What the heck is content marketing? And why do I need it for my blog or business website?

If you’re one of those, who have never created a content marketing plan, you are missing out.

Content marketing is how a small business blog or other websites reach their target audiences and experience incredible growth.

In this guide, I’m going to show you how important content marketing is to your business and how you can grow your business.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a plan that you create focused on creating and distributing your incredible content to your target audience.

Which in turn drives profitable customer action.

Consumers are turned off by traditional advertising.

Why?

Consumers want to feel as though the product is meant for them; they want a personalized experience.

In fact, an astonishing 84% of customers say being treated like a person, not a number, is very important to winning their business.

This is called the Experience Economy.

Introduced in 1998 by an article written by B Joseph Pine II, he  predicted that “experience which would give the brand a competitive advantage by winning more customers and being able to keep them.”

One way to make a connection with your consumers is through emotion and storytelling, and to do this, you need content.

But in order to reach them, you need a content marketing strategy.

Customer Connection

The voice of the customer should be part of your strategy; the other is understanding what the customer desires and the solutions you can provide them.

What will have the greatest impact on their lives?

Companies that do not do their research on target audiences will not become a part of the customer connection, nor will they establish brand loyalty.

Ignoring the customer will keep your business from growing and give your competitors the edge.

Creating your Content Marketing Plan for your Blog or Business.

–Have a Clearly defined Audience-

Before you do anything, you want to do a little research and discover who is your target audience.

Ask yourself, “Whom do I want to reach?” “Who do I want to help?” “What issues does my audience need solutions for?”

Create a persona to help you really target the audience.

Tip: Keyword search will help you understand your audience better. Using “Ask the Public” or just Google will help you discover what problems and pain points you can address for your target audience.

-find out who your competitors are/what they are doing to market their content.

 Understanding what your competition is doing will help you in creating your own strategy. 

The things to look at are what is working and what is not. 

Use what they have done successfully but in your own unique way that relates to your brand. 

Remember, you don’t want just to copy. 

-Use SMART Goals 

As with every aspect of your business, so too does content marketing require goals. 

One of the best ways to create achievable goals is to develop a solid plan such as implementing SMART Goals. 

Learn how you can create your own smart goals by reading my previous posts Should you Know about S.M.A.R.T Goals? 

-Show your Value

Don’t hide your value; content marketing is incredibly competitive, making it difficult to really stand out from the white noise.

Highlight how you are unique, how you can help them better, and what makes you, you.

A good way to do this is to establish a Clear Value Proposition.

A clear value proposition is a statement that explains how your products or services can solve your target audience’s problems or improve their lives.

The proposition highlights your specific benefits and tells the customer why they should trust and buy from you, NOT your competitors.

Personal Branding-

This is essential for your business.

Storytelling is a large part of your business’s identity and establishing your brand.

Your story is what sets you apart from the competition and makes you unique.

The reason consumers want personal branding and storytelling is that it gives them a more personal relationship.

Establishing your brand will enhance your engagement, interest, and transparency.

None of this has to be done in one sitting; in fact, if you use the time block scheduling method, you’ll discover that creating your strategy is not so tedious.

I love the branding ideas that you can get from Big Picture Branding.

Courtney Fanning is a great resource to help you with your branding, and if you’re completely lost, she offers services that will help guide you!

Final Thoughts

Creating a Content Marketing plan for your blog or business sounds overwhelming and can feel like unnecessary work.

Researching your audience, creating new and exciting content, and tracking your results is a lot of work.

Creating a content strategy will increase your results in page views, email subscribers, and more.

Know why you’re creating content and for who.

When you follow the steps above and create your own dynamic content marketing plan, you’ll see growth beyond your imagination.