Starting From Scratch: How To Begin a Content Marketing Campaign

You’re smart, you’re tech-savvy, and you want to take advantage of all of the proven advantages of a content marketing strategy. You’ve done yours research and you know how effective content marketing can be when it comes to increasing the profile of your brand, developing a relationships with your target audience, and translating a great idea into tangible sales. You see the value in connecting with your target audience, making them more engaged and informed consumers in the process. You understand that creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to your potential audience not only motivates them to positive action, but also makes you an authority is the subjects that are important to your brand.

Once you are armed with this important information, you may still find yourself wondering how to begin. What is the best starting point for an effective and engaging content marketing strategy?

The Key Elements of a Content Marketing Strategy

The first thing to consider when you are about to embark on a content marketing strategy is to re-examine the key elements of such a strategy. Each of these aspects is designed to attract, acquire and engage with members of your target audience, and ultimately to motivate them to take advantage of your products and services.

The basic (extremely basic) parts of a content marketing strategy are:

    • Content! The most basic element of content marketing is also the most important. You must be ready to create relevant and interesting content that your audience will want to read and will consider valuable. These pieces should be well-researched, engaging, and a pleasure to read. They should also give your audience the information you want them to have to better engage with you products and services as informed consumers.
    • A strong brand identity! Your mission statement, corporate values and brand identity will all be communicated in your content. Everything from the voice and tone of your content to the subjects of the content themselves should be relevant to your brand. Making sure your brand identity is clearly defined is key.
    • Social Connections! In order to reach your target audience, you must be able to effectively distribute your content. This means having a social media presence, and also making your brand easier to interact with right on your website in the form of online forums, discussion groups, and contact forms.
    • Search Engine Friendly (SEO) Content! Ultimately you want your content to be ranked high on Google, Bing and Yahoo. This allows your content to generate organic traffic (technically FREE traffic), make sure your content SEO friendly. You get an extra ‘bang for your bucks’, you also generate sales.

Once you have a handle on the key elements of a content marketing strategy, it is time to begin!

Major and Obvious Benefits of Content Marketing

  1. Search Engine Friendly (SEO) – Allows you to rank more and generate more traffic organically
  2. Becoming an Authority – Content marketing allows you to become an authority. People begun to trust and listen closely to each word you say. Leverage this to sell products/services.
  3. Relationship building – Easy way to develop relationships with bloggers. Relationships with bloggers allows your brand to be mentioned, link backs, increase SEO, and more traffic!
  4. Google Swings by More – Google will stop by your site more when it sees more content published on a higher frequency. Google swinging by allows you to rank quicker for new content.
  5. Voices – Content marketing allows you to have several different (or one) type of voice: Corporate voice, blog voice, fun/exciting voice… etc.
  6. Content isn’t just writing – Content includes images, videos, white papers, survey’s, infographics and much more.
  7. Tracked – Content marketing can easily be tracked compared to more traditional advertising methods.

How To Begin A Content Marketing Strategy

Devote a portion of your website to be regularly updated, well-researched and brilliantly-written content that will engage and inform your audience.

    • Make sure that you are prepared to update that content regularly. Weekly is fine to start; eventually, daily content should be the ideal you aim for. The most important thing, however, is always to make sure that you are putting up high-quality, on-brand content that is useful to your audience.
    • Get active on social media. Distribute your content on all the social media platforms your have accounts with. Post links to discussion boards, link aggregators and other online comunities, to expand your target audience and attract new readers.
    • Engage with your audience. When you receive comments, critiques and other feedback from your readers, write back! Your audience will respond more positively if you foster the relationship as a two-way form of communication.
    • Be dynamic. Take feedback from your readers and adapt accordingly. Keep an eye on relevant news and current trends, and incorporate them into your content whenever you can. You want to develop your brand’s reputation as an expert, but also as an engaged source that listens and responds to their potential clients.
    • Take risks. When a new social media platforms takes off, make an account. When a new trend starts to take off, investigate it. Not every new lead is going to be successful, but jumping on the right thing early can be great for growing your brand.
    • Stay true to your brand identity. Make sure that all your content stays on message and communicates the values, voice and ideas that serve your products and services. Remember that content marketing is as much about developing your brand’s online personality as it is making sales, and make sure that your brand’s personality is exactly what you want to convey.

Make Content Marketing Work for You

Content marketing presents an incredible opportunity for you to engage, educate and form relationships with a cultivated and carefully chosen target audience. It is your opportunity not only to develop a strong web presence, but also build your brand’s voice, personality and identity. It is your chance to establish your company as an authority on the subjects that matter most to your brand and your audience. Take advantage of all content marketing has to offer and get started today!

 

Matthew Goulart


|5 minutes read

Matthew Goulart is the founder of Ignite Digital, a Canadian digital marketing agency. Through Ignite Digital, Goulart works with Fortune 500 companies and advertising agencies from around the world and has helped launch profitable and highly successful digital marketing initiatives for his clients.