LeadMagnetGeniusOkay, enough theory. How do you actually do content marketing?
1. Know Your Audience
This is step 1 for a reason. Your content must be tailored to the people you want to reach (your clearly defined audience). If you haven’t already, create a simple profile of your ideal customer (often called a buyer persona). Include: - Basic demographics: age range, gender (if relevant), location, language. - Job/role (if B2B) or lifestyle situation (if B2C). - Goals and challenges related to your niche. What do they want to achieve? What problems do they need solved? What questions do they frequently ask? - Where do they currently get info? (Do they read blogs, scroll Instagram, watch YouTube, listen to podcasts? This hints at formats to use.) - What style of content appeals to them? (Professional? Casual? Entertaining? Data-driven?)
For example, if you’re targeting busy working moms for a meal planning app, their challenges: lack of time, picky kids, budget. They might seek quick recipes, time-saving tips. They likely prefer content like short videos or blog lists they can skim in between tasks. Tone: friendly, empathetic, no jargon.
Understanding your audience ensures you create content they care about. If it doesn’t speak to them, it won’t attract or retain them.
There’s a saying: create content that answers your customers’ questions. You can literally list all the common questions your target might have in your realm, and let that be a content idea list. For example: “How do I budget my money in my 20s?”, “How much should I save for retirement?”, “Best budgeting apps compared” – a financial advisor targeting young professionals could address all these in content.
2. Define Your Goals and KPIs
What do you want to achieve with content? More website traffic? More email signups? Improved SEO rankings? Higher engagement on social? Educating customers to reduce support calls? Be specific and tie it to business outcomes if possible: - If it’s attract new leads: maybe your KPI is website traffic or number of new email subscribers per month (since those subscribers can be nurtured into buyers). - If it’s brand awareness: maybe KPI is social shares or impressions or referral traffic. - If it’s retention: maybe KPI is increase in repeat purchase rate or reduction in churn, and you assume content will contribute to that by improved engagement.
Also decide how you’ll measure content success. Common metrics: - Traffic metrics: page views, unique visitors, time on page (a proxy for how engaging the content is). - Engagement: comments on blog, social likes/shares, bounce rate (lower is better, means they didn’t immediately leave). - Lead generation: conversion rate of content (e.g., blog article to lead magnet signups), or number of content downloads. - SEO: search rankings for key content, organic traffic growth. - Sales: maybe track if people who consume content end up converting at higher rates (requires some attribution, but you could see, e.g., people who read 3+ blog posts are 2x more likely to purchase).
Early on, you might focus on just growing traffic and subscribers as a measure that your content is attracting the right folks. Over time, link it to sales: e.g., X% of our sales come from people who first found us through a content piece.
3. Choose Content Types and Channels
You don’t have to do every type of content. Especially if you’re a small team, focus on where your audience is and what you can do well. Some considerations: - If your audience is very active on LinkedIn and not so much on TikTok, focus on LinkedIn posts or articles. - If you personally hate being on video, maybe start with writing blogs or making infographics instead of trying to force YouTube (though you could hire someone for video eventually). - Ideally, repurpose content across formats to maximize reach. For example, write a great blog post, then make a short video summarizing it, and a few social posts quoting highlights. But in the beginning, you might just pick one main format to master.
Common content channels and their strengths: - Blog on your website: Good for SEO (attracting Google traffic) and establishing a knowledge base. You have control over it (unlike social media algorithms). It can also host longer, in-depth pieces (guides, case studies). E.g., HubSpot grew huge partly through prolific blogging on marketing topics. - YouTube channel: Great for tutorials, demonstrations, or any content where visual & audio help. YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine, so good for discoverability. E.g., a craft supply store doing DIY craft tutorial videos to attract crafty folks. - Social Media (FB, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, etc.): Good for bite-sized content and engaging community. But ephemeral (stuff scrolls by quickly). Typically used to distribute/promote content rather than full content (except You can do micro-blogs on LinkedIn or threads on Twitter etc., but often you use social to share links to your blog, videos, etc.). Choose platform based on audience: e.g., visually appealing content for Instagram (if you have product photography, lifestyle shots), professional insights on LinkedIn (if B2B), quick tips or fun behind-the-scenes on TikTok if younger crowd and you can do video snippets. - Email newsletters: Often the glue between attraction and retention. People consume content in their inbox. A newsletter can share your latest content, or be content itself (curated insights, tips of the week, etc.). It’s great for retention because it keeps your brand in their life regularly. Also, a valuable newsletter can attract signups if you promote it (some folks sign up just for the newsletter even before buying anything). - Podcasts: Good if your audience likes to consume info while doing other things (driving, chores). It’s intimate and great for thought leadership. Downside is it’s harder to get discovered than visual content (no central search engine that’s as straightforward as Google for audio, though podcast SEO is emerging). - Webinars/Live streams: Great for deep dives, Q&A, and showing transparency/live expertise. Also they can collect leads (people register). After doing a webinar, you can record it and make it on-demand content or cut it into pieces for blog/social.
