Content marketing is a form of marketing aimed at generating high-quality content to go along with your existing marketing communications. But how do you write a strategy that will allow your marketing to promote, enhance and enlarge the online presence of your business? While there are many types of content marketing, you can start by focusing on a few kind of content, such as: 1. Articles 2. Social Media Content 3. Blog Post

If you are looking to get started with developing your business and marketing strategy, it is helpful to follow these simple steps. Also, these steps can help you reach your full potential to significantly increase your customer engagements.

STEP 1: Research

Whether you want to spend a few hours (a couple of weeks or more) researching or you want to build a full product strategy, keep your research brief so you get a good grasp of your offerings and understand the kind of information you need to deliver.

Do your research, research, research. Review various books, articles, websites, news and even search engine results, etc.

For example, in the use of social media, we often compare the effectiveness of social media and many products from different brands. To figure out what combination of social media and marketing will work for you, you should sift through reviews, news reports, web analytics, etc. Evaluate as many alternatives and see what works and which just looks cool.

There is a great infographic that provides examples of the variety of research you can do.

STEP 2: Writing

Write your strategy plan, spreadsheets, guidelines and each section, or product and pricing plan. In terms of writing, you can think about it this way: Drafting should be fun. It’s less about the end result and more about knowing that you actually know what you are doing (or didn’t get the chance to learn).

Once you have your plan in place, look for ways to test it by writing blog posts or taking part in market research. As an example, you can do market research by looking at Google Trends to find out if your description has increased searches in your category, or whether or not more visitors are visiting your website.

STEP 3: Crafting

Next, your marketing efforts should be directed towards these three topics. You can also write even more specific materials such as newsletters, reports, white papers and press releases. Get familiar with the process of being a good writer. Think about how to be concise, how to get across key information and how to paint a compelling picture. Your content should not only relate to the audience you are trying to attract but it should also appeal to the audience you are not trying to attract.

For the opportunity to market the best of what you have to offer, create the most effective marketing materials.

Which content creation step do you find helpful? Tell us in the comments below!