8 easy steps to maximize your content marketing efforts
Before you start, start thinking about what skills (from strategy to operational) you need for your content and who ultimately is accountable for content it in your organization. Think about what can I do myself, where do I require training to uplift skills in my team or where do I need skills from outside the organization like an agency through fractional leadership to make it happen.
- Focus in your content marketing and clearly connect it to business goals
Connect your content to your business strategy and goals. It is critical to have c-level buy-in and budget aligned to this and the stakeholders understand the value and expected return. Think getting new market share, increasing your CLV or becoming the top-3 brand in a market segment.
- Get to know your prioritized buyer persona
Get to know your buyers, what are their goals, needs, wants. Who are involved in the buying process, where do they see value for information or content. How can this best be connected to your offering, value proposition and purpose.
- What do buyers want from my content?
How will the content be helping your buyers. If you want to add value this is absolutely critical.
- Who do I need to create this content?
People like to hear and tell stories. Involve key stakeholders like subject matter expert who have customer contact and a good market understanding. Get copywriters and designers in play and role-out content production processes to scale fast and smooth.
- Where do I bring my content to market?
Understand on which channels and platforms your buyers are and then make sure your content is there.
- How do I reuse content for different channels?
Leverage formats that can be broken down into several content pieces that can be distributed on the channels your buyers are active (ebook, LinkedIn post, blog etc.). Work smart, not hard.
- How do I measure and get feedback on my content to improve it
Think about setting up feedback-loops for your content for buyers and sellers. In this way you can improve it or get new ideas in from the market where it is happening. Make the process easy and smooth and make sure communicate what you do with the feedback.
- How do I rapidly respond to jump on the wave of news
Be on top of news in your industry or major shifts in the world. A new sub-category or spin-off of the news could arise and you will build up visibility at the journalist. When you have less groundbraking news (e.g. a new customer press release), you have a higher potential of getting traction from it at those journalists.