Is Your Content Marketing Effective?

Effective content marketing consists of connecting with your customers without focusing on excessive direct sales. While hard selling still has a place in various industries, this new marketing strategy delivers ongoing, valuable, and actionable information that ultimately leads to customer loyalty. It may also prove more suitable to your target market and business goals. Consider these crucial steps to ensure your marketing efforts produce maximum results. 

Have you defined your audience?

Every business and market is divided by niche segments. For example, matchmaking websites may offer relationship advice for people based on age or interests. Your content marketing strategy should directly speak to your core audience, targeting their particular needs and wants as opposed to casting a wide net. If your small business provides a diverse line of products and services, you should divide all marketing efforts by profiling each group of customers and their corresponding interests.

Do you have a sound strategy?

While content marketing can produce effective and long-lasting results, you should develop a plan in the event of failure or eventual success. What would your next move consist of should you not generate enough leads? How often and aggressively would you communicate with your prospects? As a general rule, it is good practice to maintain a newsletter with a continued stream of information, allowing you to communicate with prospects long after you reach them. Polls, surveys, and customer feedback should also be taken into account as part of your overall strategy.

Are you measuring results?

Your marketing strategy cannot be sustained without properly measuring results. If you generate a healthy amount of leads through multiple sources, you should measure which of these are the most and the least effective. This enables you to modify efforts accordingly or eliminate a source altogether. What are your customers' browsing habits? What type of content engages them? Certain tools, like Google Analytics, can provide detailed information, such as your audience's click-through rate, bounce rate, and how long they stayed on a particular page. Buffer is a similar service that primarily focuses on social media analysis.

Are you providing real value?

Your ultimate business goal is to generate profits, but this should not be your only focus when trying to build new business relationships. Promoting your products and services in excess is a surefire way to turn off your prospects. Instead, follow the 80/20 rule, where most of your content consists of useful information followed by the occasional product mention. For example, offer a coupon code to those who follow you on social media or via your newsletter campaign.

Are you going above and beyond?

Running a website and a social media account is simply not enough anymore. Powerful content marketing consists of networking with others in your field. Reciprocate by promoting noncompetitive content through your own online channels in exchange for submitting content to your industry contacts to promote on their channels. Become a guest contributor on prominent news sources where your audience tends to visit. Expand your reach beyond standard publishing practices, while measuring your results at the same time.

Can you back up your information?

Providing general information may intrigue your prospects, but backing it up with interesting and irrefutable data can lead to much better results. Include detailed statistics and relevant information that may help your audience gravitate toward your business. If your offer consists of resume services, for example, reveal the percentage of failed job interviews due to poor resume structure and formatting. Your services will naturally become more favorable as a result.

Content marketing is about reaching a target demographic, conducting educated analysis, and establishing long-term relationships. Consider using professional content writing solutions, such as Scripted, to ensure your marketing strategy effectively addresses your customers' needs.