Content Marketing Best Practices

1. Get stakeholder support. No marketing effort is a short-term project. It requires a long-term commitment that consists of continual review, refinement and engagement.Therefore, it is critical for C-Suite executives to recognize the importance and impact of a content-marketing strategy. Focus on enterprise pain points and demonstrate how content marketing can deliver better results.

2. Get to know your audience. Content marketing isn’t about selling. Instead, it focuses on providing valuable, meaningful and memorable information to your target markets. Therefore, to achieve success, you’ll need to understand what makes your audience tick. Develop customer personas, map out their road to making a purchase, study web-usage patterns and conduct surveys to uncover their true needs.

3. Create the content that your customers want. Many companies make the mistake of developing marketing messages that are important to the company, not the customer. Instead, create customer-centric messaging that helps clients and prospects solve important issues and connect with your company on a meaningful level. Then use each piece of content in several different ways. Convert a published article into a blog, webinar or conference presentation. Break up a white paper into several blog or social media posts.

4. Develop a content calendar. Every good program starts with a carefully planned calendar. Keep it simple. The more complex the system, the less likely you will be to use it. Share the calendar with your team and review it frequently. Don’t be afraid to make changes as priorities shift.

5. Adjust the value placed on ROI. It’s the elephant in the room for marketers. It is difficult to measure the value of brand awareness and the cumulative impact of a long-range campaign. Forward-thinking companies recognize that the true measure of ROI is more than a numbers game.

Building the Bridge