Content marketing framework is a guide that will help you get your content marketing strategy off the ground. Check out the rest of the article for a detailed breakdown of the framework, including tips to make your content marketing strategy a success.
Define your audience
Before you create content, you need to know your audience and what they’re interested in. This will help you create content that your audience is more likely to share and engage with. For example, if you’re trying to promote a new product, your audience might be people who are interested in saving money. Or if you’re trying to promote your local real estate business, you might want to create content aimed specifically at people who are looking to buy or sell a home in your area. The more you narrow down your audience, the more likely you are to create content that will resonate with them.
Define your audience before you begin writing your content
If you want to find an audience for your content, do some research. Find an audience segment that you want to reach and learn more about them. If you want to create content for parents, look at what questions parents are asking about your business on social media. If you’re looking to attract a millennial audience, look at what questions they are asking about your business on your website. The more you know about your audience and what they care about, the better you’ll be able to create content that will attract them to your business and make them want to buy from you.
Who are your readers?
Before you can create a content marketing strategy, you need to know exactly who your audience is. Your audience is anyone who could potentially benefit from the content you’re planning to create. However, it’s important to know that not everyone who could be interested in your content is a potential customer. To determine whether someone is a potential customer, you need to know what they look for in a brand. For example, an audience might be interested in any content about how to choose the best electric bikes. But they’re not likely to be interested in how to choose the best electric bike for your teenager.
What challenges are they facing?
Your content must speak directly to the challenges they’re facing. If you’re an accounting firm, your clients want to know how to avoid tax fraud. If you’re a dentist, they want to know how to prevent tooth decay. They want solutions to their problems. It’s your job to offer them those solutions. And the closer your content is to that challenge, the more likely it is to connect with them. If you want to write for the medical community, you need to understand the issues they’re facing, which includes the latest treatments and medications.
What do they need to know?
So, you need to know your audience. But knowing your audience alone isn’t enough. You need to know what they need to know. You need to know their pain points, challenges and goals. And you need to know what solutions you can offer to help them achieve those goals. That’s what helps form the foundation of a great content marketing strategy – before you write a single word.
Understand their challenges
What are their challenges? Well, let’s start with the obvious one… they’re not in control of the content that gets published on their behalf. Content that’s published on an organization’s social media accounts or that’s distributed through email and SEO can have a major impact on their brand. While these outlets are great for increasing brand awareness, they’re also susceptible to the opinions of disgruntled customers and those who want to cause some sort of brand damage. Additionally, the content that receives the most shares or likes tends to be the content that gets promoted the most. That content may not align with the organization’s brand voice or goals.
Providing quality care for a loved one can be challenging, especially when they live a long distance away
One of the biggest challenges people with a disability face is the difficulty of caring for a loved one who lives away from them. This can be especially difficult when it involves providing physical care (e.g. bathing, eating, toileting, transferring) or mental care (e.g. dealing with depression, anxiety, or dealing with a chronic illness). In these situations, it can be challenging for the caregiver to provide the care they need, let alone the care they want.
A long-distance care arrangement can also be difficult when you have to make arrangements on their behalf
It can be especially hard when it comes to making travel arrangements. If your loved one is traveling frequently or needs to travel for work, you can expect to spend a good deal of time on the phone coordinating their travel and making arrangements.
You’ll need to be more involved in their caregiving
If you’re the one responsible for helping them with their care, then you will need to get more involved in the day-to-day activities of caring for them. In addition, you’ll likely feel more comfortable in the role of “helper” rather than “patient.”
Set your goal
It’s important to have a clear goal that you can work toward when creating content. But it’s also important to remember that you can’t create content without a specific goal in mind. Without a clear goal, content creation will inevitably get stuck in the idea stage and you’ll end up with a long list of half-baked ideas.
Define your goal
The goal of a content marketing strategy is to attract, engage, and retain your ideal audience and help them take action. That action can be anything from buying a product to signing up for your email list. What’s important is that your goal is specific and measurable. Your goal should be something that can be defined and achieved within the scope of your content creation and promotion activities.
