Step-by-step content marketing approach

Once you get going, content marketing is pretty simple, but sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. CooCoo director Marcia Butterfield breaks it down into six easy steps.

Step 1. Define your organisation

What are your key messages, goals, philosophy? A clearly defined brand will help you to create straightforward content that’s in line with your goals and doesn’t stray from your business philosophy.

Step 2. Get to know your target audience from their perspective; don’t approach this from a business perspective.

Take a step back, and get inside your customer’s head as an individual. What do they want to see online? What are they interested in? Do they like visual elements? Once you’ve got this figured out, you’ll be on the same page as your customers, and your content is more likely to be in line with their interests.

Step 3. Figure out what you want to say, then say it.

Don’t beat around the bush when it comes to content marketing. Keep your key message clear and upfront, instead of disguising it with confusing, irrelevant content.

Step 4. Read, reread, and read again.

Is your content engaging? Will it interest your customer? Will it leave a good impression about your business, and what it stands for? Once you can confidently answer these questions with a yes, then get publishing and distributing.

Step 5. Where to publish.

By now, you’ll have an in-depth understanding of your customer, so you should be able to know where they want to read their information. Do they prefer an e-newsletter, sent to their email address? Or would they rather seek out the information themselves? Do you need to post it on Facebook or other social media platforms?

Step 6. Monitor your success.

It isn’t enough to distribute content online, and forget about it. Look at your stats, insights, customer engagement and retention. Evaluate every post, and look for ways to continuously improve on your content. Keep up your research, and look other examples of successful content. And keep getting to know your customer, their wants and needs may change over time.