How to structure your content for marketing

It is an obvious and undeniable truth that content is extremely important and relevant in today’s world but another equally important facet of it is the marketing of content.

Having great content must be supplemented by great content marketing, after all, what is the point of having great content if no one finds it or uses it?

This leads us to the question, what is content marketing? Simply put, content marketing is a strategic approach taken by companies or even individuals with the aim of distributing their content to favorable target groups for consumption.

Studies show that companies that have strategies in place for content marketing are more successful compared to their peers who do not.

Here is a list that illustrates how to structure content:

• Establish your mission as well as goals A great place to commence is the ascertaining of goals, and having a mission statement. A mission statement is a concise statement that communicates what the company wants to and is focusing on. This helps all the people on board know what exactly the work is directed towards and streamlines the process of strategizing. Some things a mission statement illustrates are the target audience, specific content that is used to reach them, the benefits of the content to the target audience. The goals of putting out a mission statement is to improve profits, increase traffic, as well social media engagement (among many other things).

• Ascertain your KPI(s) KPI stands for a key performance indicator. These are highly specific goals that are measurable and quantifiable. They help you gauge the status and situation of your content without any room for subjectivity. They usually include elements like sales, revenue, SEO, and traffic (all elements that can be measured) Some of the goals that factor in KPI(s) are achieving a certain revenue target, getting more sign-ups, Increasing the number of email sign-ups, a spike in the amount of email traffic, and improved search engine ranking (among many other things).

• Know your audience and target market It is obvious that in order to have a successful business a non negotiable. It is an absolute necessity to know who your target audience is, what they want, and more importantly in which form they want it. A convenient way to do this is to collect demographic data, which might include factors like Age, gender, education, and income. These demographics are extremely basic and can get more detailed and specific over time. Google Analytics is also a handy tool that provides you with relevant and helpful insights you can use to further your goals. Other things you could do is get customer feedback and create buyer personas, this helps you be more accurate and efficient while gauging your target audience.

• Assess your current position and situation Content auditing is an important aspect of marketing, this involves you carefully evaluating the content you already produce in the form of blogs, social media posts, podcasts, and videos. This will help you figure out which content is doing well, which is not, and why this is so. Based on these insights and learnings you can alter your approach. This is also a great way to figure out the content gaps, you can identify them by figuring out which relevant keywords are not getting targets, questioning your target audience and understanding which of their questions are going unanswered, and improving the content that is already doing well on the google rankings.

• Find out which are the best content channels Some channels work better than others, and that is a given. Based on the variables that are applicable to your business find out which content channels your target audience prefers, and focus on producing content on those channels This obviously leads to your content being more accessible, engaging, and more effective. This step obviously requires some research, scouting, and a little bit of experimenting but is worth it.

• Allocate resources with care Producing content definitely requires certain resources like content creators, specialists, and if need be freelancers. It is a smart move to be aware of all the resources you need to have for execution and budgeting accordingly. You can also set a predetermined content calendar to ensure a smooth workflow.

On a concluding note, it makes sense to mention that there is no one way to go about things and content marketing like everything else is a skill you will master over time.

This list is created with the purpose of shedding a light on the basic elements you should consider while going about the process