What’s that now?
You heard me. I don’t believe that content marketing is a helpful term. It puts forward the idea that it could be a tactic that you choose to implement or one that you don’t – like social marketing, search marketing, email marketing etc.
Having a content strategy, however, is something that every business, regardless size or type, needs to have. It’s your one tool to help your customers know who you are and what you do. Your content keeps your business alive, growing and your customers engaged.
The reality is that if your brand is the skeleton of your business – who you are, what you are and how you operate – then your content is the blood of your business.
In order to nail a content strategy you need to:
- Ensure it meets your audience’s needs: make sure that every single piece of content is one that addresses your customers’ needs in a way that is right for them. Make sure it aligns to your objectives and who you are as a brand.
- Ensure you have the right channels to distribute it: it’s no good having all this great content if you aren’t putting it out there in a way that is accessible to your audience and via a mechanism that is preferable to them. It’s like telling someone you are holding a coffee for them – they reach out and you don’t have an arm or hand to even be holding that coffee. So where will they find it?
- Continually review and renew content as appropriate: make sure you have a mix of content that has a short lifespan and a long lifespan. You should be reviewing the performance of your content, adjusting it and renewing it if it’s become outdated. Make sure you analyse the data you have in order to make informed decisions about your go-forward plan.
If you get this right, your content will engage your audience, help people to learn about your business, encourage purchase and increase the likeliness of retention.
If you don’t get it right – the rest of your strategy is redundant. What use is a skeleton, organs, muscles and limbs if you don’t have blood flowing through it that contains right levels of oxygen, nutrients etc?