Questions to ask as you create your content marketing plan: How often am I going to blog? Each blog post that you create serves as a window to your website. As you determine your blogging schedule, you’ll need subjects to write about. Answer common customer questions. How long should my blog posts be? As you work on your content marketing plan, you can factor this into your schedule. If your ideas merit 2,000 words, your blog posts will take longer to write. Google won’t index blog or website content shorter than 300 words. If the subject matter is compelling enough, people will read longer posts. But as you create your content marketing plan, there is one thing that can help: try to get the audience to do something.
Developing the right content marketing plan can play a significant role in the success of your marketing and business.
Let’s back up for a minute and define content marketing, and talk about why you need it in your business.
Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
Now, the way your customers consume is changing. The buying process within your industry probably looks nothing like it did five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago.
They have questions. They’re seeking the right information as much as they are the right business. They want to know how your product will improve their lives. They want to know what makes your service different and better than the other people who do what you do.
They’re online, sifting through competitive websites, and they want to know why they should buy from you.
This is where your content marketing comes into play. Website content, blogging, infographics, social media, brochures, and other potential avenues for reaching your customer can all become part of your content marketing plan.
Questions to ask as you create your content marketing plan:
How often am I going to blog?
Your blog should be the cornerstone of any content marketing plan for a few reasons.
The goal is always to attract more readers and potential customers to your website. Each blog post that you create serves as a window to your website. If someone Google’s the subject that you’ve written about, if your post ranks well, it’s the post that will show up in the search results, not just your website home page.
If you’re promoting your posts on social media, the same is true. It could very easily become a potential customer’s first exposure to your website.
You’ll have to be honest with yourself, however. A blog post can take anywhere from an hour to 3 or 4 hours (or more) to write, depending on how long and detailed you want to make it.
You’ll have to determine how often you want to blog. The goal is to keep your business on your audience’s mind. Frequency is the best way to do that. But at the same time, you don’t want to write so often that your schedule diminishes the quality of the content you are creating.
How do I come up with blog ideas?
As you determine your blogging schedule, you’ll need subjects to write about. You’ll have to routinely come up with blog ideas. You can use an editorial calendar to keep track of your ideas and establish a writing schedule.
Here are a few tactics for coming up with blog ideas that work well:
- Use Google Keyword Planner to see what industry terms have a high search volume.
- Ask your customers and clients what issues matter most to them, pertaining to your industry.
- Reading through industry and competitor blogs to see what subject matters resonate.
- Answer common customer questions. Think back to previous interactions. If you’ve had someone ask about it before, chances…
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