Content marketing is the new Holy Grail, but only if done right – if planned and executed correctly and according to your list of priorities. Before we continue, however, here is a short content marketing definition for those who are not familiar with the concept: content marketing is the process of conceiving, generating, and distributing informative and relevant content in order to attract a clearly defined target audience, from which to subsequently drive profitable customer action.
Now that this is clear up, let’s move on to the specifics: content marketing is only good when done strategically. This may sound like an obvious statement, but as many as half of all the companies that use content marketing do not actually have a strategy for this. When content is created without sufficient understanding of what your target audience is interested in, the result can be fatal.
Here are 4 tips on how to avoid this potentially disastrous mistake:
1. Ask your customers – Talk to as many of your customers as you can (the more, the better) and ask them to tell you what their exact research and information needs are for your specific industry or niche. Then, prioritize these needs and create a plan to address them one at a time, in a focus manner.
2. Consumer personas – Create consumer personas based on your customers and each channel you are active in and, then, create plans based on them.
3. Synchronize – Align all of your newly generated plans with the company’s calendar, and match goals and timelines. This can be tricky, as a topic is rarely a high priority for both your company and your customers at the same time.
4. Finalize the calendar: Finish and consolidate a quantifiable annual content marketing calendar based on your customer’s priorities as well as your own goals as a company.
The bottom line is this: Creating content that attracts people is not enough, you need to attract the correct target audience, the one that matches your interests. This is what B2B content marketing should be about.
