A Guide to Content Marketing Success

We often work with clients that are looking to launch a content marketing program in an effort to find a more cost-effective, predictable, and scalable source of traffic and leads than the traditional marketing efforts they've been using. 

On many occasions we've discussed the benefits of content marketing. Truth is, the reason we're such fans of content marketing/inbound marketing, is because we've seen great successes come from it. But it isn't just a matter of writing an occasional blog post or having social media accounts that you post to when the mood strikes or when you have some newsworthy item to herald. The following list of key elements is meant to serve as a guide to finding true, measurable success with content marketing.

1. Identify and document your target customers through buyer personas.
   By knowing your intended audience, you can produce a greater amount of well-targeted, relevant, and valuable content that will draw them like bears to honey.
2. Focus on creating valuable, informative, and educational information that your personas crave, not just more salesy marketing-speak. The days of glossy-brochure blah blah blah are gone, and your consumers will turn away from it in a heartbeat.
3. Realize that you want/need to own your primary content platform, not just rent space on someone else's platform, because it is critical to own the relationships with visitors who are drawn by your content. Whether you host the content on your website or on your blog, own it and the contacts that view it.
4. Make thoughtful decisions about where and when you will publish your content. It will be discouraging and ineffective if you set your sights too high, so don't pretend you're going to publish a blog post every day and social posts three times a day when you are first starting out. 
5. Focus on quality over quantity. Amazing content isn't easy, but it is what's required if you really want to establish an audience. More-of-the-same content isn't what will attract and keep your prospects interested. Put yourself in the shoes of the specific persona(s) you want to attract, then develop meaningful content that speaks to their needs in unique and meaningful ways.
6. Be relentless! Sure, you might falter on occasion, but don't let those lapses in publishing content discourage you. Get back on the proverbial horse as quickly as you can, and recommit to publishing on your agreed-to schedule. It's "pubish or die!"
7. Give serious thought to the team you need to have in place to ensure that you are able to meet your stated content publishing goals. You have to think like a publisher and get the staff in place to make sure that you can sustain your content marketing efforts.
8. Don't just shoot from the hip; establish specific goals. There are numerous metrics that you can use to measure the success of your content marketing efforts. Don't just depend upon the ultimate goals of sales (especially not initially). Also look at website traffic, blog subscribers, whitepaper downloads, followers, friends, and retweets. 
9. You need to largely forget the traditional notion of "campaigns" when it comes to effective content marketing, and focus on providing value for the long haul. It is not a short-term, quick path to fame and fortune. Content marketing is a long-term commitment, so you need to make sure you and your management have that understanding going into it. 
10. Make your content visually interesting. It's no surprise that visuals make content more attractive, engaging, and consumable. If you don't have the skills or experienced staff to produce striking visuals on your own, look for tools or outside experts that can help. This is a biggy, so don't compromise the quality of your content by thinking it doesn't matter.
11. Explore multiple types of content. It is common (and smart) to start out with blog posts, but you should also venture out and try other content types. If you've been doing weekly blog posts for the past year, try creating an ebook from all of your blog posts, and send out an email inviting prospective (or existing) customers to download it for free.
12. Don't gate all of your content. Content gating is the practice of forcing your audience to give you their contact information in exchange for access to your content. You need to gate your best or most attractive content, but if you really want to build an audience, give away as much helpful information as you can. That's how you build trust. A gate works like, well, a gate. It keeps folks out.
13. Make sure you have a content management system to support content creation, content publication, and content analytics. HubSpot, for example, comes with a CMS called the Content Optimization System, which allows you to create and publish content quickly in a format that's web and search engine friendly. A CMS will allow you to set up a blog, add blog posts, and add website pages without having to get help from IT or developers.
14. Employ a  marketing automation platform that will allow you to manage your content marketing efforts. Simply creating the content (as important as it is) isn't enough. You have to publish it, promote it, and measure everything. HubSpot is an excellent choice, but regardless of which platform you choose, you will need a marketing automation platform if you're going to be successful with your content marketing efforts.
15. Employ multiple analytics tools that will really help you understand what's working and what's not. Google Analytics is a good start, but it is often overwhelming to people, especially when they are just starting out. HubSpot has a great set of analytics tools and a dashboard for viewing them. But you should also explore tools like heatmaps, A/B testing tools, and screen recording if you really want to make the most of your content marketing efforts.
16. While it is critical to have a plan that includes all of the things above, it is equally critical to document your content marketing strategy. It's not enough just to have thought through these things. The Content Marketing Institute has some very interesting research that not only clearly shows the growing trend toward content marketing, but also, as the chart below presents, points out that effective content marketers have a documented content marketing strategy.

This is certainly not intended to be an all-inclusive list of every consideration for developing a content marketing effort. But the list above is an excellent beginners guide to content marketing success. If you'd like to explore content marketing further, and would like to discuss how 30dps can help you produce a content marketing strategy that will drive the effectiveness of your efforts, please don't hesitate to contact us. We are an experienced and accomplished HubSpot partner and content/inbound marketing agency, with customers all around the country, and we'd love to help you.