Peter Drucker’s quote, “Have them at some point discover that they need our product or service” articulates the concept behind a well thought out content marketing strategy. You, as a company, release fresh content to your audience—and hope that it’s content your audience will value, plus help them discover why they need your product or service.
Sounds rather simple, doesn’t it? But, in fact, the creativity, strategic planning and consistency necessary to accomplish this goal can be quite involved because it requires a shift from pitching your products to delivering information that will make your buyer more intelligent. In addition, it requires a shift from thinking about individual campaigns, blogs and social media to how to tell your larger story with different spins and themes.
Here we discuss how to look at your company’s content with fresh eyes and, if you do, what rewards you can expect. Plus, we offer simple steps that you can take to ensure your website is ready for the onslaught of new interest and exposure that a content marketing strategy can generate.
View Content Differently
The internet allows every company now to communicate directly with its customers without the need for an intermediary required in years past. Both B2B and B2C companies are taking advantage of the opportunity to better engage with their customers and separate themselves from their competition by sharing who they are, their company’s big ideas, perspectives and passions with the creation, packaging and release of well-timed content.
And it isn’t just any content, but content that is more relevant to their customers. Content that engages; answers their questions; supports their primary goals as well as address their key decision-making process.
If your company follows suit, the rewards can support all aspects of your business. From a brand standpoint, it lets you unify your company’s value propositions and give your brand a voice. It fuels fresh new content making search engines happy and gives traction for your primary targeted keywords. From a marketing standpoint, it allows you to draw out a story over time in a more compelling way and doesn’t compete with existing social efforts—only makes them better by infusing them with interesting content. And, most importantly, it can help your company become a thought-leader in your niche and attain greater respect with online influencers because you have more to offer.
Ready Your Website
Begin by identifying gaps in your website’s content based on satisfying the goals of your customer segments. Then brainstorm content ideas that can fill in the holes and satisfy SEO goals. Next, determine which content types will serve each idea best from blogposts, infographics, videos, web content, press releases to white papers. After this develop an editorial calendar that will synchronize the release of your new content via your preferred social and traditional channels—all the while making sure your audience can easily digest it through the channel of their choice.
And it’s important to not stop there with your content marketing strategy. To get higher lift for your content, you’ll want to begin sharing it. Start by identifying online influencers and sharing theirs and your content. Author of Brandscaping, Andrew Davis, suggests for every six pieces of content shared by a company four should be pieces of content from their influencer target that is also relevant to their audience; one should be original, educational; and one should be sales-related.
Smart Solutions, www.smartz.com,
541.388.4398,
Susan Sano Berado, susan@smartz.com
