Monthly Archives: July 2015

Your Step-by-Step Plan to a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

Step 6. Measure and Refine Your Marketing

Last but not least, you’ve set your goals, you’ve developed content, you’re promoting your content—now, you need to measure your results and refine your process, if necessary.

When you set your goals, you determined the metrics you wanted to hit (i.e. how many signups or sales you want), now you need to measure them. You might decide to use tools such as Google Analytics for page traffic or Hootsuite for social media analytics. Regardless of what you use, you’ll need to first identify the tools that will be most useful and beneficial for measurement purposes.

Finally, you’ll need to establish how often you’ll measure results and refine you content (if necessary). You might decide to monitor social media every day, so you can adjust your content quickly. For your videos, you might decide to monitor them weekly or monthly, depending on how often you put them up. The more frequently you monitor performance, the more easily you and your team can adjust the content so it hits your mark in a timely manner.

Content Marketing Strategy Tip

Make it a habit to regularly monitor your performance and get into a routine of generating content marketing reports. They can be used with your team, with management to share your marketing success, and as a benchmark for future goals.

Now that you have a comprehensive content marketing strategy guide, start building your strategy. It will take some time now, but you’ll reap the benefits in the long run.

Last Week: Step Five – Create a Promotion Process

Your Step-by-Step Plan to a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

Step 5. Create a Promotion Process

Your content is now finished and ready to promote, so you’ll need to create a content promotion process that tells your team when, where, and how often to promote it. Not all content is created equal or is equally as useful, so you’ll need to keep that in mind when promoting.

Of all the pieces of the promotion process, the most important is the “where”. These days, one of the most popular promotion channels is social media. There are three distinct promotion opportunities with social media: owned, earned, and paid.

Owned social media refers to using your own social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.) to drive traffic back to your website or content. This promotion is free, because it comes from your following. By creating and sharing great content, you can create a community where your audience returns time and time again. In order to capitalise on owned social media promotion, you need to know who your followers are and what they like to engage with.

Earned social media is similar to word of mouth and refers to the likes, shares, and comments your content gets from other social media users. These unaffiliated users are voluntarily sharing your content and helping your promotion. This allows you to reach a wider audience without paying for that reach. Earned social media is valuable for content with broad appeal, and is invaluable for driving brand awareness.

Paid social media is when you pay for ads or promotion on social media platforms. By paying to advertise posts or content, you can target a specific audience and increase your reach. Through this method, you’re focusing on targeting the right people at the right time. This is valuable for new lead generation and will help you achieve new signups and sales.

For variety and added success, consider these other types of content promotion as well:

• Email Marketing: You’ll need to collect emails or subscribers, but it’s a great way to get your content into the hands of your target audience.
• SEO Optimisation: Make sure your content is search engine optimised so it ranks higher on Google. This will drive traffic to your website or content.
• Search Ads or Display Ads: Buying high placement in search is still a widely-used tool for promotion. More and more people are utilising search ads and shifting away from display ads.
• Influencer Marketing: When you ask or pay an influencer or someone with a high following to mention or promote your content, this is considered influencer marketing. This is a useful and growing tactic, but you’ll have to test it to see how effective it is for you. You will likely experience different results with different influencers, but the only way to find out is to try.

Content Marketing Strategy Tip

The only way to discover what works best for you or your business is to test it. Try each method and take note of how your audience identifies.

Last Week: Step Four – Create a Content Execution Plan

Last But Not Least: Step Six – Measure and Refine Your Marketing

Your Step-by-Step Plan to a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

Step 4. Create a Content Execution Plan

Once you’ve determined the type of content you’re going to create, you’ll need to put together a content schedule or execution plan.

This is a step-by-step plan of how your idea will turn into a final product that is promoted.

So, what does an execution plan include?

It includes a schedule, an idea or brainstorming process, a project brief, and a chain of command.

Schedule

You’ve already identified what you’re trying to achieve with your content, so now you need to identify how much content you need.

Do you want to create two blog posts a day or a week? Do you require one video a week or a month?

Build your content schedule and make sure your team has a copy. The earlier the lead time, the more time your team will have to create quality content, and, remember, quality is crucial!

Idea/Brainstorm

You should delegate who will be responsible for coming up with ideas and how often.

Keep submissions open, however, so that anyone can submit an idea. You never want team members to keep ideas to themselves because they’re not the designated content curator.

