More is Not a Content Marketing Strategy

Content Marketing Strategy www.jeffkorhan.com

Marketers often comment that they are overwhelmed with the demands of creating content to fuel their online marketing.

Does your audience really want more content – or more relevant content? Tweet This

The noise and clutter online tells us the problem is not a shortage of content, but finding the content that specifically addresses our needs. Thus, the challenge for marketers is developing a strategy for getting their best content to those that can ideally benefit from it.

A Strategy is Written Down

During the opening moments of the recent Content Marketing World conference it was noted that more than 50% of all enterprises do not have a documented content marketing strategy. That’s enterprises; so imagine what the figure is for small business.

My experience with small businesses is most do not have a written sales process, so it is doubtful they have a written content marketing plan for generating leads for their sales team.  How about you?

Regrettably, whether the discipline is sales, marketing, or customer service, more is often the approach many businesses employ to ensure their survival. This is sometimes referred to as the “spray and pray” method. Create more content, make more phone calls, and send more tweets. Then hope and pray some of it sticks.

When you don’t know your next strategic activity you will always be overwhelmed.

If you really want to be less overwhelmed and more confident with your content marketing and social media, it is necessary to develop a strategy for maximizing the utility of your efforts, and putting it down in writing.

What Do Your Customers Really Want?

Writing is an activity that builds clarity. If you think you have a strategy, challenge yourself to write it out. You will soon realize you need more than a content marketing strategy. You also need a general marketing strategy and a social media strategy that are both consistent with your business mission

There are as many ways for developing your growth strategies as there are businesses. Logically, the starting point is with the customer. Do you know what they want and can you help them? If so, build your content marketing strategy around attracting their attention to communicate that, then use your social media channels to further engage them. This is your social marketing process.

The Social Marketing Process ©Jeff Korhan www.jeffkorhan.com


The Social Marketing Process ©Jeff Korhan

As you can see, your content marketing is the attraction element that drives your entire social marketing process. So, obvious questions are who are you trying to attract, and why, and how? The answers are the beginning of your content marketing strategy.

Of course, you can have the best content in the world, but it doesn’t exist if your audience is not aware of it. This is where your social media strategy works to breathe life into that content that you worked so hard to create.

Inspire Your Content Marketing Strategy

Sometimes just a few words will trigger thoughts and spark breakthrough ideas. Here are a few that I brought home from learning and networking with other content marketers. Use what works to inspire your (documented) content marketing strategy.

  • What do you want them to feel?
  • Take aways doubts
  • Technology is creating better consumer experiences
  • Run at problems
  • Remember to smile and wink
  • How will they experience the content?
  • You need home runs
  • Branded content vs a content brand
  • Content became her brand
  • Executives want data!
  • Ideas so contagious they cannot be controlled
  • Real-time, consumer driven marketing is the Holy Grail
  • Show them how to use your products
  • Content is currency

You can also tweet this post to share these inspiring content marketing words.

About the Author:  Jeff Korhan, MBA, is the author of Built-In Social: Essential Social Marketing Practices for Every Small Business and host of This Old New Business podcast.

He helps mainstream businesses adapt their traditional growth practices to a digital world. Connect with Jeff on LinkedInTwitterFacebook, and Google+

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