What Is Content Marketing? Why Is Content King? How Do You Create a Content Strategy?

The phrase "Content is King" has become a mantra in the content marketing world. It sounds so simple, and yet what does it really mean? And how can you develop an effective content strategy?

The "content is king" concept emerged as Google's search engine algorithms matured, blogs with relevant, interesting content achieved notoriety, and companies with high-quality inbound marketing campaigns and an engaging social media presence cultivated true customer loyalty. The bottom line is that high-quality content gets shared. If you want more visibility for your brand, you need high-quality content across multiple content marketing channels. Content is king.

Okay, but what content should you produce, and where?

Content is everything you post and publish - every blog post, article, email, video, slide presentation, LinkedIn interaction, and tweet. All of these pieces of content form a picture of what your business is about and why your potential clients might want to work with you.

Content marketing often strikes fear in the hearts and minds of entrepreneurs and C-level executives alike. If you feel some trepidation about your own content marketing efforts, you're not alone. These are some common reasons why people are afraid to fully engage in content marketing:

• It's overwhelming. There are so many tools to learn and master.
• It feels like you need to be everywhere at once.
• You feel "exposed."
• You fear that your content will be poor quality or contain errors.
• You worry you will start a blog or email marketing campaign and not keep up with it.
• You feel left behind.

How to Create a Content Strategy and Establish Effective Content Marketing Activities
To succeed with your own content marketing, the first step is to get strategic. When you create a content strategy, you will have a road map to follow. You will feel far less overwhelmed.

Here are some content strategy tips to help you get on track:

1. Assess your current content marketing efforts. What is working? What needs improvement?


2. Identify every type of content your company produces and how often. Is it scheduled or sporadic? What content marketing channels would you like to add to your content strategy?


3. Google a range of topics related to your company's niche, products, and services. What companies show up in those searches? What are they doing well? Do they have a company blog? Is their website content customer-focused and easy to navigate? Is there a good lead capture system on their home page? Have they incorporated video? Is all of their social media in place and visible?


4. Evaluate your customer base. Who are your best customers? What problems do they have? How do you solve them?


5. Create a complete laundry list of problems you solve and topics you can cover in your content.


6. Layout an "editorial calendar" with the frequency you want to post or publish social media updates, blog posts, newsletters, articles, videos, press releases and so on.


7. Identify the staff members who will be responsible for each type of content. If your staff lacks the capabilities or time to produce your content, identify which pieces you need to outsource, and who is responsible for talent scouting.


8. Define the voice and personality of your business. What adjectives describe the tone that should carry through all of your content? Is it serious? Edgy? Light-hearted? Authoritative?


9. Research your keywords. Using a tool such as the Google keyword research tool, find keyword phrases for your business niche that many people are searching for, and that have low competition from PPC campaigns. For each piece of content you publish, identify two or three targeted keyword phrases to use, and incorporate them into headings and copy.


10. Put quality control measures in place. How will you ensure that all of your content is consistently high quality? Do you have editorial oversight in place? Who will prove your blog posts, email newsletters, and other content prior to submission?


11. Establish regular staff editorial meetings to review your editorial calendar, the roles and responsibilities, the keyword phrases and "personality" that should be infusing all of your content, and the effectiveness of your campaigns. Review what types of content get the most interaction from your clients and social media community and refine your strategy to do more of the same.

It sounds like a lot. But when you create a fine-tuned content strategy and put your strategic content marketing measures in place, it will galvanize your team, shape up your company image, improve your search engine rankings, and dramatically enhance the quality of your content. And these activities will then lead to more engagement with your community, which will bring you more business.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Jayna_Locke/37273

P.S.

We would love to let you know about our Content Marketing Starter-Kit & our Conquer Your Content System. This system has been proven to increase reach, engagements, and followers. It also helps bring in new customers EVERY MONTH! 

Gain clarity on your target audience, a downloadable and editable 6-month content calendar as well as a guide on how to set up the PERFECT content strategy for each month! 

