Online marketing is going through a massive change at the moment. Things used to be different a decade ago when Google was new, YouTube didn’t exist, and there were no social networks.
Fast forward to 2012, it’s not that easy to bell the cat any more. You can’t just slap some keyword stuffed article on a website and build backlinks from a link farm to boost its rankings. Nor can you use a bulk email marketing software to spam your way to success. Today, it just doesn’t happen that way.
So how do you really approach online marketing in such competitive times?
The answer lies in ‘content marketing’ – creating great content that begs to be shared, educates your prospects about your products, and helps you become an authority. Sounds interesting?
Let’s find out how you can do content marketing effectively to take your online business to the next level:
1. Know Your Goals
It’s really important that you have a goal in mind before you actually go ahead and execute your content marketing plan. What do you seek to achieve from content marketing? How will it help you achieve your goal? Once you know your main objective, only then you will know what kind of content you should produce so that it’s tailor made for your target audience.
2. Be Sure of Your Key Message
The idea of content marketing is to help you pass on your key message to your audience, without any distortion. In order to make that happen, you should first be sure of what they want to hear from you. This allows you to create content that is perfectly aligned with their needs, which automatically increases your chances of success.
3. Identify Types of Content to Use
As we all know, content is of various types – it could be text, video, audio, etc. In order to make your content marketing strategy successful, you need to determine what type of content you will be using to deliver information to your prospects. What would work best for them? A little bit of testing and playing around will give you a fair idea as to what type you should use, and when.
4. Create Great Content
Your sole aim with content marketing is to create a strong impression on your target audience by giving real value. And that can only be done when you produce great content that gets talked about. When you know how to deliver the right content to the right people, you win. Remember, successful content marketing is not about pushing for a sale, but it’s more about building a level of trust and understanding through targeted education.
5. Be Ready to Alter the Plan As Needed
If your content marketing efforts aren’t giving results then be sure to change them. It’s only through trial and error you create a solid strategy that works for you. Pay attention to the results and see what’s working and what’s not to make the necessary changes.
How have you been using content marketing in your online business? Please share your ideas in the comments section below,