Outline the process from where ideas are taken to who approves them. 

Project Brief

If more than one person is involved in creating the piece, you might want to create a clear and concise brief to avoid back-and-forth.

Create a brief template and share it with your team, so it’s available to content creators.

Chain of Command

Create a chain of command for content creation.

For example, each piece might go from the writer to the copyeditor to the designer or videographer to the manager and then back to the writer for any necessary changes.

Maybe you don’t want a lengthy process, therefore, a piece will simply go from the writer to the copyeditor to the team lead.

Regardless, make sure people know where they fit in the process and what their responsibilities are.

Content Marketing Strategy Tip

Choose a font that matches the message you want to portray and that is easy to read across devices. Don’t rely solely on stock images you find online, because chances are they’ve already been used.

If you don’t have the resources to hire a photographer to take some shots you can use in your content, watch a couple of quick tutorials and take some of your own.

Also, make sure that your content isn’t filled with calls to action and keywords; make sure it’s relevant and helpful.

Last Week: Step Three – Determine Content Types for Your Business

Next Week: Step Five – Create a Promotion Process

Your Step-by-Step Plan to a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

Step 3. Determine Content Types for Your Business 

Once you’ve established your goals and target audience, determine which type of content is most effective for your business.

Below are examples of marketing goals that align with business goals:

Goal: Increase your brand awareness in key markets

You should create content with broad appeal. It should showcase your expertise, but help a wide range of people, not only those who use your products or services.

Useful content types include:

• Videos such as a Directors Market Update
• Case studies or client testimonials/success stories
• Culture-jacking content for mass appeal (“culture jacking” means taking a widespread cultural event and timing a response to it. For example, after Europe’s horse meat scandal, Mini Cooper put out an advertisement with a picture of a Mini Cooper that read, “Beef. With a lot of horses hidden in it.”)
• Practitioner blog content (“practitioner blog content” is in direct contrast to “theorist blog content.” When you have a large goal to accomplish, do you trust a theorist – someone who has great ideas, but hasn’t actually put them into practice – or a practitioner – someone who has already helped countless people accomplish the same goal you’re trying to. )

Goal: Drive traffic to your website

In order to drive traffic back to your website, you need easy-to-find content with strong ties to your industry or business.

Useful content types include:

• SEO-friendly blog content
• Property Highlight e.g ‘Investors Pick’ for properties that would suit investors
• Guest posts on popular industry blogs or sites
• Email campaigns or newsletters
• Video or Written Market Updates – Videos are a great way to be a step ahead of your competition
• Helpful Marketing Tips
• Legislation and Economy Updates
• Interesting Real Estate News e.g ‘New Record Sale in your Region’
• ‘Out and About’ stories along with images
• Local events and community information
• Social media ads targeted to your audience

Goal: Increase subscribers or signups

If you’re a real estate consultant who wants to increase subscribers to your property newsletter, you need to illustrate the benefits of receiving it (whether your audience is a buyer or potential seller) using a very clear call to action. 

• Targeted social media ad campaigns
• Easy to locate ‘Sign Up’ buttons on your website
• Printed marketing material
• Face to Face e.g At an Open Home let your clients know the benefits of subscribing to your newsletter
• Publishing thought leadership content on your site and in major publications

Goal: Drive people to a form fill or lead generation landing page

When you create content that is helpful enough, people will exchange their details for access to it. If you offer an irresistible incentive, they’re also more likely to provide their information.

Useful content types include:

• How to Guides & Helpful Tips
• Market Updates
• Contests/Giveaways
• Free Appraisals

Content Marketing Strategy Tip

In addition to meeting your business goals and catering content to your target audience, you’ll need to determine the type of content your marketing team is suited for. For example, if your team doesn’t have a videographer or someone who is skilled with video, and you can’t afford to hire one or outsource, video may not be the best content type. Make the content types that fit with your resources and skills the top priority.

Last Week: Step Two – Establish Your Content Target Audience

Next Week: Step Four – Create a Content Execution Plan

Your Step-by-Step Plan to a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

Step 2. Establish Your Content Target Audience 

Know your audience. A large part of creating your content marketing strategy is determining who you’re trying to reach. You’ll need to put together audience profiles or buyer personas that relate to your business goals, and use them to guide your content creation.

