Here are 11 features of content marketing that a small business should have in place before launching a strategy.
When a small business jumps right in to the ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of content marketing, the process can seem a bit overwhelming. It is a good idea to step back and look at all the elements of a content marketing strategy (CMS) in order to gain perspective and recognize that, while strategic combinations can be infinite, the overall strategy is finite.
Here are 11 features of content marketing that a small business should have in place before launching a strategy. Once you have created a basic strategy, you can begin to adjust and grow the strategy for larger and diverse target audiences.
When a small business jumps right in to the ‘How’ and ‘Why’ of content marketing, the process can seem a bit overwhelming. It is a good idea to step back and look at all the elements of a content marketing strategy (CMS) in order to gain perspective and recognize that, while strategic combinations can be infinite, the overall strategy is finite.
Here are 11 features of content marketing that a small business should have in place before launching a strategy. Once you have created a basic strategy, you can begin to adjust and grow the strategy for larger and diverse target audiences.
1. Your Website
In content marketing, your website is the hub for all your content, and all other associated marketing and digital assets should direct people back to your hub. When people engage with your content, they should be doing it as often as possible at your hub so that you have the opportunity to give them a call to action.
There are many calls you can set up on your website (e.g., subscribe to a newsletter, enter a contest, use a coupon, contact a representative), but it is a good idea to focus on one strategic call to action at a time.
2. Social Media Networks
Social media networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) work within your CMS to capture network users and direct them back to your hub.
While being present in many social networks is a great idea, do not overwhelm yourself or your strategy. Get to know different networks and discover how to create content that will capture network users. What works in Facebook and Twitter, will not work in Pinterest, for example.
3. Buyer Persona
A detailed overview of your target audience (i.e., buyer persona) is a critical element of your CMS. The process of building this model of your target audience will tell you what your target audience likes and needs, what their challenges are, where they get their information, where they spend their time, and who their influencers are.
These details ultimately direct what kind of content you share and where you share it so you can build a meaningful relationship with your target audience and they trust your brand.
Note that a target audience may not be a group of buyers, per se. Some organizations rely on referral business, and referrers should be the primary target audience for the CMS, even if that group does not do any actual buying.
Over time, you will want to build a buyer persona for all of your target audiences.
4. Content Marketing Mission Statement
Writing a mission statement for the content in your strategy will give you direction down the line when it’s time to decide what content to create and share. A content marketing mission statement does not have to be verbose and fancy, and it may not be exactly like your overall organizational mission statement.
Furthermore, this content mission statement likely will need to change for each target audience, since the likes, needs and behaviors of each of your audiences will be different.
5. Created Content
Content that you create and is original to your organization is the core of your CMS. At its most basic form, content is text and images or automated text and images.
Through the creative process, these basics take many forms and are deliverable through many formats (e.g., audio, animation, video, blog, infographic, e-newsletter). Your creative content process will grow throughout the lifetime of your CMS as you advance your technical skills and your understanding of how your target audience wants to receive information.
6. Curated Content
Content that is created by others can be a powerful connecting mechanism for your CMS. When you share content from other entities (i.e., curate content), you become more visible to those entities and their audience members.
Your goal should be to curate content and observe both what audience members gravitate to and what content is not available. You can begin to fill that void with your own content so people will recognize you as an originator and trust you as a resource. That trust will begin to translate into trust for your brand, and those people will be more likely to become customers or referrers.
7. Editorial Calendar
Of all the elements of your CMS, an editorial calendar could be the most critical to success. Before launching your strategy, you should set out what content to share, how it will be created, who will create it, when they will create it, when it will be shared, and where it will be shared.
This process will ensure consistent delivery over time, and you will see when you are trying to do too much or if you have room to grow.
8. Statistics And Analytics
There is no end to the depth of statistical analysis you can build into your CMS. The more you track your content, who is engaging with it, when they engage with it, and what they like the most, the easier it will be to adjust your strategy and focus on activities that produce conversion to buying behavior.
Remember that content marketing analytics involve more than likes, faves and shares. These statistics must be followed along the buying stages so you will understand which content is actually converting a like to a sale.
Writing a mission statement for the content in your strategy will give you direction down the line when it’s time to decide what content to create and share. A content marketing mission statement does not have to be verbose and fancy, and it may not be exactly like your overall organizational mission statement.
Furthermore, this content mission statement likely will need to change for each target audience, since the likes, needs and behaviors of each of your audiences will be different.
5. Created Content
Content that you create and is original to your organization is the core of your CMS. At its most basic form, content is text and images or automated text and images.
Through the creative process, these basics take many forms and are deliverable through many formats (e.g., audio, animation, video, blog, infographic, e-newsletter). Your creative content process will grow throughout the lifetime of your CMS as you advance your technical skills and your understanding of how your target audience wants to receive information.
6. Curated Content
Content that is created by others can be a powerful connecting mechanism for your CMS. When you share content from other entities (i.e., curate content), you become more visible to those entities and their audience members.
Your goal should be to curate content and observe both what audience members gravitate to and what content is not available. You can begin to fill that void with your own content so people will recognize you as an originator and trust you as a resource. That trust will begin to translate into trust for your brand, and those people will be more likely to become customers or referrers.
7. Editorial Calendar
Of all the elements of your CMS, an editorial calendar could be the most critical to success. Before launching your strategy, you should set out what content to share, how it will be created, who will create it, when they will create it, when it will be shared, and where it will be shared.
This process will ensure consistent delivery over time, and you will see when you are trying to do too much or if you have room to grow.
8. Statistics And Analytics
There is no end to the depth of statistical analysis you can build into your CMS. The more you track your content, who is engaging with it, when they engage with it, and what they like the most, the easier it will be to adjust your strategy and focus on activities that produce conversion to buying behavior.
Remember that content marketing analytics involve more than likes, faves and shares. These statistics must be followed along the buying stages so you will understand which content is actually converting a like to a sale.
9. Keywords
Your business keywords and phrases will go a long way in your CMS to building a presence for your content in search engines.
Use your keywords and phrases regularly within your content and in association with a tag and hashtag strategy (see below).
10. Tags And Hashtags
Making your keywords into tags and hashtags helps people find your content in the digital world.
Keywords as tags should be used in your blog and in the social networks that feature tag technology, such as YouTube and SlideShare.
Similarly, keywords as hashtags should be used in social networks that feature hashtag capability, such as Twitter and Facebook. Hashtags are essential to building social network presence, as they connect your posts and tweets to similar content and expose your content to a larger audience than your followers.
11. Short Links
Sharing content from your website (e.g., a blog post) within social networks can be awkward when you use the original links created for your web pages. They are usually very long, which makes them visually unappealing within a post, and they may take up an excessive number of characters within character-limited networks, such as Twitter.
URL shortener providers, such as http://goo.gl, also include a tracking feature. When you use a short URL in a post, you will be able to see how many people click through to your content. You can use a different short URL for the same page when you share that page in more than one social network. This approach will demonstrate which network produces the most traffic.
Your Unique Experience
While these 11 features of content marketing provide a basic insight for your strategy, each feature has additional nuances that you will begin to understand as you gain more experience and achieve content successes. In fact, you may discover strategies over time that will be entirely unique to your experience and that nobody could ever have taught you.
Trust in your position of knowledge and apply it to the basic concepts here. Be patient and take your time. Content marketing will show you the way.
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