Tip #1: Know your purpose

Once upon a time, an online business company wanted to become more profitable. Hence, the idea was born – content marketing!

“Hey everyone! Start creating some content to market!” shouted the CMO.

All the obedient lackeys happily flipped open their MacBooks and busily began writing articles.
This is how it began. Content marketing without a purpose. Without a plan. Without a goal.
Months later the lackeys looked up and realized “Hey, this is a huge waste of time.”

Suddenly, everyone stopped writing. The end.

Moral of the Story: Just because Content Marketing is the ‘new black’, that does not mean you ought to heedlessly plunge headfirst into the idea with reckless abandon. You need to determine your purpose.

When Failure Happens…
These problems most often occur during the launch of a campaign, or in the very early stages of launch. Sometimes, a company can define the purpose as they go, but this is highly risky and largely unnecessary.

Why Failure Happens…

If you do not have a clear direction for your content marketing, everything will go awry. Having a purpose means that you will have an audience, a message, a persona. Period.
If you have purpose for your Content Marketing, your activities will be a complete waste of time. A glorified busy-task.

What is the Solution?
All this talk about ‘purpose’ sounds frustratingly vague, ethereal and pointless. Let’s get practical.

“Having a purpose” means that you will be able to answer these questions:

How does content marketing fit into the broad marketing plan of the company?
How will content marketing grow the business?
What are the specific business objectives of content marketing?
How will content marketing drive sales?

If you work with me I will help you with a marketing strategy plan, I will be providing you will all the information, helping you to build a solid foundation. I strongly encourage you to follow this plan, before you continue your foray into Content Marketing.

Tip #2: Know your audience: Whom is this for?

If you do not know for whom you are writing, you are going to end up writing pointless content. Failure to know your audience is also a failure to execute a successful content marketing campaign.

When Failure Happens…

This failure can take place either prior to a launch, or during the early stages of a Content Marketing plan.

Why Failure Happens…

Content is meant to be for an audience, not just something to put your name brand on. The only way you are going to survive in this industry is if you are actually reading and interacting with the content you are creating. If you don’t have a target audience, you will not know what to write, how to write it, or how to address the vague and disembodied entity of a “non-audience.”

Solution

Create a user persona. Don’t try to wrap your mind around an audience that consists of thousands of people; that doesn’t work. Instead, just consider the one person that is your customer.
Here is an example persona that I’ve sketched out:
She has a name, an age and a location. She has likes and dislikes. (Jen has a nephew named Jackson who is three years old. She bought him a Despicable Me toy from Amazon for his last birthday.) We have detail, understanding, and the power to write directly to Jen now.
Writing content is easier with Jen in mind. Jen is going to type in search queries that will direct her to our content. Jen is going to love our content.
What’s more, she’s going to convert – her and about 291,648 other people in your target audience.