Content marketing is an essential skill in the PR professional's tool kit. From Red Bull's "extreme content marketing" to Old Spice's numerous viral videos about the way a man should smell, content marketing is a superb way to define your brand's personality, engage consumers and even garner media coverage. But where should you start?
Here are four tips from Steve Halsey, principal and managing director of the business consulting practice at Gibbs & Soell, on how to plan and execute your content marketing strategy:
· A strategy is essentially a roadmap for achieving one or more organizational goals, so make it actionable and measurable.
· Focus the strategy on the long term, not the routine.
· No one gives you market share for free, so anticipate and plan for likely customer and competitor behaviors vis-à-vis your content marketing programs.
· Be prepared to deal with unforeseen events, because they will happen—for good and ill.
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Follow Lucia Davis: @LKCDavis
Hey Lucia,
Great article! I completely agree that you must have a strategy when creating your business’ content. Here are a few things that I do when creating content.
I use my customers when creating content. These are the people that will know the most about why someone buys and they will know the exact reasoning for buying from you. Often times they will have quirky antidotes about why they do business with your company. Having a third party interview your consumers will make it easier to probe for content and often times, people are more candid and talkative towards them.
Thanks,
T.C.
Thanks for reading, T.C., and for providing your tips. Good ones :)
Off-message image use. The graphic is about content (on-page content being the most important thing to on-line business) while the article is about marketing. These are two different aspects.
Just wanted to point that out.