Back to blog
If you're serious about getting more prospects to your website, then you've probably heard the buzz around Content Marketing (also referred to as Inbound Marketing).
The hype is well deserved. Growing great content on your site and social channels can increase your rankings, give you instant credibility and generate leads for your business.
It is a big commitment! We suggest you blog at least three times per week (at least!). And you also need to be organised and work out a strategy for your blog.
Here are a few things to think about:
What are your goals for your blog?
We always recommend going back to the beginning. What are your business objectives for the next year or two? Are you looking to increase sales? In any specific areas (location, demographics, new products, etc)? Are you looking to increase your profile? Are you rebranding? Then what are the specific marketing objectives you are planning to use to enable your business objectives?
Your target market
Which digital channels are you going to use to access your target market? Come to think of it... who is your target market? Make sure you get a very clear understanding of who you're trying to reach and what problems they want solved.
If you're not sure on this, I suggest you ask them. That's right, implement a really short survey to gather some key demographic and needs data. Whether it's a couple of questions at the point of sale, a phone call, a facebook survey, a Survey Monkey survey, the fact is that your target audience know themselves better than you do. So why not ask them?
What am I supposed to write about?
Given you now know who you're selling to, and you know what problems they want solved, you need to start writing about those problems - escalate the need. Write some content around how you can solve these problems - how you have solved them, give examples.
Your content is really a digital expression of your existing sales and marketing messages.
But please remember there is some poor person (hopefully) on the other end of your blog article who has to read it. And they will absolutely not read it if it's not interesting, to the point and useful to them.
Try to inject your personality into your writing, and it also pays to have an opinion.
Be efficient
I've attached a Content Planning Template to help you get started.
Start with thinking about any events you have coming up. Do you have any sales, breakfast briefings, launching new products. Make a note of when these are happening in the first Worksheet and then start blogging in the lead up to that event. Six weeks is generally a good lead up, for large events, six months might be more appropriate :-)
I find filling in this spreadsheet with events and content you already have takes a lot of pressure off my clients. It's also good to repost/repurpose content on a semi regular basis. Also talk to others about potentially guest blogging, or get other staff members to contribute.
Over to you
Content Marketing results come from a long term, steady approach. Block out a couple of hours regularly every couple of weeks, and knock out as much content as you can. It's important to make it part of your routine.
Once you start to build up a blog following, start thinking about building your own database of followers and delve into email marketing!