5 Tips to Build Your Business’s Content Marketing

We’re all swimming in a sea of content. According to this Domo study, an estimated 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every single day, a large portion of that being various sorts of content. So how exactly can you make your content stay afloat and stand out against all of the rest? The answer lies within your content marketing. If you’re creating relevant, useful and interesting content that people want to see, a lot of the time, they will seek it out themselves. Your content marketing works to build an audience and spread awareness while creating a credible and reliable reputation for your business. So if you’re worried that your content is getting lost or you’re not sure where to start, we’ve got these 5 tips to build your business’s content marketing.

1. Define Your Goals

Your content can take on all sorts of shapes and sizes. Blogs, infographics, videos, podcasts, newsletters- it’s all content. But before you get started with creating, you need to think about the endgame. Clearly define what you want your content marketing goals to be and what you want your business to get out of your content. Mindlessly putting out content won’t provide the same results as working with a strategy to accomplish your goals. Define your goals first as the foundation for your content marketing strategy and then all of the content that follows can work for your business to meet and exceed these goals. When it’s done right, content marketing should provide value not only to your customers, by providing them with useful information and incredible content, but also to your business, by helping to accomplish your goals.

2.  Understand Your Audience

One more thing before you get started with creating and putting out all of your content, you need to understand who is at the receiving end. Take the time to define who you want to reach with your content and figure out how you could best reach them then incorporate this into your content marketing strategy. How big is your audience? What do they look for in content? What kind of useful information could your business provide them? Think about your audience and what type of content they would find interesting and valuable, and look into what channels you could best reach them through. Your audience is the one consuming your content, and they are the ones you are trying to reach so always take them into consideration first and make sure your content and your content strategy are created with them in mind.

3. Don’t Overlook Your Social

Content marketing is more than blogs and videos, it can also include your social media. Putting time and effort into your business’s social media is a task never easily tackled but a well-thought-out social media strategy with curated content is well worth the time it takes to create. The content put out on your business’s social channels not only creates a conversation with your existing customers but it also has the potential to get the attention of and bring in new customers. Your business’s social media can also play a role as the online word-of-mouth that allows customers to share your carefully crafted content with their own networks. Don’t overlook your social accounts, and incorporate your business’s social media strategy into your content marketing strategy to start a conversation with your audience and spread awareness.

4. Make it Original

Taking inspiration from other business’s content and content strategies is great, but copying them is not so great. Sharing other business’s content can help gain traffic but you want the majority of your content to be distinctively tailored to your business. Creating original content and your own content marketing strategy gives you the opportunity to provide your audience with something new and useful that they couldn’t find anywhere else. Take the time to think through a content marketing strategy and then again take the time to create the actual content. Originality speaks volumes when it comes to content, and it can certainly help you stand out from the crowd.

5. Consistency is Key

Content marketing and consistency go hand in hand. First, your content should be consistent with your business. Creating highly-shareable content is great, but if it the topics are not relevant or at least in the same realm as the products and services you offer it might not get the job done on the marketing side of things. Next, your content should be consistent in terms of branding and quality. Your content should use a consistent voice across all channels, always be incorporated with your brand, and always be of high quality. Last but not least, your content should be posted on a consistent schedule. A consistent content marketing schedule makes your business a reliable and dependable source of information and content, gives your business more opportunities to connect with your audience, and could help with your SEO rankings.

Content marketing, when done right, can have countless benefits for your business like brand awareness and increased conversions, and it can help set your business apart from the rest by building your reputation. So while staring into the sea of content out there can be daunting, don’t let it turn you away from working to create that perfect content marketing strategy. Keep these 5 tips in mind and start building your business with content marketing.