Do yourself a favor & LEARN MORE about the Conquer Your Content System  & Content Marketing Starter-Kit 

How to make Videos for Business: Content Strategy

How To Write Great Content – Content Marketing For Your Blog, Website, Or Ads

Content Writing and Content Curation - What's the Difference?

There is a new term on the internet content horizon; it is content curation. Those who are regularly into creating and managing web content will surely have heard of this term by now. For the uninitiated, content curation is compilation and editing of the already existing content on the web.

In effect, curating content involves recycling content in an intelligent and efficient manner for use on a fresh web page. Of course, curating content is completely ethical when the proper references and links are provided to the original source. But, it cannot replace content writing, contrary to some beliefs.

One has to remember that it is possible to curate content only when original and well-written content is present on the web. Original content can be produced only through conventional content writing (which is best done by professional content writing services.

What content curation does?

As said above, content curation is a compilation of the best available data on the web. It enables you to know the current trends on the internet, makes you aware of the changes pertaining to your industry and keeps you abreast of all the information. Curating content gives you the status quo of your field of interest. This can be very important because creating articles without knowing the pulse of the web can be a wasteful exercise.

If you are looking to expand your business through internet marketing, then content curating can be of critical importance in making you understand the sentiments and requirements of the target clientele. Knowing the kind of information that brings in the maximum visits allows you to design your content along with similar parameters.

What content curation does not do?

Content curation gives you good articles, good information and keeps you on par with the best information available on the internet. But, try as you may, it cannot give you an identity.

However deftly done, a product of content curation still owes its origin to some other webpage. So, whoever visits your webpage will actually be reading another page, if your article is curated. It might look good, but ultimately you want your business to grow and for that, you need to establish an original identity, which makes you unique. Uniqueness is granted only through the original and professional content writer.

Do I need curation?

It might look as if it is only for those who do not have original ideas. No, content curation can be used constructively. The amount of information on the web is mind-numbing and it is impossible to keep track of everything through old fashioned searches. If you want to keep a tab on every piece of information relating to your business, then curation techniques can be of great help. They will keep you up to date.

The right balance!

It is not a question of balance at all. You need not use content curation and content writing interchangeably. Curation can serve as a gentle pointer or an indicator of the right kind of content. But, ultimately, producing the content that fulfills those requirements as well as carries your identity is the forte of content writing.

Remember, content curation is only a tool that may help in producing the right kind of content. Moreover, if you feel writing unique, original articles are taking a toll on your core business activity, you can consider hiring a content writing service.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Raj_Bokdia/1267949

P.S.

We would love to let you know about our Content Marketing Starter-Kit & our Conquer Your Content System. This system has been proven to increase reach, engagements, and followers. It also helps bring in new customers EVERY MONTH! 

Gain clarity on your target audience, a downloadable and editable 6-month content calendar as well as a guide on how to set up the PERFECT content strategy for each month! 

Do yourself a favor & LEARN MORE about the Conquer Your Content System  & Content Marketing Starter-Kit 

Website Content and Social Sharing

Business owners and marketers use Content Marketing to build their business, but in many cases, a great blog article or website page falls flat and does not generate enough traffic for the amount of time invested into the article. This article will explain how to avoid this mistake in website marketing.

Blogging and Content Marketing

Imagine that you have invested all your energy in an amazing piece of content that you plan on posting to your company's website or blog. You post it, and then nothing. Absolutely nothing happens.

So how do you socialize your most valuable content? Assuming that you have truly valuable educational content that people are going to love and share and that is free of hype, this is going to work.

Why is it that great content is not shared with people? Because we are lazy. Yes, it is as simple as that. Unless it is made effortless, people are not going to share your content on their social networks. You need to embed social sharing in key strategic locations in your content. Make it so that people can click one button with one action and share your content on networks like Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn.

