As more marketers are delving into social media, email marketing and lead generation in 2013, they are finding the need for quality content to support these marketing initiatives. Content creation is one of the top challenges of B2B marketers—it takes both time and planning to be successful.
But your efforts won't go to waste. Content be used in multiple marketing mediums—from email to social to lead generation efforts. It's really the cornerstone of your digital marketing strategy. Content can:
- Increase links and improve the ability to rank for top keywords (especially when integrated with a great social strategy)
- Keep your email list engaged with your company, and give subscribers a reason to visit your site
- Fuel your social media strategy and give your audience a reason to engage with your company
- Generate leads by offering up great content in exchange for emails so you can start the lead nurturing process
Here are 4 tips to get started with content marketing:
1. Talk to Customers
ID questions your customers have and answer those questions. This will help provide highly relevant content that your customers want to know and most likely are searching for in Google.
2. Review SEO Keywords
ID keywords your site doesn't currently rank well for and create content around those keywords. With Google limiting the number of keywords you can optimize a page for, many companies are using blogs to create additional content to help rank for more keywords.
3. Get Several Team Members to Contribute
Get several employees from different roles at your company involved to provide multiple view points and writing styles. Each person will have different points of view and interact with clients differently which allows for a wide breathe of content topics.
4. Invite Your Social Media Audience to Participate
Use social media to ask clients what they want to know from you and you can do research, especially on Twitter, to see what topics are trending in your industry.
If you need to sell content marketing to your management team, hTo achieve content marketing success, start with research and planning. Most importantly, don’t get overwhelmed by the thought of undertaking this; start small and grow from there. Start by writing one blog post a week for a couple months and then refine your strategy and grow to writing more frequently.
To learn more about creating a successful content marketing program, check out the new OMI class, the Business Marketer's Secret to Content Marketing Success.