How to add method to the content marketing madness

There is so much talk about content marketing on the Internet that it has become a panacea for all Internet marketing and search engine optimization problems. Interestingly, the hype is not misplaced. Content marketing is actually powerful. Still, it works for a selected few. Why?

People often forget that you need to have a marketing bent of mind in order to be a successful marketer. What makes you a successful marketer?

1. You understand the inherent strength of the product or service
2. You understand the inherent desires and problems of your target audience
3. You create a compelling message (or get it created by someone who can) that can convince people that the product or service you are trying to market can actually solve their problems
4. Use the most appropriate channels to spread your message
5. Analyze people’s reactions
6. Tweak the message and reconsider the broadcasting channels based on the conclusions you draw out of the analysis
7. Repeat steps 3-6 until you feel that you have optimized your marketing strategy

Sounds simple, right? Businesses are ready to pay millions of dollars to individuals who can carry out these activities. So no, it is not as simple as it sounds.

What I’m getting at?

What does it have to do with adding method to the content marketing madness?

The problem with content marketing is everybody who can write and publish blog posts and social media updates (mostly on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) starts calling himself or herself a “content marketer”. An ability to write content is a different thing and marketing content is a totally different thing. Since many people think that, since they can write, they can also market, they start providing content marketing services, and this is where madness manifests. There are hundreds of thousands of content marketing companies on the Internet adding little value.

I have been providing content writing services for almost a decade now and even till now I don’t market my services as content marketing services although I offer it truncated version of these services because of the experience that I have gained over the years.

Anyway, how do you add method to the content marketing madness, within your organization, and while you’re hiring someone who seems to know his or her job? Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Find out what sort of content your target market prefers – text, videos, images, slideshows, ebooks, case studies, PDFs, social media updates or a mix of different formats
• Carry out an audit of your existing content – You must have some content on your website, right?
  • How does it sound?
  • Is it well-written?
  • Does it address the issues it was meant to address?
  • Does it solve its purpose?
  • Can you remove some pages?
  • Can you alter them?
  • What about the titles? Are they appropriate?
  • Is your content full of distractions?
  • Can lengthy paragraphs be rearranged in bulleted points?
  • Do you have lots of junk content that is harming your search engine rankings?
  • Have you been creating content simply to improve your search engine rankings (nothing wrong in that unless you are preparing nonsensical content)?
  • Do you feel that there are some pages or some topics that are missing on your website?
• This may take a few weeks or a few months to sort out so don’t hurry and certainly don’t be impatient. Content marketing is not something that you can do like a small project. It’s an ongoing process and no matter how much hurry you are in, if it is going to perform, it is going to take its own good time.
• Do you send email updates? Have you been building a mailing list? Do you have a subscription form on your website where people can subscribe to your regular updates?
• If not, start building your mailing list NOW.
• Do you have a blog? Can people in your organization create content for your blog? Do you have a budget to hire a professional content writer? Setup a blog and then start adding valuable high-quality content to it.
• Start building your social media presence. You can curate content from other websites and routinely post under your profiles so that people gradually begin to follow you for your particular topic. This will help you when you start promoting your own content.
• Start diversifying in terms of formatting. I provide content writing services but it doesn’t mean I advise my clients to only have written content. It depends on your audience. As I have already mentioned above, explore different channels and use the ones that give you maximum output and exposure.
• Use tools like Google Analytics to study what sort of content you create gets maximum attention on the Internet. Create more of that content without losing your core focus.
• Setup a content marketing calendar so that content writing, publishing, production and dissemination happens on an ongoing basis.

This is how you add method to the content marketing madness. You take care of all the aspects of content marketing and not just routinely publishing a blog or posting “SEO articles” on various websites.