How Do I Start a Content Marketing Campaign?
In today’s fast-paced marketing world, many business owners and leaders understand that a content marketing campaign can be vital to their overall strategy. However, the process of starting one can be a bit intimidating. For this reason, we have provided a detailed guide to elements that any business owner will likely want to consider before launching a content marketing campaign.
First and foremost, it’s vital to understand that content marketing provides a strategy for delivering useful, relevant, and regular content to an audience. In many instances, it should provide answers to questions or problems experienced by members of your business’s customer base. Unlike traditional marketing, where the customer directly accesses information about a product or service, content marketing engages customers and potential customers by offering new information, helpful resources, solutions to problems, or entertainment. This indirect exposure can help your brand build trust with new and existing customers by establishing itself as a source of industry knowledge.
The steps to starting a content marketing campaign include:
- Identify the distribution channels you would like to use. There are many ways to reach modern audiences. Based on data you have about your customers’ preferences, you can often identify the channels that may be most effective. Options may include SEO, social media, direct email, blogs, and podcasts. Multiple methods often help you reach more individuals, and you can mix and match strategies based on how your customers prefer to interact with your company.
- Define the goals and timelines. These details begin to fill in the blanks regarding how you will accomplish what you want with your content marketing. As any business leader knows, it often doesn’t get done if you don’t put a deadline on it. Therefore, establishing a primary goal, adding milestones, and assigning deadlines are essential in developing your overall content marketing campaign.
- Collect project details. Marketing professionals need to know many details about how you want to move forward with a content marketing campaign. Some of the key considerations you will want to flesh out beforehand include:
- Identify the content with which you want assistance: Content comes in many forms, but most companies generally publish content heavily related to the products and services offered. But how they do that may differ. You can identify whether you want to focus on web content/SEO, social media content, blog posts, newsletters, sales, or other content. This serves as a starting point for your content marketing campaign. This step is critical because an effective blog post often looks very different from an effective social media post. Understanding how to develop content that works well on different platforms is a good way to ensure success with any content.
- Identify the aspects of content marketing you would like assistance with: Effective content marketing includes many steps, such as defining the goals of your content, identifying an audience, creating an editorial calendar, and working through challenges presented by different distribution channels. You may need help with these actions or only some of them. Either way, it’s a good idea to spend some time identifying where exactly you need assistance.
- Identify content promotion strategies: Developing and publishing content is only half the battle when creating a content marketing campaign. But you still need to draw traffic to your site and its content. There are multiple ways to accomplish this, from promoting it on social media, paying for promotion or advertising, and incorporating it into an overall channel distribution strategy.
- Determine how you would like to work with a content marketer: In any new business relationship, you have some negotiation before settling into a routine. And in today’s world, there are many options, from virtual meetings to email communication to in-person discussions. Identifying your preferences can make it easier to open the channels of communication with the marketer so that you can start working on an effective strategy quickly.
- Identify any additional details about your content marketing strategy: Even though this list represents many elements you should consider when developing a content marketing campaign, it may not address everything. For example, your business or the content you would like to include may have unique characteristics that are crucial to know before developing any content. Sharing this information up front will help you get the desired results faster.
Creating a content marketing campaign can quickly become complex. And many business owners and leaders don’t know where to start. However, working with professional staff experienced in developing effective content marketing materials can make this process much easier.
eGlobal Web Solutions specializes in marketing your business via the digital marketplace. We use search engine optimization, social and review promotion, and Email marketing for all types of businesses, from local to global. We utilize various digital marketing techniques to increase your internet presence, optimize your traffic and generate new business.