Content Marketing That Sticks – If You Build It, Will They Come?

 

 

The real crux of a great content marketing strategy is two-fold: efficient and effective distribution of your content while being able to drive your target prospects through a designated sales funnel to reach the end goal of having said prospects do more business with your organization, producing measurable ROI from your strategy and earning the marketing department a pat on the back for all of the time and money well spent.

 

 

No big deal.

 

I’ve seen organizations that have had issues on both sides of the equation. There are those that have had excellent content and a solid distribution strategy but lacked a clear and measurable goal for the content itself. In short: they had no sales funnel. In this case, all of the time and money being spent on developing content was doing nothing to further the organization.

 

There are also those that have had a clear goal of what they wanted to achieve with their content strategy and how to turn prospects into leads into more sales. The only problem was, their content was lackluster and their distribution missed the mark on being able to effectively target an audience. In other words: what’s the point? In this scenario, you might as well stop spending time on content and go back to mass media advertising.

 

 

1.     Start small. Understand who your target market is, what content will be targeted to them and develop personas accordingly. Two to three will do the trick. Define distribution solutions that meet the needs of the audience and content.

2.     Define your goals. A sure-fire way to make sure your strategy won’t live long is to implement content marketing with reckless abandon. Understand what realistic goals are and how they will generate positive ROI for your organization.

3.     Design your sales funnel. When your audience reaches the intended point in your strategy in which they are ready to convert into a sale, make sure your process has a way for them to convert. Sound simple enough? You’d be surprised. Too often content marketing gets people to the gate without a way to actually get them to the promised land of becoming a sale.

4.     Make your content sing. The biggest catch to a great content marketing strategy and introducing your market to your sales funnel is – surprise! – sourcing and generating great content. Asking yourself “Would someone read and/or share this? Is it going to unlock a piece of advice or answer one of life’s great questions?” is a good start.

 

If this all sounds like there are a lot of moving parts to manage, you are correct. There are. The upshot is that a well-executed content marketing strategy will not only prove its value in ROI but also provide excellent added value to your brand.