We’ve been helping clients generate success with their content for many years now and we’ve recognized that there are some key “Summary Points” to keep in mind on your road to content marketing success and here are some of them. I’d like to share those with you today:

1. Get in the habit of seeing your content marketing program as a high priority that adds a huge amount of value to your business. If you don’t think it’s important, you won’t get to it. It takes a lot of consistency to make a content marketing program work. That needs to develop out of good habits.

2. Put your content marketing deadlines in your calendar and work to those deadlines. I write three or four blog posts at a sitting, more if I can, so I know they’re ready to go. People get used to seeing your content show up online – you want to capitalize on that anticipation. Don’t disappoint!

3. Outsource as much of your content management as you can. Your administrative assistant should be able to post your blog to your website and can format, and send out, your newsletter. If you are not a writer, hire someone to edit your blog posts and definitely hire someone to draft your white papers. While there’s a little leeway in terms of professionalism in your blog posting, your white papers need to be top notch.

4. Be very clear as to who your audience is. You are not communicating with “everybody,” you are marketing specifically to the people who might be interested in buying from you, OR their influencers. Good marketing is honest. In order to provide a program that unrolls with integrity, you want to take care to shine a light on your company’s existing strengths, rather than “invent” ones that do not exist.

5. Make sure that your content references how your company solves client problems or eases their pain. Although other information needs to be there as well, it’s important to stay focused on the reason for the content, which is to show that your organization is helpful, knowledgeable and focused on assisting customers to solve problems in the most cost-effective way possible. People are looking for value and they will be finding your online content while at different stages of the sales cycle. Your content should, ideally, reflect where they are in their deliberations.

6. Remember that this is a marathon, not a sprint – results take time. The more you do, and the longer you do it for, the more success you are going to enjoy. A content marketing program is sometimes something of a “build the plane as you fly it” kind of a proposition. New needs arise, and fine tuning your efforts is always a good idea. There are often a few bumps in the road as your business develops systems and fine tunes efficiencies.

7. It’s important to remember that the tone of voice is important with content marketing – while online content typically requires a more conversational tone than a standard marketing brochure, for example, you want your content to be sensitive to how you want your company to be perceived—your brand should dictate how you are portrayed.

It can be hard for an entrepreneur to let go of the need to control every little detail and people often fear that bringing an outsider in to manage a content marketing program will somehow dilute their “voice.” That is a very valid concern and I always recommend people hire the best talent they can afford in order to protect their reputation and further their business goals. That takes a fairly sophisticated business sense in itself, but the right writer—or videographer, or podcaster—will have the skills and the desire to present you in the absolute best light possible.

Would you like to know more about what that would like for your business? Please contact us today to book a conversation about your particular content needs!

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