Social sharing can be embedded in a blog post, an e-mail, and even a.pdf file. But if people have to craft their own headline and create their own tweet, people are not going to do it. Just imagine if only ten people sharing your content with their friends. If your content is really good people are going to want to share your content with other people. This results in enormous amounts of free traffic.

Social share buttons with a graphic that represents the four major social media networks-Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+, which make it so all that is needed is 'one' click, make your content's visibility grow exponentially. If people can easily share your great content, they will. "Easily" is the keyword.

Content Marketing and the Power of Blogs

What do you say to people that say blogging is dead? The problem is that we are defining article marketing the wrong way. A blog is just a way to format information. One company can have four or five different blogs. So, when someone says that blogging is dead, it is absolutely not true. What could be a more accurate description of the evolution of content marketing is that the old strategy of blogging has moved into a new era-social sharing, and blogging can be a vehicle at which great content is shared on the four major social media networks - Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.

If your singular goal is to teach people better than anyone else in the world, and you put that information into a blog format, you will be successful. It happens in every industry. Good teaching will never be dead.

Website or Blog as a Destination

Social media is not in your control. All it takes is for Facebook to make one change, and everything you have invested in your social media campaign can be potentially no longer profitable. Your investment can be wasted and go down the drain. So, to protect your business from this, keep your website or blog as your "destination" at which you channel your visitors. Yes, it is great if visitors visit your Facebook Page, but in the long run, your business will benefit more if the final destination is your company's website or blog. Because from there, you can channel visitors to your call-to-action.

Keep Your Destiny in your Own Control

What is the best way to protect your company from wasting investments of content on social media? One word-control.

Companies go out of business every day because they invest everything in their social media campaigns instead of investing in quality content in a blog or website. The ultimate destination that you want to drive your visitors towards should be your blog or website. So, instead of putting all your eggs into social media, invest in great content that is posted on your website or your blog. The articles that you write, you will use forever and your content will always help in your ability to communicate with your prospects and existing clients. You can use that content on a blog, in an e-mail marketing campaign, or you can use that content to share on your social media platforms. That content is yours and you can use it forever. Use and build upon your library of great content because there is the power behind producing content. The effect it has on a business and the employees, a brand and their call center is affected in the long run with quality articles that are written by a business owner (or a quality ghostwriter) who strives to teach and be the best teacher in their field.

Content Marketing, Your Articles, and Your Business Website

What is content marketing exactly? Content marketing is teaching people through text, audio or video about whatever it is you do. Content marketing is the theme of your quality, originally written articles and the basis of which your online marketing campaign will build upon. We have a name for great teaching and whether it is a blog, a YouTube video, or an e-mail marketing campaign-all this includes content that we are producing and pushing out the masses. Content marketing is huge and a strong part of building businesses on the Internet today.

Blog and Website Traffic

A lot of people believe that if you build it they will come. This is not always the case.

By using content marketing, many companies have saved their business after the recession started. Radio, TV, print, and Google Adwords are expensive advertising tools, so smart companies have taken every single question that they have heard from a customer or prospective customer, and turned that question into a title of a blog post. A great content marketer or blogger says "If they ask, I am going to answer". A great business owner knows the value of content marketing and blogging. By providing this quality content that was asked, it should be on your website or blog somewhere. Within a matter of hours or days, your website can benefit from one single, quality well-written article. This can be achieved by just writing an article about something that a customer or prospect has asked. In sales, you often answer the same questions over and over again. Great content can shorten the sales cycle and increase profit. By shortening the sales cycle, you are able to save time on sales calls and, sometimes even close a deal over the phone rather than traveling to a prospect's home or business. Believe it or not, people read about a product or service in huge quantitates, well in advance before making a large purchase. With quality content on your website or blog, visitors will explode, leads will explode, and more people spend more time on your site so that your prospects are more prepared when your sales representatives start the sales cycle. Content is the most powerful sales tool in the world (when used properly). Shortening the sales cycle is the goal.