Gather as much detail as possible about your target audience. Listen to what’s happening on social media, especially in relation to your business or brand. This will help you determine the impact and success of your content. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Where does my target audience spend most of their time online (blogs, forums, social media platforms)? Then drill down even further – which blogs, which platforms, which forums?
• What types of content does my target audience share (format, type, length, source, tone)?
• How can I reach my target audience in the best and most effective way (advertising, search, or organic social media)?

Ok, so let’s see how this plays out in an example. If one of your content marketing goals is to increase sales or leads, you may want to create a specific buyer persona. Profile your buyers to know what they look like and what content reels them in.

Are they an employee or an executive? Will they be an individual, a family, a small business, or a corporation? Will they be on social media or will an email campaign be the best way to reach them? What are their goals, and does your content help them achieve those goals?

Content Marketing Strategy Tip

Traditional advertising is inefficient for some, because it doesn’t target potential clients based on certain traits or interests. Social media advertising is a solution to that inefficiency, because you can target your niche audience based on interests, hobbies, demographics, and more.

• Facebook is an excellent platform for targeting your audience by interest or demographic
• Twitter is a strong tool for targeting networks
• LinkedIn is great for targeting people by career or industry

Last Week: Step One – Set Content Marketing Goals Relative to Business Goals

Next Week: Step Three – Determine Content Types for Your Business

Over the course of July we are featuring our Step-by-Step Content Marketing Strategy, informing you how to create an effective content marketing strategy that saves you time.

Over the next 5 weeks we will be covering the following steps:

1. Set Content Marketing Goals Relative to Business Goals
2. Establish Your Content Target Audience
3. Determine Content Types for Your Business
4. Create a Content Execution Plan
5. Create a Promotion Process
6. Measure and Refine Your Marketing

We wonder if some day far into the future, the generations before us will refer to the “social media age” the way we refer to the “dark ages.” We can’t deny it – we’re living in an age where social media is the new marketing frontier, and we’re all content publishers trying to claim our stake in it.

As businesses turned publishers, we’re all searching for a steady stream of relevant, useful, and impactful content. We know what we need – that’s the easy part. The hard part is creating content that resonates with our audience and drives traffic back to our website, which eventually results in a sale which results in profit. That’s the goal.

So, how does a real estate consultant use content successfully?

A content marketing strategy is your guiding light in planning, preparing, promoting, and measuring your content. You will, undoubtedly, spend more time creating a content marketing strategy up front, but you’ll save time and effort in the long run. This strategy will also help you identify whether your content has the right impact on your clients and potential clients.

When real estate agents utilise content marketing strategies, their overall workload is reduced and their content is more effective. In order to get to that point, however, you’ll need to think through the process and determine your goals and objectives, which is why we’ve put together a step-by-step plan to guide you through this process.

Your Step-by-Step Plan to a Successful Content Marketing Strategy

Step 1. Set Content Marketing Goals Relative to Business Goals

Every piece of content you create and commit to should have a clear purpose and align with your overall business goals and objectives.

So, ask yourself this: What is it that I am trying to accomplish with this piece of content?

Here are some examples of content marketing objectives to consider:

• Drive customers back to my website
• Drive customers to my open houses
• Increase brand awareness
• Increase subscribers to my property newsletter
• Drive clients to enquire about my current properties for sale or about my services as a real estate agent

Take note that none of these objectives amount to likes, favorites, shares, or retweets. These metrics are called “vanity metrics,” because they’re really surface-level measurements. It’s so important to have your strategy align with your broader business goals. This forces you to think of content with business measurements – such as traffic, leads, and sales – in mind.

When you set social media goals that align with business goals you can prove the value (or lack thereof) of your efforts to stakeholders and investors, especially if they’re skeptical about social media and content marketing.

Once you’ve set your goals, break them down into the steps you’ll need to take to achieve them. This ensures every piece of content you put out aligns with your goals. When you or your content creators know what you want to accomplish on a larger scale, you’re empowered, and your team is empowered to create pieces that help you reach your objectives.

Content Marketing Strategy Tip

When you’re coming up with content ideas, don’t approach the process thinking, how will this help me achieve x, y, z; or how will this help me achieve {x} goal? Approaching content creation this way limits creativity. Instead, brainstorm great and useful content ideas and tie them back to your business goals. This will help you adjust your content, so that it achieves your objectives while still being creative and impactful.

Next Week: Step Two – Establish Your Content Target Audience