Content marketing takes strategy, but it can be difficult to articulate. We often look back to experience or bounce around ideas in groups to discover the best way to go about our actions.
Here are six areas you don’t want your content or content strategy to lack in. Instead of thinking about content marketing directly, let’s consider what you want to avoid. You want to avoid content that lacks…
Alignment
Your business should have a clear definition of what it provides and what it accomplishes. Your content should come to life to make those objectives come to pass.
Each blog post, tweet, video, programming and other forms of outreach should align with your business message, whether in the short-term or long-term. Otherwise, your content will do little more than take up space and waste your audience’s time.
Persona
It’s crucial to know your audience as much as possible. Remember that content marketing profits but is no hard sell. It aims to engage and interact with the consumer, and that means you should know your consumer through personas.
Personas are representations of your key audience or audiences, their motivation to use your content and how the content benefits them. Good personas are dependable because they are created through both qualitative and quantitative data, which includes user research and analytical tools.
Personas are also authentic. They describe real people who lead real lives and have real expectations. This is why personas are so important. They prepare you to plan to engage audiences from the ground up.
Diversity
Content that lacks diversity lacks growth, but it only works when you keep alignment in mind. If you own a photography company and want to outreach through Instagram, that makes sense because the correlation is there. The benefits may not be as obvious with Facebook, but you don’t know unless you research.
There should also be an exclusive personality attached to your content. Your audience should trust you and the competence of your business. This is about presentation, and diverse content aids this effort because of potential for a wider audience.
Metrics
It cannot be stressed enough that you need to invest in content that is measurable. All content has a purpose, so define what success and room for improvement look like.
Clear expectations may provide a foundation for critical thinking. If you can think outside the box, it provides an area to go beyond previous successes and discover challenges that are unobvious, as well as creates a more rewarding experience.
Documentation
Documentation is key as much as content is king. An excellent way to assure your content aligns with your purpose is to write it down. It’s as simple as pen and paper or a keyboard. This way, you can more easily compare and contrast ideas with what you were confident enough to write down, revise, recall and articulate.
Documentation also means scheduling. When you have a calendar, it’s easier to manage time and effort for productivity. A schedule also provides solid visual for stakeholders such as interns, staff and stockholders. Accountability becomes transparent and examinable.
Action
Action-oriented content beats passive content. Your content should invite participation when possible. This may mean inviting ways to further knowledge or more direct action, but your audience should take away something from your content, not just be on their merry way.
Action-oriented content engages an audience, which is the purpose of content marketing. Make sure your content doesn’t lack in any of these discussed areas to improve your strategy.
Sources:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241496
http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/7-biggest-content-marketing-mistakes-and-how-to-avoid-them-01239974