Service-based businesses and any business in any industry can benefit from this sales and marketing technique. You can reach price agreements with shoppers in a faster amount of time just by teaching your prospects through great content that answers questions that people ask. By becoming the best teacher in your industry or in your city or town, the principle of communication and great teaching, two parties will fall in love with you-Google and search, which means your website or blog will have a huge increase in traffic! And real people will be more interested in your product or service because you have taken the time to generate great content that answers their questions. Your prospects will appreciate you for being sincere and transparent. By providing the type of content that people in the past were not able to get, you gain trust and sales prospects.

What is Great Content?

You must acknowledge that all content is not created equally.

What is great content? Great content is written like a person speaks. Talk to the reader like they don't know what you are talking about. Acronyms and words that no one has ever heard of can hurt your content. Talk to your readers like they have no idea what you are talking about. And answer questions that on one else does. Talk about things that no one in your industry talks about. For example, many companies shy away from listing prices on their website or blog, so they just avoid the subject. Instead, embrace the subjects that no one else has the courage to embrace. Write about the tabu subjects. For example, you don't have to list exact prices. You can be vague with prices, while at the same time addressing the question that people looking for your product or service are interested in. By doing so, you make your company stand out from your competitors.

Ostrich Marketing

Some people think that a common problem or question will go away or not come up and that people will not notice if your company just doesn't mention it. This could not be further from the truth. People do notice! That is why this is called the Information Age. People know everything about you so you should not hide anything. Be open and transparent in your marketing and your clients will appreciate you for it. When you meet with a client for the first time, you want that prospect to feel like they have known you for a long time because they have read your articles or listened to your podcasts. Speak in everyday, conversational language. One way to do that is to pick up your smartphone and record yourself speaking out an entire article, then transcribe it yourself. Eliminate the marketing message from your content and answer questions, and your content will go further. It's called a blog, not brag. You can brag on your website, but on your blog-don't brag, but instead teach. Yes, include a call-to-action, but in the long run, an article on your blog is a teaching instrument.

Website Articles and Your Business Revenue

Connect an article to revenue. How does a company connect its blog to business results?

On your website, people can fill out forms and analytics track where the people that filled out the form or placed an order came from. With analytics, you will know where those people originated. HubSpot is one popular analytics tool. Google Analytics is a great one and it is free. When your sales team is aware of the content that you as a business owner have produced, it provides your sales team with another tool in their arsenal and gives them the vehicle of which they can teach. By following up with a sales lead, you can reach out and follow up with a prospect and answer a question that they had previously raised. Follow up with leads with an e-mail that includes a link to an article or video that answers their question, wait a few days-then follow up again. Every sales representative should be an active participant in the company blog because the sales team knows which questions are asked and the blog is the vehicle at which those questions can be answered.

Teaching as a Sales Technique

Each employee can be a teacher.

Content marketing is a culture and we can all be teachers. In many companies, one silo is the sales department and one silo is the marketing department. They don't communicate and the content marketing cycle is broken. By including the sales team in the generation of your blog content, you merge the two departments. Your brand and blog will benefit and the culture of the company with merge into one environment that has a common theme. By making each employee a teacher, everyone in the company merges together into a common culture rather than separate silos.

What is the tipping point?

A tipping point is the magic number of page views that are required for a visitor to stay on your site. If you really study your analytics, you can learn your tipping point and learn how to make your closing rates go up. If visitors read the pages above that magic number, you are able to increase your closing rate. Conversely, if the visitor reads fewer than that magic number, then the closing rate reduces. Every industry has a tipping point and every service industry has it too. This principle applies to the market online. If someone spends enough time on your site, they will eventually become a customer.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Stephanie_Rosendahl/223042

P.S.

We would love to let you know about our Content Marketing Starter-Kit & our Conquer Your Content System. This system has been proven to increase reach, engagements, and followers. It also helps bring in new customers EVERY MONTH! 

