Inbound marketing is all about attracting customers and creating valuable content. But putting together a solid plan to achieve just that isn’t always as easy as it looks. If you’re new to digital marketing or if you’re making key changes to your target market, below are a few ways to create a successful inbound content strategy.
Define Your Strategy
Before you set out to improve your inbound content strategy, you need to be clear about your goals and strategy first. Ask yourself why you are creating a content marketing plan to begin with. For example, are you creating a plan to generate leads? Are you trying to attract previous customers? Or are you aiming to improve your search engine ranking results?
Whatever the case, it’s important to determine what your goals are. With these laid out in detail, it will be much easier to produce the remainder of your strategy.
Research Your Audience
It goes without saying that creating a solid inbound content strategy requires that you know the wants and needs of your customer base. Even more than that, you should know who your audience is. To get a better understanding of them, do some market research to find out what sites your audience is visiting, what social media profiles they’re using, and what content they’re engaging with. In contrast, you can also hire an inbound marketing company like Greenstone media which will advise you on strategies that will increase customer awareness so that you can grow your business and make more money.
Focus on Your Niche
Like your audience, you’ll also want to focus on your niche. While it’s all well and good to know your audience, you’ll also need to produce content that is relevant and adds value. Too many businesses pump out generic content, only to get lost in the sea of other content already making its way across the digital landscape.
To ensure that you’re remaining competitive, make your niche as specific as possible. The more you narrow this down, the greater the chance you’ll have of being an authority in your field.
Brainstorm Content
Once you’ve established your niche and target audience, you’ll need to spend some time brainstorming content. Coming up with new ideas and topics over a long period can be challenging, so it’s worth exploring the key issues in your niche. Whether it’s asking your audience about topics they’re interested in or using an online tool such as Answer the Public to find out what people are searching for; brainstorming will save you time down the road.
Don’t Forget the Importance of a Blog
A blog is one of the most essential inbound tools as it is a way for you to showcase your niche content. Blogs are also great for boosting SEO and for establishing your authority in your industry. To get the most of your blog, ensure that you’re posting regularly and that the content is consistently high quality.
Keep Up with the Metrics
Once you’ve started your inbound content strategy, you’ll want to measure the results. While this can be a bit more challenging for those who are new to this, it is vital that you monitor your performance. Keep track of user metrics and analyze your user feedback. By determining what content your audience is engaging with, you’ll be able to provide value rather than churning out stuff they don’t want.