Content marketing has become the favorite among Internet marketers. After many years of trying different approaches, marketers now recognize the importance of a unified content marketing strategy. To succeed in content marketing, you must develop a solid strategy and then carry it out effectively.
Content Marketing Machine
Marketo refers to their content marketing approach as a “Content Marketing Machine.” They have released an eBook named “How to Build and Operate a Content Marketing Machine.” If you are committed to content marketing, please download this free ebook and read it thoroughly.
Now as it’s clear in 2013 writing a blog post or sticking some articles online with backlinks to your website is no longer enough for managing your brand online. Marketers need to create content which is great, unique and that too in huge amounts on a regular basis.
Marketoand Kapost have done a wonderful job in preparing this ebook. Now have a look at this picture. Here they have identified the 7 steps from planning to measuring your results.
The steps identified in the picture above are as follows:
- Plan
- Team
- Ideas
- Production
- Audience Development
- Conversion
- Measure +Optimize
Now let’s discuss each of these steps in detail:
Plan: The first step like any other marketing strategy is planning. But in content marketing you need to plan taking into account various scenarios and buying personas. In their book Marketo has identified the core personas which they are targeting. In a similar way you must identify your target audience. If you are selling electronic cigarettes then most probably your target audience is the people who are trying to quit smoking or are looking for safer alternatives of tobacco smoking.
Marketo has discussed their target audience and buyer personas in the ebook. As a company selling marketing software their target audience is mainly senior level marketing employees who are decision makers at an organization. So identify your target audience, what are their needs. The old marketing wisdom of thinking like your customer works here also. Just put yourself into your customer’s shoes and plan accordingly.
Team: Very few things can be achieved if there is not a dedicated team or group of people to support your marketing efforts. With content marketing this is specially true. In order to implement a successful content marketing strategy you will need a dedicated team who can produce content, distribute it and measure results. There are very few organizations who can build and run a content marketing machine without external help. At some point of time you are going to need help of an outside agency or a freelancer. But even if you don’t need outside talent then also it’s important that the people in charge of your content marketing strategy are up to the task .
Irrespective of members of your team there must be a dedicated Managing Editor preferably from a background of publishing/journalism or copywriting who will function as head of your team and guide the content marketing efforts of your team. Managing editor will be responsible for editorial calendar, ensuring that their are no delays and the type of content produced and distributed. Every content marketing campaign is unique in itself but having a Managing Editor is necessary if your organization is serious about content marketing.
Ideas: The next step is looking for ideas. Now this is one of the most difficult stage . Many times people simply run out of ideas on what kind of content to produce. Writer’s block is a constant problem for marketers at this stage. Ideally you must have your content planned in advance for the next 6 months and your Idea Bank Reserves must also be sufficient for the next 6 months.
If you are also like other marketers than you will frequently find yourself running out of ideas to produce content. In order to find more ideas for creating content you must watch your competitors, identify needs of your customers. If you do these 2 things correctly you can come up with enough ideas for creating content.
In this post I’ve discussed 3 of the 7 steps . Please wait for my next blog post where I’ll discuss next 4 steps. Leave your comments below and share this article if you enjoyed it. You can also join our Mailing List if you want to receive our future blog posts in your inbox.