Gain clarity on your target audience, a downloadable and editable 6-month content calendar as well as a guide on how to set up the PERFECT content strategy for each month! 

Do yourself a favor & LEARN MORE about the Conquer Your Content System  & Content Marketing Starter-Kit 

What Makes Good Content? 4 Tips for Making Great YouTube Content

How to Plan a MONTH of Social Media Content in 60 Minutes (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc!)

Free and Easy Content Marketing Tools for Busy Small Business and Site Owners

The first phase of internet marketing was "SEO", then came "Social Media Marketing". Today's internet marketing buzzword is "Content Marketing".

"Another 'New Thing?' I'm Tired Of New Things!"

I know what you're thinking, "Great, another new internet marketing concept that I have to learn. I just bought MySpace wallpaper!"

We hear you, this discipline can be exhausting. The "new" things never stop. It's as though the internet never sleeps!

Content Examples

In the old days, Content was simply the articles in newspapers or stories in magazines. Content is what makes a publication worth reading. Content has been the backbone of media and advertising since before the internet.

Today, Content is the copy on your website, your blog posts, articles, videos, and PDFs. Basically, it's the stuff the search engine spiders crawl and the material your viewers read, download and watch.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content Marketing is using content for promotional purposes. Have you seen those boxes of text in magazines that look like mini articles? Those are called "advertorials". They're informational and usually written by experts, but they're paid for by an advertiser and they're written to get you to take action. Advertorials have been effective Content Marketing tools for over a hundred years.

You Are Already Content Marketing

Content Marketing is not really new. Chances are you're already doing Content Marketing as part of your SEO and Social Media marketing efforts. "Content" is simply the stuff you share when you Like, Tweet or Blog. It's the videos you submit to YouTube and it's the practice of uploading your articles to article directories.

Content Syndication

Content syndication is loaning out the content you've created to other outlets to get more exposure and to help other media fill their space. Examples of content syndication are the Associated Press articles that appear in news sites or in your local newspaper.

Benefits of Content Syndication

Since creating content is time-consuming and labor-intensive it's great to spread it as far and efficiently as possible. But finding guest blogging opportunities and submitting articles and videos to directories is time consuming and there's no guarantee they'll ever be seen.

Sharing your content with people who have expressed an interest in it is much more effective because these people are seeking this type of material in order to share it with interested viewers. This is the benefit of Content Syndication.

Safely Syndicate Your Content

Repost.us is a free service that automatically makes your pages and blog posts available to other publishers who may wish to share it.

The most important feature of their service is that it syndicates your content so that it can't be changed by the next user. All your text, photos and links are encoded so that when they are embedded in another site they remain exactly as they appear in your site.

In fact, if you make any changes or updates to your pages or posts those changes will immediately appear on all the other sites where your content is already embedded!

This isn't the case when you share your content on article directories because there's always the possibility a publisher will remove your links or change your material. Also, article directories don't accept photos but photos on your site's content remain when they are shared on third party sites that embed your content via repost.us.

Content Sharing Plugins Available For Most Platforms

Repost.us has tools for WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, TypePad, Drupal (and more platforms) that will make your on-site content available through the Repost.us website and through the dashboard of other users who have the Repost.us software on their websites.

Publishers with the Repost.us plugin (or addon, etc) installed will automatically see a stream of available articles in their admin area/dashboard. But not just any articles, the plugin tool actually offers content related to the other content on the host site.

Complete Share Statistics and Control

In your area of Repost.us website, you can see how many times your content has been shared, how many impressions it has gained and even the sites where it exists. You can also block a site from embedding your material.

Have multiple sites? You can share and track multiple sites under one Repost.us account while maintaining separate statistics for each one.

Makes Content Curation Easy

Although every webmaster engaged in marketing is encouraged to blog and write articles to keep their site fresh and attract visitors the reality is not everyone has the time.

