new product or service, create content that supports that.
2. Once, you have determined what you will be communicating about, work out what you want your content to do. Your content marketing needs to have a goal. Do you want your content to build brand awareness, generate leads or increase sales? Once you determine the goal then you can create content that aims to achieve that goal.
3. Now you need to decide how you will present your content. Content is now so much more than written content. Videos, infographics, podcasts and live streams etc all have a place in the content marketing plan. You need to decide how best to get your message across and how effective that medium is in getting your audience to respond.
4. You have your content sorted; how often will you post? Will it be daily, weekly or monthly?
5. Promotion is a key part of your content marketing. It’s great to have content available but how will you let your audience know it’s there to view? Social media posts, email, forums etc are effective ways to promote your content. Keep in mind your promotion methods should be based on you ideal customers preferences for consuming content.
Creating a content marketing plan doesn’t need to be hard. It’s all about working out what content is best suited to your business and your ideal customer and how best to promote it.
If you would like help in developing a content marketing plan, contact Absolute Marketing Communications.