Once you understand the benefits of using content to market your business, the real challenge becomes planning what you will write about.

There is absolutely no point in just writing about products you want to promote. You must also avoid thinking in terms of just e-mail newsletters, Twitter or Facebook, and think about the problem you are solving for the customer.

Remember, your potential audience don’t care about you; they care about themselves and their immediate problems.

Some points you should consider are:

• Be seen as the leading experts in your sector
• Your content should answer a need or question for your customer
• Content needs to be delivered consistently, whether it is daily, twice a week, weekly or monthly
• Avoid sales speak, the more you talk about yourself, the less value your content will have for others.
• If you expect customers to consume your content, you must deliver value in it.
• As a business, your goal is to become part of the content your customers consume on a regular basis.

Define the objective

Whilst this is to ultimately drive sales or leads, we also know that subscribers to emails generally convert better and spend more.

Content is rarely a direct sales driver, not until it has established a level of trust in any case. It plays a supporting role through other channels to help build that trust that leads to a purchase.

Good content can also play a strong role in customer retention.

Define your audience

You need to focus on who you are producing your content for.

In the short term your content should be written with one particular person in mind. This will keep it consistent and on track.

Only once you have established a solid base with which you are should you try to expand on this.

Define your content

Once you know who you are writing for and what is to be achieved you can make the choice over what to write.

You should also consider if you chosen content will work if out-sourced. Does it require insider knowledge or can it be independently researched? This will help determine what level of resource or budget you will require.

Have in mind that technical content will take longer to produce, and therefore cost more or require more resource. But it could also be of greater value to your audience, and provide a better return on your investment.

The subject matter should be broad enough to allow for scope and variety, but should focus on your audiences interest at all times.

Don’t neglect images

Images are highly important as they can improve content engagement and share-ability . Consideration should be given to how you will acquire images when selecting your subject matter.

Measure the results

You should constantly be measuring the effectiveness of your content. Don’t just look to see whether Twitter works or Facebook doesn’t. It’s rarely the channel that’s to blame.

Continually test variations of your messaging and have an agreed system in place for measuring the results.

Are You Ready For The Content Marketing Challenge?

If you need help with your content marketing plan get in touch 01379 330330.