How to use the magic of content marketing in your business? You've already heard about the virtues of content strategy, content marketing, social media marketing, web marketing to develop your business across the Web. Among all the digital strategies, Content Marketing is nowadays a must for many international brands. It allows you to boost both your visibility on the web and the loyalty of your customers. A content marketing strategy to help you achieve more sales "naturally" and without paying advertising. But how does it work? And above all how to apply it in your business? Here are the 7 steps to follow to use content marketing in your business.
What is content marketing?
This strategy consists in developing your brand image through content published online. It's a form of free marketing, since you don't have to pay for advertising to be visible.
Unlike advertising marketing, content marketing aims to create and strengthen a bond of trust with Internet users. And this bond of trust is the BASE of the purchase decision. So you have to nurture it constantly...and above all, you have to know how to do it as easily as possible.
Why is the content marketing strategy important for your business? Because without this strategy, you will exhaust yourself producing content that will not have the results you hope for!
Content marketing allows you to differentiate yourself from your competitors. But most importantly, it allows you to naturally attract more of your ideal customers to your business (via your website ideally). Without you having to pay or search for your leads.
But for this to work, you need to:
Design and deliver quality content that is unique and relevant to your target audience.
Define your content pillars, your content themes, the topics or issues you will address
Identify the way you will communicate: style, tone, visual universe…
Choose the different content formats and communication channels you will use
Define your ideal publishing schedule to know when, how and where your content will be published.
Using content marketing in your business means following a plan defined in advance, and being able to create your content more efficiently and (especially) serenely with measurable objectives. The goal is to combine the Batching method and a content strategy adapted to you and your company.
This requires reflection, tools and an effective method to keep it fluid for your organization as a business owner (!)
The 7 steps to build your brand with content marketing
Here are the 7 steps to follow to define a good content strategy for your business:
1. Define your personas
A persona is the representation of your ideal customer, your target audience. Knowing your personas allows you to better develop your content. Indeed, if you know what their interests are, their habits, their challenges and their buying paths, you will create content that will speak directly to them.
2. Establish your editorial line
The editorial line aims to promote the values and vision of your company. It is all the rules that allow you to guarantee harmony between the different content you publish. It is the overarching themes that run through your content strategy: you define your brand image and affirm your personality through your content production. Choose your writing style, express your values, your mission and your key messages.
3. Target SEO themes for your referencing
Your content must be focused on relevant themes that will allow you to move up in your target audience's searches on the Web (Google / Social Media search engines). To do this, you need to know which keywords they use and which themes are "trending" in order to bring them your added value. For that, you can use various tools like Google Analytics, Google Trends, Keywords Everywhere…
4. Vary your content formats and communication channels
Blog posts, emailing, YouTube videos, infographics, Instagram Real, Educational Carousel on Facebook, Pinterest pins... all are formats to exploit! Varying the formats and communication channels allows you to engage them more and attract new leads. Some types of content are more suitable for your targets and are more easily shared than others.
5. Plan your content to stay regular
For the algorithms but also for your audience, your content strategy will only be effective if you publish regularly. Blog, newsletter, social networks... there are days, but also times, when your content is more likely to be visible. Go to your Analytics/ insights/ statistics of your site or Social accounts to know when to publish.
6. Convert your readers
Your content must engage your audience and encourage them to learn more / buy from you in order to turn them into customers! To do this, you need to provide specific content for conversion such as: customized offers, a lead magnet (freebie to download), clear call-to-actions to registration or sales pages...
7. Test, analyze and repeat
To know if your content is effective, track your marketing performance once a month (at least). Compare the analytics data with your objectives and analyze the types of content that worked well or not. These indicators should guide and redefine, if necessary, your content strategy.
As you can see, effective content marketing for your business is not the result of chance: it is the result of an elaborate and carefully thought-out strategy that develops over the long term. These 7 steps will allow you to define your content strategy and develop it over the long term.
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