Content marketing involves creating and distributing relevant content for the purpose of engaging a targeted audience in order to achieve business goals. Although it can be time-consuming, it’s well worth the effort. Content marketing can improve brand recognition, trust, authority, credibility, loyalty and authenticity, which will ultimately help your revenue.

This article from Mashable gives 10 steps you can take to improve your content marketing.

1) Determine Organizational Goals.
First decide what your goals are, then figure out how your content marketing plan can help you accomplish them. Your goals should be specific and measurable.

2) Identify Target Audiences.
Research your audience, ask questions, research website traffic data and determine their demographic information, including age, gender, education, and location. Figure out what your audience is interested in, both online and offline.

3) Develop Key Messages.
Determine what will differentiate you and your product and what will help you to achieve the goals you have set. The end result should be one to three main messages, each with one to five sub-messages that offer a bit more detail.

4) Decide on Overall Content Marketing Strategies:

There are three different types of content marketing strategies: long-form, short-form and conversations (e.g. sharing). Long-form includes blog posts, articles and press releases — basically, anything longer than a couple of sentences. Short-form includes tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn status updates and graphics. Conversations and sharing includes participating in and driving conversations through blog commenting, link sharing and comments on videos. This type helps to encourage discussions between other thought leaders within your industry. You can stick to one of these forms of content marketing, or you can use all three. They are each effective on their own, but they are also powerful when used together.

5) Draft an Editorial Calendar.
Developing a plan is one of the most important steps to content marketing. But because things can change, your plan should be flexible. Your editorial calendar should include strategies, specific tactics, suggested headlines, content deadlines and allocated responsibilities.

6) Develop Content.
As you create content, subtly incorporate your key messages without overtly selling your product. Content marketing is about creating trust through education and information, not using traditional sales tactics.

7) Establish Relationships.
Build a relationship with your target audience by tapping into existing communities and establishing your own communities across various social networking platforms. Share plenty of curated content and focus on providing something valuable to your audience.

8 ) Spread the Word.
Use SEO by adding tags to your blog posts that will generate traffic, and communicate with your audience through Twitter, Facebook, and e-newsletters. However, be careful not to turn off potential customers by overdoing it or forcing your content where it doesn’t belong.

9) Measure Effectiveness.
Keep track of pageviews, retweets, Likes, +1’s, shares and so on. Anything your audience can take action on is something you need to pay attention to. Figure out what’s working and what’s not.

10) Change the Plan As Needed.
Remember that flexible plan you developed? If something isn’t working, make changes. The most important thing to remember about content marketing: It’s all about building connections and improving your audience’s product loyalty.

We can help you develop your web strategy, including the most effective use of content marketing for your business. Contact us to start a conversation about using your web presence to grow your business.