4 Essential Elements for Content Marketing
Successful content marketing is more than the words and images ultimately published somewhere. The best efforts are supported by systems, processes, and resources. Here are 4 essential elements you need to succeed.
Content Marketing Editorial Plan
Why do you create content? What are your goals? Define an editorial strategy that outlines what you want to accomplish and the content that will get you there. Writing this down will increase your ability to stay focused on your goals.
Build out your plan by defining your audience. Who are they? What do they care about? How do they think about the topics you want to cover?
Next define the channels you will use to share your content with your audience. What is needed to be effective on each channel? What types of text and images work best? Outline the elements needed for an optimized post on each platform.
Map out the calendar. How often will you post? On which days and times?
Generate Ideas
Ideas sometimes flow and other times can be a chore. Have a way to document ideas whenever they come. Also have resources that can help you generate ideas when the inspiration is lacking. Your idea generation engine can involve:
- Monitoring what competitors are doing
- Engaging with influencers
- Webinars – related to your marketing channels of choice and to your industry
- Online idea generators
Define Measures of Success
You can’t keep your content marketing focused if you don’t know what’s working. Define your measures of success and monitor them regularly.
There are a lot of metrics out there. Pick the ones that are meaningful for your organization and goals. You don’t need to monitor all the metrics, just the ones that offer insight.
Document the metrics you want to track, and track them regularly. Make sure to plan for time to analyze the numbers for insights that let you know what to continue and what to change.
Let Technology Help You
Use tools that help you accomplish your content marketing as efficiently as possible. This can include stock photo sites, image creation tools like Canva, and scheduling tools like Hootsuite. Use your energies for the big picture thinking and creation, and let tools (or a great admin support resource) handle the day-to-day details.
