Starting with content marketing is not easy. Starting with anything is not easy. One needs to have a plan and well-laid steps. Similarly with content marketing, one needs to strategize from where to start, whom to target, which channels to use, and much more. A strategy in place is very much of a requirement to get you good results and conversions in content marketing.

1) Define your Goals/ Objective

Defining why you are creating a particular content is important. One can start creating content due to various reasons like;

a) A school student creating content on a social media platform for fun
b) A chef creating cookery videos to promote his courses.
c) A business creating a website to create awareness of its products or services
d) A freelancer creating new letters and promoting to get prospective clients.

You see there are various reasons to create content and there are different goals for creating those content types. So, the first step is to define your goals as to why a particular content is being created, and what is the vision behind marketing your content.

To get better revenue
Reduce marketing costs
Creating awareness

2. Who is your audience?

The second step is to know your audience and your niche. Creating content all around different topics can backfire on your content game. Having clear goals and an audience to target is necessary. If your business revolves around beauty products creating content around beauty could be a better idea rather than fashion and lifestyle. Similarly, if you are a travel blogger, your audience will love to hear your travel stories, the best places to visit, and similar topics. Know your audience and create content for them. Knowing about the demographics can help you to frame and target your content better.

3. Identify your Content Type and channel

The type of content that you could use for your content marketing strategy could be a game changer. There are multiple content types; memes, blogging, short videos, images, podcasting, email, social media, and infographics. Your content could use multiple types as well as a single type. The decision will depend upon your budget, team size, familiarity with different content types/ channels, and expertise.

4. Analysis

Once you start publishing your content on different channels the next step is to analyze. How much is the viewership, how much is the engagement, and how much is the conversion? A good analysis could help to scale your business and work on your pain points.

5. Working on the pain points and your USP

An analysis will give you some golden insights into what is working well, and what is going wrong. There will be some topics that will be getting good views and engagement and then there will be some topics with almost nil views. Finding the cause behind low engagement and creating content with high engagement could help you create more good content.

Knowing the correct strategy to ace your content marketing is not easy but nor is it hard. Good SEO optimization, analysis, and creating quality content for your niche audience could help you scaling business.