Another aspect of adding fresh material is a way to bring your readers (and search engines) a variety of voices.

This has lead to the popularity of "Content Curation" which is simply picking an interesting variety of other people's material to share on your site. Repost.us makes this simple because you'll always have access to plenty of related articles from writers willing to share.

Here are some advantages of using Repost.us:

• Easily make your content available to other publishers in related niches
• Find potential new products and business partners
• Keep an eye on competitors
• Keep up with industry products, players and news
• Easily add a new variety of voices and topics to your blog or site with Content Curation

Things To Be Aware Of

What's the catch? There's a lot of advertising. If your site is not ad-heavy, the articles you get from Repost.us will usually contain one or two square (250 x 250) ads.

But the ads shown are related to the material so they usually seem to fit in fine with the content and it's a small price to pay for such a great free service.

Competitors See You (And You See Them)

But actually here are couple things to keep in mind - competitors in the same niche will also see exactly what you're posting as soon as you put it out there and can easily copy your idea if not your content. But since you'll be publishing first on your own site (a Content Marketing Best Practice) they could have found it there anyway.

And of course, this is an easy way for you to keep tabs on articles in your industry too. But in our opinion, you might as well put it all out there because it's going to get found anyway. And isn't that the point of being online?

How To Get More From Repost.us

Make New Acquaintances, Build Alliances

The fact that the related posts they suggest are very accurate makes it a great way to find new potential partners you can work with to cross-sell, guest post, create an affiliate relationship with, cross-promote to each other's email list or work together in another way.

Add Links To Your Other Content From Articles You Embed (Curate)

It's actually possible to add text and links to the bottom of the Repost.us articles you put on your site - though it's not possible to change the content within the article, (nor do we think it would be ethical do so).

This presents a good opportunity to interlink your pages by adding a link to another page of your site that's related to the topic. It's usually a good idea to add a paragraph or two of text with the link.

We always do this respectfully by writing, "Thanks to [author name] for the great guest post above" to make it clear the new material is ours. Then we include a few thoughts of our own on the topic and at the end say something like, "For more information about [topic] see [page on our website]".

Use Your Google Authorship

Include your first and last name on your content and be sure you are signed up for Google Authorship to increase the quantity and variety of sites with which you're associated.

Two Plugins To Get More Out Of Repost.us

Social Essentials is a WordPress plugin that helps you maximize the exposure and traffic from content you share via repost.us because it embeds your social media share buttons on the bottom of the content that gets shared on other sites.

The Related Content plugin will automatically place links to related stories on your site at the bottom of the posts you embed (curate). This will help keep visitors on your site.

How Do Search Spiders See The Content?

Some say search engine spiders can't see the text embedded, but when we run tests using search engine spider simulators the text appears to be visible to the spiders.

This repost.us tool is one of the fastest, easiest and most effective ways to get your information, brand name, photos, infographics and links embedded on other sites and bringing in new viewers in related niches.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Peter_Semple/1450573

P.S.

We would love to let you know about our Content Marketing Starter-Kit & our Conquer Your Content System. This system has been proven to increase reach, engagements, and followers. It also helps bring in new customers EVERY MONTH! 

Gain clarity on your target audience, a downloadable and editable 6-month content calendar as well as a guide on how to set up the PERFECT content strategy for each month! 

Do yourself a favor & LEARN MORE about the Conquer Your Content System  & Content Marketing Starter-Kit 

How To Be Successful In Content Marketing As a Modern Content Creator

Get OFF Your Horse

First, let me ask you something, would you ride your horse into a new town-with your products, CDs, your art, your books, blog posts, or programs stuffed into the backpack strapped to your shoulders-and solicit your content door to door?

No. You wouldn't...

It would be random, borderline inappropriate, and the 1 or 2% of people that might purchase your content-wares would likely do it out of sympathy.

Even though many of us are inadvertently executing a similar strategy, there IS good news.

