Your success in marketing your business online is closely tied in with the content you produce. The challenge is that it’s not always easy to come up with content at the drop of a hat, so it takes proper planning and having a content strategy.
Identify Your Purpose
All your content creation should have a purpose and that purpose should benefit your readers and your business.
Your purpose could include:
- Search engine traffic
- Word of mouth and viral effect
- Pre-selling and warming up the audience to a product
- Establishing credibility and authority
- Reader satisfaction
- Boosting your opt-in list subscribers
- Boosting customer relationships
- Selling your products
The important thing to remember is that the purpose of each piece of content must be aligned with your overall marketing strategy.
This may also help you decide on the format of your content. You may choose to deliver content in audio, video or text format.
For example, if your goal is to boost customer relationships, you might choose a video that shows you teaching or doing something that you’re teaching. Of course, Facebook Live now gives you an opportunity to do this quickly and without a significant amount of planning and preparation.
Make sure your content includes a call to action that supports your goal. For example, “For more information about how to build relationships, grab our free report Relationship Marketing: Key to Small Business Success” – tell your readers what you want them to do next. In my case, it’s, “Click on the link to download a copy of your Relationship Marketing Guide.”
Take Time For Research
Carving out time for research is very important. From brainstorming topic ideas to finding supporting information for those topics, there is plenty to do. While doing research, it would be a good idea to explore potential places to distribute your content.
Here are some things that will make your research easier:
- Keep a list of content ideas throughout the month.
- Use the following to generate content ideas/topics:
- Social networking
- Keyword research tools
- Blog comments
- FAQs
- Client interaction
- Brainstorming
- Review the analytics and results of last month’s content and evaluate which pieces generated the most interest or results. Know which pieces your audience responded to. Use that information to create content topic ideas for this month.
- While you’re researching topics, take note of interesting articles, statistics and other items you might reference later as you’re creating your content.
- Keep on the lookout for places where you might publish your content. Connect with other website owners who might publish for you. Connect with them by subscribing to their sites, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other relevant social media platforms.
The research that you do will consume a significant amount of time, but it’s time that’s vital to achieve the purpose for your content marketing.
Use the information above to act as a checklist so that as you identify your purpose and do research, they will provide results that are in alignment with the ultimate purpose for your business.
5 replies to "How to Identify Your Purpose with Content Marketing"
Great reminders her for when we are writing etc , yes I have learned now to put in a call to action , thanks Yvonne
Yvonne, This is great information and I really appreciate how you stressed the importance of research.
I’m not surprised the focus on research appeals to you, Kat, because this too is one of the things I enjoy about your articles. You spend time doing deep research and support your work with reference to these sources. It lends authenticity to your articles as I try to do with mine. Thank you.
I have been assessing the famous data as it relates to my passions. I find it interesting what draws people in is sometimes very different than what I expected. Of course, there are always those difficult topics that don’t have the immediate “view” or “comment” data available but do have the delayed impact when you message is just what they needed to hear. Excellent hints for development. Thank you!
Thank you for adding your value to the conversation, Raissa. I really enjoyed reading that you make assessments and adjustments as needed. You’re great example as you’re always striving to improve for your clients and customers. Your comment about the difference in what you think people need and what they really want are often at odds, and that is why we have to regularly poll our customers/audience or do surveys – just ask them – to find out what they want.