At the start, maybe select 1-2 core content channels: - e.g., Blog + Facebook page - or YouTube + email newsletter - or Instagram + blog (with shorter blog posts that the IG post directs to)
Make sure at least one channel is something you fully own (your site/blog or email list). Relying solely on, say, a Facebook page can be risky since algorithm changes or policy changes could hamper your reach. Owned media like your website content and email list gives you stability.
4. Content Planning and Consistency
Content marketing isn’t a one-off campaign; it’s an ongoing process. To stay organized and consistent, do some planning: - Content Calendar: Map out what content you’ll create over the next month or quarter. It can be as simple as an Excel/Google sheet or use tools like Trello, Asana, or specific content calendar tools. List dates and what piece goes out on which channel. This helps ensure you’re regular (e.g., one blog per week, two IG posts a week, etc.) and can align with seasons/events (e.g., plan a Black Friday related post in advance, or tax tips content before tax season). - Brainstorm Topics in Batches: It’s easier to come up with ideas when you sit down and brainstorm a bunch at once. Use sources like: - Keyword research (what are people searching related to your industry? Tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or AnswerThePublic give insight). - Customer FAQs (your sales or support teams, or if you’re small, think of what customers ask you). - Competitor’s content (what are others writing? Can you do it better or with a unique angle? Don’t copy, but you can cover similar topics with your expertise). - Industry trends/news (weave in timely topics). - Personal experiences or case studies. - The 80/20 rule of content: at least 80% should be non-promotional value-add; you can have maybe 20% that’s more directly promotional (like product updates or sales announcements). If every piece is a pitch, people will tune out. Content marketing is about earning trust by being helpful most of the time, so that on the few times you ask for something (like check out a product), people are receptive.
Quality over quantity (to a point): Better to do one great blog post a week than 5 lousy ones. But also, don’t use “perfection” as an excuse to never publish. Strike a balance. If you’re a one-person content team, maybe one or two good pieces a week is fine to start. You can scale up as you see results or have resources.
Optimize for SEO (if applicable): For written content especially, do basics like including keywords naturally, writing good meta titles/descriptions, using headings, linking to your other content (internal links) and authoritative external sources. Maybe cite data or sources (as I’m doing here with bracketed numbers). Over time, as you consistently produce relevant content, you’ll likely climb in search rankings – bringing in that free organic traffic (which is gold because it’s people actively seeking what you discuss or offer).
Visuals: Even if writing, include images or charts if you can, to make content more engaging. Visual content (like infographics) can also be highly shareable.
5. Promotion and Distribution
“Content is king, but distribution is queen and she wears the pants.” In other words, great content won’t help if nobody sees it. Especially at the start when you don’t have a big audience, you must proactively promote: - Share your blog on your social media pages (and in relevant groups if allowed). - Send it to your email list (if you have initial subscribers, maybe from that lead magnet we talked about). - Reach out to influencers or communities. E.g., if you wrote a really cool guide, you might share it on niche forums or Reddit (check rules on self-promo) or email a friendly industry blogger like “Hey, I mentioned your tool in our guide, just thought you’d like to see. Feel free to share if you think your audience would find it useful!” – sometimes they will. - Repurpose: Turn a blog post into an infographic and share on Pinterest, or take key tips and make a short video for LinkedIn or TikTok, linking back to the full article. - Use relevant hashtags or SEO on YouTube (descriptions/tags) to increase findability. - Paid promotion: If you have budget, you can boost posts on Facebook or do content discovery ads (like Outbrain/Taboola) or promote tweets, etc., to get content in front of targeted people. Even Google Ads can promote a high-value content piece (some do this to get sign-ups or retarget later). - Engage: When you post content, be present to respond to comments or questions. That engagement helps algorithms and also builds community. If someone comments “Great article!” reply “Thanks, glad it helped! Let me know if you have any questions.” If they comment something critical or ask a tough question, respond professionally – that shows you’re attentive and can even turn a skeptic into a fan by being responsive. - Collaboration: Consider guest blogging (you write an article for another site – includes your bio/link, exposing you to their audience) or vice versa. Or do content swaps (feature each other). Partnering can accelerate your reach.
6. Adjust and Improve (Analytics)
After doing content for a bit, review what’s working and what’s not: - Which blog posts got the most traffic or shares? Make more of those, or update them regularly (Google likes fresh content). Perhaps expand that topic into a series or an eBook. - Which content converted to leads best? E.g., maybe your “Ultimate Guide” PDF got tons of signups. That’s a sign people crave that deep info – consider doing more or driving more traffic to it. - Check time on page or drop-off in videos. If people only watch 20% of your video and then leave, maybe the intro is too long – you can adapt your style. - If certain channels yield little despite effort (e.g., you tweet and tweet but get no engagement, while LinkedIn gets some traction), focus more where it’s working. But also consider maybe you need to tailor approach per channel (the same content might need different framing). - Solicit feedback: Ask your audience occasionally, “Hey, what topics would you like us to cover next?” or “Which of our weekly newsletter sections do you enjoy most?” They’ll tell you, and that’s gold. - Keep an eye on competitors: Are they doing something new with content that seems to work? (E.g., starting a podcast that’s gaining traction). Doesn’t mean chase every trend, but be aware and adapt if needed.