Just because your content marketing campaigns have failed to convert-doesn't mean you have a bad product, a poor service, or a curse from the universe!

It most likely means that your marketing funnel has failed to forge the connection and relationship needed to make the sale, even if the product or service is impressive and valuable enough to your prospect to consider purchasing your solution.

Regardless of what your selling, in the modern world, the "know, like, and trust" factor is more relevant than ever.

Just because you've got a product or service nestled away on a 3rd tier page covered in mediocre copy and checkout button, doesn't mean you have functional marketing and sales funnel.

This is where the Content Marketing Process comes in to lend a helping hand and play its part in taking your audience from interested prospects to loyal customers.

Content Marketing is how brands build an audience in the modern world. It is a CORE skill for Modern Content Creators, and if you are selling the content of any type or format, your content strategy and your content marketing better be solid if you want to compete in 2013 and beyond.

Understand that content marketing may sound like a new or faddish term. A trendy wave here today is gone tomorrow...

Although it's a buzz word bandwagon as of late, it is NOT a new concept, but the Modern World has leveled the playing field by providing the access and resources to accomplish what wasn't even humanly possible up until just recently, and it's taken a little while for everyone to catch up to the "content as currency" concept.

However, there is a big difference between the successful approaches and those that are not.

Two Approaches

There are only two direct approaches to selling your content online. (art, products, services, coaching, knowledge, advice, etc)

1) Send cold traffic directly to an offer... The end.

2) Send targeted traffic to valuable content and build an engaged audience through adding more value and nurturing a relationship, and then at some point transform them into loyal customers.

Route two is the name of the game.

That is the role of content marketing.

The 3 Shortcuts To Successful Content Marketing

Rather than point out where everyone goes wrong, I'll instead outline the highest leverage solutions or the biggest shortcuts that you can integrate into your projects, campaigns, and processes to make your efforts more successful.

1) Mindset- The first shortcut is to approach marketing your content with the right mindset.

The mentality you need to embrace is that of the Modern Content Creator, and all that inherently implies.

A. You are an Artist/Creator AND an Entrepreneur. You do the meaningful work, aligned with your purpose, and serves your loyal audience.

B. Everything from your mission and purpose, down to each project or campaign-begins with Clarity + Focus. This is always the starting point. Roles and responsibilities are defined so that you can clarify and focus on your highest value activities, and then maximize them with the highest leverage.

C. You are story-teller AND you are a publisher. As a Modern Content Creator, you are both the expert/journalist, AND you are the publisher of the magazine.

D. Content marketing is best thought of as a process. An ongoing conversation with your audience based on the creation and delivery of content that adds value to their lives.

E. Think simple yet sophisticated. He who can control and discipline his attention will find an audience that gives them theirs.

F. The tools are only as effective as your ability to use them. I think we can sort of take for granted sometimes just how awesome the power we have at our fingertips actually is...

I often hear a lot of talk about what the next NEW "thing" is going to be...

Some super technology or social network that instantly takes the world by storm.

While continuous advancements in science and technology and the cure for cancer are all exciting, spending time thinking about flying cars is a fruitless exercise.

It's not MORE technology we need, it's the need to use the tools we have BETTER.

Think in terms of mastery.

2) Message to Market Match

Content is relative, and being relevant is increasingly more difficult across our very noisy digital channels.

With the right mindset, your message to market match is the next most important thing you CAN'T get wrong.

Unfortunately, for some people, it will be easier to speak your audience's language than others. But the essence of what it means to be a Modern Content Creator is the evolved understanding of being both Creator/Artist, AND Entrepreneur.

This means that you are making, creating, providing things that are meaningful to you, but also valuable to others! A lot of the further leaning creative types I work with have to be reminded of the fact that there are an entire skillset and suite of entrepreneurial responsibilities that must be integrated and well managed if you want to find that beautiful balance of endless freedom and fulfillment doing what you love.

... You need to love what you do, and you ALSO need an audience who loves what you do for them!

