Essential content marketing tips 2021
Rajendra Zadpe
Content Marketing offers a tremendous opportunity for businesses to boost their results. By delivering valuable and relevant content to users, you can improve your online reputation, build a community and grow advocates of your brand.
However, Content Marketing is not just creating and distributing content. It is an entire strategic approach that allows you to attract and engage a clearly defined audience and, ultimately, generate profitable customer action.
The most important thing to remember is that it’s your job to be useful. There’s no point in creating any content if your audience doesn’t get any value from it. As a marketer, you always need to be on top of trends and adjust to the ever-changing marketing landscape. One part of marketing that has been consistent over the last several years, but has changed quite a bit in strategy, is blogging/ content creation. Blogging is a critical element for any business. But the question we always receive is, "why does my business need a blog?" It doesn’t matter what kind of company you run, whether it is an online entrepreneurship or a local business, you should still have a blog.
By following the guide below, you will have the in-depth information needed to develop a great Content Marketing strategy for your business.
An effective Content Marketing strategy must have four core elements to be successful: brand positioning, owned media value proposition, business case, and strategic plan. Let’s see why these elements are essential for Content Marketing and how you can start implementing each of them.
- Positioning Your Brand
A clearly defined brand and product positioning will help you to provide a consistent experience for your audience and to build the right image of your brand through all your Content Marketing channels.
The following questions will help you start brainstorming about your position in the market:
- Who are my existing and potential customers?
- What kind of experience are they looking for?
- What is the competitive landscape?
- How do my top competitors market their brands?
- What is my brand’s unique value?
- What problems does my product help to solve?
- What makes it a better choice over my competitors?
- How can I highlight my brand’s personality?
- Owned Media Value Proposition
To establish your brand as a credible content publisher, you need to define your owned media value proposition. What unique value do you provide to your audience with your content? How do you stand out from other content creators? Why should readers choose to follow your content channels?
Start researching your audience to identify the type of information they are looking for and their favorite resources. Then, analyze your competitors’ content strategies to find your editorial niche.
Too often, brands are focusing on their market rivals and don’t pay enough attention to other content creators. Once you decide to develop owned media, you should consider all publishers in your area of expertise as potential competitors. So, make sure that unbranded media, like online magazines, industry blogs or influencers’ video channels, are a part of your competitive research.
- Business Case
Providing value to your audience is an integral part of a successful content strategy. But in addition to attracting new readers and followers, Content Marketing should drive your business forward.
Identify business goals that your company needs to achieve and figure out how Content Marketing will bring your business closer to those goals. How many resources do you need to invest in your content strategy and what results do you want to get from this?
A documented business case will help you better understand the benefits, costs, and risks of implementing a Content Marketing strategy in your company and convince decision makers of its value for the company.
- Strategic Plan
A strategic plan should focus on your goals and how exactly you will achieve them. It will help you to think through each step of your content strategy. This plan should help you decide who you want to reach with your Content Marketing efforts, how you will deliver that content to them and, finally, how you will achieve and measure your targeted results.
Now let’s see how you can develop a perfect content strategy plan with some useful tips and tools that will help you to be more efficient.
In Conclusion
While the methods used to deliver content to prospects are continually changing, the core principles remain the same — develop a top-notch Content Marketing strategy based on trustworthy data.
As you progress in your Content Marketing efforts, you will find that SEMrush offers tools and blog posts to make a data-driven approach to Content Marketing easier.