Determine what you need in place
Before you can create quality content, you need to create a clear and comprehensive content strategy that outlines your goals, your audience, your channels and your content creation process. Set yourself up for success by mapping out your content creation process, determining your goals and mapping out a practical plan for how you’ll achieve those goals.
Consider your budget
It’s one of the most common questions we hear: How much should I budget for content marketing? The short answer: It depends. If you’re just getting started, or need to take a quick dip into the pool to test your waters, a budget of $500-1,000 per month is a good place to start. But if you’re looking to grow and sustain a paying customer base, setting aside $2,500 to $5,000 dollars per month is a good place to start.
Create your offer
You should create a content offer that solves your prospect’s problem and helps them achieve their goals. For example, if you sell a software product, that means your content offer could be a free webinar that helps your audience learn more about your product.
Make it clear what you are selling
Is your content meant to inform or sell? You need to make sure your audience understands exactly what you’re offering them before they decide to purchase. What you’re selling should be easy to understand and should be stated clearly in your content. This includes the benefits, features, and value your product or service offers. It may also include the length of the sales cycle, up-sells and down-sell opportunities, and the cost of the product or service.
Set your price
You’ll need to set a price for your proposal in order to gauge the interest of the clients you’re targeting. Pricing is especially important for larger projects, as you don’t want to lose out on potential clients due to pricing issues. Pricing should be set before you put together your proposal, so you have all the information you need to set a price strategically.
Create your lead capture page
Your lead capture page is your home page on your website where potential buyers can learn more about your business and its services. It’s the page that helps them figure out if your brand is a good fit for them and encourages them to take action. Because it’s the first thing a potential buyer sees when they visit your website, they should contain sufficient information to answer their questions and help them decide whether this is the right place to find a solution to their problem.
Create your content
Now that you have a compelling offer, you need to create the content to back it up. Ideally you have already created content for your customers to use before they purchase. But if you don’t have a large amount or quality of content under your belt, you can create content on your own in order to help sell your offer. The key here is to create high-quality content that provides value to your audience and helps them make a purchasing decision.
Tell your story
Tell your story in a way that will resonate with your audience and make them feel like they are a part of your journey. When you’ve created your content, think about your audience and what will help them understand your brand and your products or services. Consider what your customers want to know and how they want to receive that information and make sure you include that in your content.
Make it personal
Your audience is not your customer. They are people who are interested in your business, but not yet customers. So, when you create content, put yourself in the shoes of your ideal customer and describe your struggles in the context of what they’re going through. How did you make sense of a confusing tax guide when you were first starting? When you were looking for help with how to budget for your first apartment, you were likely not an expert. Someone who had made it through the process before could help you understand the best ways to save. And, when you looked for guidance on how to create a content marketing campaign, you looked for examples of how others had accomplished what you wanted to accomplish.
Talk about challenges
There’s no such thing as a perfect story. Even so-called perfect stories have a place in content marketing. You just need to know what yours is and why. Your story provides your audience with a reason to read your content. And if you explain your challenges and how you overcame them, you’ll show your audience that you’re a real person and not just an organization.
Don’t shy away from mistakes
The world is a complex place and mistakes are bound to happen. While a mistake might seem like a setback, it can actually be a stepping stone for your business to grow. What’s important is that you learn from your mistakes and move forward. It shows your company is honest and willing to face any difficulty that might come its way.
Explain how you’ve grown
If your content is all about what you’ve done in the past, it doesn’t matter whether your customers are still with you. They won’t be interested in what you did five years ago, because they want to know how you’re helping them now and in the future. This is why it’s important that your content is current and helpful to your customer now. Think about what you’ve learned over the years, and incorporate that into your content marketing to make it informative and helpful to your current and future customers.
In conclusion, if you want to create a successful content marketing strategy, you need to have a clear and concise framework in place. This guide has provided you with the ultimate content marketing framework and all the necessary tools to create a winning strategy. So, what are you waiting for? Get started today and see the amazing results for yourself!
