First of all, what is content marketing? According to Forbes, content marketing is defined as "a strategy or marketing approach focused around creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action." This definition makes it seem like content marketing is easy. Write some great blog posts and you're good! The reality of this isn't quite that simple though. Content marketing takes a lot more than that.
There are 4 main elements to building an effective content marketing campaign:
1) Analyzing your Audience: Who exactly are you trying to reach? Are they male or female? Are they young or old? What kind of background do they have? What kind of things do they like to read about (sports/news/technology)? Do you already have an established following on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc.? These questions all need answering before you can start your campaign. I'd recommend starting with just Facebook for now if you're just starting out on social media. You don't want too much information too fast! It's better to start slow then expand later on when it comes time for the next step in the process: Researching Your Competitors: Analyze who your competition is and why their audience likes them so much. If there's one thing people hate more than anything else online it's being sold something by someone who obviously has no idea what their audience wants. The niche markets out there are very sensitive to this. If you're going to be a true competitor in the industry, you have to know what your audience wants. They all want something different, so it's your job as a marketer to figure out what that is and give it to them.
2) The Benefits of Your Product or Service: This is one of the most important things to keep in mind when deciding how to promote your product or service online. What problem can you solve for your audience? What do they want from a company? What kind of service do they expect from you? You should be able to answer these questions well before starting a content marketing campaign, but if not these facts will become clear soon enough once you start interacting with them on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Just remember: The customer comes first!
3) The Message You're Trying To Deliver: You don't just write whatever comes into your mind whenever people ask for advice about how much they should charge per hour when doing their taxes (and yes I've been asked this several times). There's always some kind of message behind everything we say when we post on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, even if we aren't aware of it at the time. You need to know what your message is and how it fits in with the rest of your content marketing campaign. If you can't say anything on social media without it coming across as a random advertisement, then you're doing something wrong!
4) Creating Quality Content: You can say all the right things and promote yourself all you want on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but if your content sucks people aren't going to read it. They'll get bored reading half of one paragraph before they click away from it or even worse, unfollow you. There's nothing more annoying than someone who only has 1 or 2 posts every few months that actually have some sort of point to them. This kind of person needs to learn how to create quality content if they want their audience to stick around. That's why we're here at College Info Geek: To teach people just like that!
Content marketing is a lot different than what most people think when they hear the term "marketing". In fact, I'd argue that most businesses don't do any kind of effective marketing at all when compared with their competition in similar niches (at least not without paying for Adwords). Most businesses are simply using public relations strategies instead of true marketing strategies when trying promote themselves online through various media sources such as Facebook and Twitter.
If you are just starting your first business I have a few tips for you. First of all, don't go into it alone. Chances are that if you're just starting out, you're probably not even close to being qualified enough to handle every aspect of the business by yourself. Find someone who knows what they're doing and try to recruit them as a partner or at least an associate in the company so they can help manage some of the things that aren't your forte. The last thing you want is to be stuck with everything on your shoulders by yourself!
Secondly, keep track of how much time and money you spend on different aspects of running a business. You'd be surprised at how much money people waste when trying out new marketing techniques online without knowing whether or not what they're doing will actually work! It's true that there's no better way to learn than through experience, but sometimes it's better not knowing until after the fact so we can look back and see what worked and what didn't instead of wasting thousands upon thousands trying different things over time when we could have been focusing more tightly on one specific task at a time instead (such as this one).
Thirdly, remember: Content marketing is only part of marketing! There are lots more parts that make up an effective marketing campaign such as public relations strategies (PR), influencer marketing/networking etc., but content marketing is definitely a good place to start once again in my opinion!
