Obtaining traffic is the backbone of every business. Content marketing has been known to be a great way of obtaining that traffic. But what a lot of newbie marketers fail to realize is, content marketing by itself is not enough to build the kind of traffic you need in order to grow your online business. You need a content strategy to go along with your content marketing.
Before I drive into this subject, you should knows the difference between content marketing and content marketing strategy is.
Content Marketing is just what it sounds like…marketing through content. That content could come in the form of a podcast, emails, webinars, etc. To be more specific, the definition of content marketing is it’s a strategic approach focused on creating, publishing and distributing relevant, valuable content on a consistent basis…to attracts targeted audiences that propels them to a profitable action.
Content marketing Strategy on the other hand, is the road-map or blueprint that directs content marketing.
You have to understand that customers have evolved. Today they embrace experience based marketing. What that means is you have to make sure that they have a good experience through their purchasing process. That’s why todays marketers need a different model of engaging with customers throughout each step of their buying journey (that’s a topic for another post). It all starts with your content marketing strategy and here’s where your strategy should begin.
Identifying your Business Objectives
When you identify your business objectives, you find the purpose that drives you strategy.
Start out by jotting down your biggest challenges…is it…
Awareness in the marketplace.
Distinguishing your business from the competitors.
Are you really doing content marketing or are you just writing a bunch of content.
Ask yourself the questions.
Are you having trouble getting customers call-to-action?
Is any of your marketing working, if not find why.
Do you have a support system?
Answering these questions is the first step in creating your…
Mission Statement
Creating a mission statement lets you stay focused on why you’re in business and what’s the finale objective is. You should periodically check your mission statement to make sure you stay on course.
The first thing you want to do in creating your mission statement is to create an outline. Your outline should consist of things like…
Your Story: What’s your story? Why are you in business?
How Will it Express Itself: What’s the value experience to customers?
How Will You Sustain It?: How will you manage your company? Will it be responsible?
What is Success: What does success look like for your business?
How do You Enable It?: How are you going to build value?
Here are a number of other things you should ask yourself when creating your mission statement.
Who is the type of person you can help with your content?
How frequent will you create content?
What channels are you going to use to get your messages out?
Your mission statement should not be long…25 words or less should be sufficient. You just gather all the information you can come up with and make a brief statement that explains why you’re in business and the unique end results of your product or service. As an affiliate marketer you won’t have to worry about the uniqueness of the product or service…that’ll be your vendors job. But you do want your mission statement to give you clarify for strategic decision…and communicate what your business is.
With that being said, let’s move on to putting together the pieces of your content strategy. These pieces involve…
Company Focus
Customer Experience
Channel Promotion
Content creation
Check-Back Analysis
Company Focus: Company focus involves the why, where and how you strategize your business. You want to determine (through your mission statement), why you’re in business. You want that answer to come from the customers perspective…by creating value to others…the money will come as a result of this.
Then you want to focus on the where in your company. Where should you focus your efforts? Find your target audience will give you the answer to that question.
And finally, How do you plan on getting your message out there…blogs, YouTube, podcast, webinars, etc.
Customer Experience: You want your customers to have a pleasant experience through their whole buying journey. You accomplish that by creating valuable information they can learn from, having sites that are easy to navigate and being able to connect with them through multiple channels.
Content Creation: This is where you put the pencil to the paper so to speak. In this process you have to make sure you do the necessary work in order to put out the best most valuable content you can write. Again make sure helping your audience is your main priority when you write your message.
Check-back Analysis: This could be one of the most important part of your strategy. Your strategy should always be long-term as far as your customers are concerned. You want repeat customers…and you get that through your honesty, and integrity. Make sure the products or services you’re marketing are good. Don’t be in the mind-set of just trying to make money selling any old kind of product. As stated before you are a valuable asset to your cutomers, they’ll reward you with their loyalty by becoming repeat customers. Check on them from time to time to see if they’re satisfied. Show them that you care about their needs. You also want to keep check on how close you are at achieving your business goals…how close are you? What do you need to do to stay on course.
Summary
You now know what a content strategy is and the pieces that make up one. Always remember, that when you put together your strategy, keep your targeted audience in mind while you create it. Try to be selfless not selfish…and your business will go along way. The Bible says a closed fist can’t receive anything.
With that thought I’m going to leave you. Until next-time, may GOD bless your business journey and through these trying times.
The Affiliate Marketing Blog 