11 Basic Features of Content Marketing: A SmallBiz Insight
A Small Business Digital Media Presentation of Vermont Small Business Marketing Associates
@VSBmarketing | www.VSBMA.com
1. Your Website
In content marketing, your website is the hub for all your content.
Associated marketing and digital assets should direct people back to your hub.
People should engage with your content at your hub so you have the opportunity to give them a call to action.
Your Website
There are many call-to-action options that you can set up on your website.
- Subscribe to a newsletter- Enter a contest- Use a coupon- Contact a representative Focus on one strategic call to action at a time.
2. Social Media Networks
Social media networks (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest) work within your CMS to capture network users and direct them back to your hub.
Get to know different networks and discover how to create content that will capture network users.
3. Buyer Persona
A detailed overview of your target audience – called a buyer persona -- is a critical element of your CMS.
When you build this model of your target audience, it will show you what your target audience likes and needs, where they get their information, where they spend their time, and who their influencers are.
These details direct what kind of content you share and where you share it.
Buyer Persona
Note that a target audience may not be a group of buyers.
Sometimes, a target audience might be people who refer others to your business
Over time, you will want to build a buyer persona for all of your target audiences.
For more insight, check out the presentation Building A Buyer Persona for Content Marketing at the VSBMA.com How-To Center
4. Content Marketing Mission Statement
Writing a mission statement for the content in your strategy will give you direction when it’s time to decide what content to create and share.
A content marketing mission statement does not have to be fancy.
Your content mission statement may change for each of your target audiences.
5. Created Content
Content that you create and is original to your organization is the core of your CMS.
Your creative content process will grow throughout the lifetime of your CMS as you advance your technical skills and your understanding of how your target audience wants to receive information.
Created Content
At its most basic form, content is text and images or automated text and images.
Through the creative process, these basics take many forms and are deliverable through many formats, such as:audio, animation, video,blog,infographic, e-newsletter.
6. Curated Content
Content that is created by others can be a powerful connecting mechanism for your CMS. When you share content from other entities (i.e., curate content), you become more visible to those entities and their audience members.
Curate content and observe what audience members like and share.
Curated Content
As you curate the content of others, you will discover what kind of content is not available.
You can begin to fill that void with your own content so people will recognize you as an originator and trust you as a resource.
That trust will begin to translate into trust for your brand, and those people will be more likely to become customers or referrers.
For more insight, check out the presentation Aggregating Content with Paper.li on at the VSBMA.com How-To Center
7. Editorial Calendar
Of all the elements of your CMS, an editorial calendar could be the most critical to success.
Before launching your strategy, you should set out what content to share, how it will be created, who will create it, when they will create it, when it will be shared, and where it will be shared.
This process will help you be consistent and see when you are overwhelmed or have room to grow.
8. Statistics And Analytics
The more you track your content, who is engaging with it, when they engage with it, and what they like the most, the easier it will be to adjust your strategy and focus on activities that produce conversion to buying behavior.
Stats, such as likes, faves and shares, must be followed along the buying stages so you will understand which content is actually converting a like to a sale.
For more insight, check out the presentation Four ROIs of Social Networks for Content Marketing at the VSBMA.com How-To Center.
9. Keywords
Your business keywords and phrases will go a long way in your CMS to building a presence for your content in search engines.
Use your keywords and phrases regularly within your content and in association with a tag and hashtag strategy (see #10).
10. Tags And Hashtags
Making your keywords into tags and hashtags helps people find your content in the digital world. Keywords as tags should be used in your blog and in the social networks that feature tag technology, such as YouTube and SlideShare.
Similarly, keywords as hashtags should be used in social networks that feature hashtag capability, such as Twitter and Facebook.
For more insight, check out the presentation What’s A Hashtag Anyway? at the VSBMA.com How-To Center
11. Short Links
Sharing content from your website (e.g., a blog post) within social networks can be awkward when you use the original links created for your web pages. They are usually very long, which makes them visually unappealing within a post, and they may take up an excessive number of characters within character-limited networks, such as Twitter.
Use a URL shortener service, such as http://goo.gl to make short links from your original links.
Short Links
URL shortener providers, such as http://goo.gl, also include a tracking feature. When you use a short URL in a post, you will be able to see how many people click through to your content. You can use a different short URL for the same page when you share that page in more than one network. This approach will demonstrate which network produces the most traffic.
For more insight, check out the presentation Short URLs for Content Marketing at the VSBMA.com How-To Center
Your Unique Experience
While these 11 features of content marketing provide a basic insight for your strategy, each feature has nuances that you will begin to understand as you gain more experience.
You may discover strategies that will be unique to your experience. Trust in your position of knowledge and apply it to the basic concepts here. Be patient. Content marketing will show you the way.
For more insight, check out the presentation 23 Social Business Tools for Content Marketing Success at the VSBMA.com How-To Center
Visit VSBMA’s Small Business Digital Marketing How-To Center
at www.VSBMA.com for more social media and content marketing Tips ’n Tricks.