Content marketing encompasses managing an audience and positioning your brand in an engaging and well-edited way for better online visibility and engagement. As an individual, it also teaches you how to market yourself, learn how to present your brand, build relationships and contacts and help your career goals.

Here are some content marketing tips from experts at the Content Marketing Institute.

Meet your target audience

Before you begin generating content, do your homework and understand the target audience you want to reach. The right audience has sound products and strong content retention rates. You want to find key segments like work-life balance; authors, bloggers and market-driven content; women-targeted content; sports advertisers, travel advertisers, etc.

“It’s always worth it to listen and offer something different than what your competition offers,” said Cameron Schwartz, VP of Content at aJPEN. “When you engage, your competitors won’t compete with you – they’ll fight you.”

Create an alignment between brand and content

“Research shows that content marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies because it gets your company’s image in front of potential customers,” Schwartz said. “When you engage with the right target audience with content they will share or evangelize on their own online, your business’s image will improve exponentially.”

What are the next steps?

Develop content strategically, track results and get metrics. Also, check in with a JPEN content advisory board to make sure you’re following best practices for your brand and business.

“I always believe that you should focus on taking your content from good to great,” Schwartz said. “Don’t just throw something out there and hope it works. Start writing and ask yourself what’s next on the horizon.”