The world of online marketing can be confusing and overwhelming and even people who run successful businesses are hard-pressed to differentiate between the “must-do” and the “make-work” tasks. Here’s my list of the top five guidelines that go into content marketing success.

1. Know Your Goals.

What are the big-picture goals you want your content marketing program to help you achieve? Do you want to:

• Increase sales of a particular product or service?
• Generate more brand awareness?
• Create greater know-like-and-trust levels among the members of your target audience?
• Drive more members to an association or other organization to which you belong?
• Enhance best practices in your industry as a whole?

Knowing what you want to achieve is the first step towards getting there.

2. Know as Much as Possible about Your Target Audience.

The more you know about your target audience the more effective you can be in developing content that appeals to them. In this category you probably want to know:

• What their job title and function is
• What education (type and level) they have
• What online platforms do they access on a regular basis (LinkedIn, Google Plus, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook etc.)
• How much revenue/income do they generate?
• How familiar are they with the online world?

3. Know what problems your prospective clients struggle with and frame all of your content around their specific challenges and difficulties – provide solutions! Here are some ideas:

• If you are a business consulting company, write a downloadable White Paper on innovative ideas for improving profitability
• If you are a manufacturing company, develop a video series for your end-users that is entirely focused on getting more functionality out of your equipment
• If you are an association, write a blog series on the biggest trends in your industry today

4. Produce content consistently.

It can be very challenging to manage a growing business and keep an eye on how much content you are creating and posting online. But whatever you do, you want to produce your content consistently so you don’t risk losing your audience and your search engine ranking.

5. Include calls to action (CTA) so your audience members know how they can take another step with you. These CTAs might include:

• Book a free consultation with our sales representative
• Download our free white paper to find out more
• Join our mailing list
• Like our Facebook Page
• Enter our draw for a free booklet about _________

There are an unlimited ways to reach your potential clients and customers online but you do need to be strategic about how you go about it. If you’d like more information about how Crossman Communications can help you reach your content marketing goals, please contact our CEO, Susan Crossman, for a free consultation about your biggest online worries!