The inherent CREATIVE faculties for Artist/Expert and Personal Brands can and should most DEFINITELY be applied in finding this balance, but understand that an "if you build it they will come attitude is dangerous."

Gotta provide value. Real value. Gotta know what that value is. This all requires understanding the most essential aspects of marketing, which is really just effective communication to a defined target audience or persona.

This phrase and every imaginable permutation are littered across the web. Perhaps because it is so very basic, and so often mentioned that many of us simply gloss over the inherent implications to making that statement actionable and quantified.

You've got to be thoroughly researched and involved in your market place. Period. You need to know who's who at the greatest level of depth to manage that tricky balance of listening to what your audience is saying, and understanding where you can add to the party, in a meaningful and well-positioned way.

• You need to know the positioning of those already active in your space so you can define YOUR Unique Value Positioning.

It's a balance, and it's the key to finding your voice, whether that's as an authority, or as a reporter or enthusiast...

If you haven't done in-depth market research, if you don't know the top blogs, games, forums, brands, gaps, in your market; then it's going to be MUCH harder to carve your own space effectively.

Blind stabs in the dark can sometimes pan out if you avoid the sharks, know the right people, and want to leave your career up to luck. I know that expert trainers/product creators who would consider themselves savvy to this and unconsciously point their nose up at those "ignorant artist/musician types," while they don't even really understand their market at the level I'm talking about.

You do NOT need to go this deep with your market to be successful. No. But when you do, there are literally MANY options and routes you could pursue because at that point you can see all the gaps, you KNOW the market and who's in it.

Now, if you're already an expert, as are most of my clients, then it's more a matter of dialing into the conversations and writing about the most valuable issues, concerns, solutions, that exist within your community.

It's not just about your own ideas, or simply writing about what you feel like writing about... Ideally, you'd bridge both so you are writing something meaningful for you, but that is first and foremost speaking to the persona you are intending to reach, and does so in a relevant and engaging way...

That sounds like such generic advice, but it's the name of the game. As Brian Clark from Copyblogger illustrated very elegantly in a recent interview I heard, it's more about listening to your audience, than talking at them.

3) Integrated Content Strategy: - Build an Intelligent Marketing Funnel

Just about every single one of my clients, upon initial intake, come to me with the following:

They've put up their information product, art, book, program, CD or service on an inner tier page (2-3-4) with some decent though mostly generic copy and pictures.

Their web traffic is marginal, not tracked, and has a strategy that's typically very leaky-if effectively defined or designed at all.

Now, I hope none of them take offense to this; I'm not saying it to rag on them, but to better illustrate my point for you. (they're going to be all JUST fine;)

But this is NOT an effective marketing funnel.

However, after answering the basic yet vital questions for determining what to say and who to say it to, identifying the best communication formats, selecting the right distribution channels, it's just test, measure, and refine...

I think it can be difficult to think in terms of a marketing sequence for many, and it takes a substantial amount of effort and energy for me to draw the sequences out in my head, transfer it onto paper and then implement it.

But the missing link for the majority that I can see is a lack of integrated strategy for thinking through and mapping out your marketing funnel and crafting the best, most effective USER experience you can.

This kind of visitor comes from this place, is taken to this place, then reads through this page, etc. etc.

As I mentioned earlier, but find it worth repeating; think simple yet sophisticated.

He who can control and discipline his attention will find an audience that gives them theirs.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Jamie_Leger/1204961

P.S.

We would love to let you know about our Content Marketing Starter-Kit & our Conquer Your Content System. This system has been proven to increase reach, engagements, and followers. It also helps bring in new customers EVERY MONTH! 

Gain clarity on your target audience, a downloadable and editable 6-month content calendar as well as a guide on how to set up the PERFECT content strategy for each month! 

Do yourself a favor & LEARN MORE about the Conquer Your Content System  & Content Marketing Starter-Kit 

Content Calendar for Social Media Marketing