The Elements of the Content Marketing Process

Almost every­one has heard of the impor­tance of con­tent mar­ket­ing but few under­stand what it means or how to imple­ment it effec­tive­ly. It’s chal­leng­ing to keep up with the var­i­ous mar­ket­ing rules, tips, and trends that emerge as often as new tech­no­log­i­cal advances. Mar­ket­ing con­tent and process ele­ments should be updat­ed and remain on the cut­ting edge to cre­ate a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage for busi­ness own­ers. That’s where we step in and fill this gap. 

With over 25 years of inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing expe­ri­ence, we under­stand how cru­cial it is that the mar­ket­ing process is strate­gi­cal­ly syn­chro­nized. Mean­ing, any and all con­tent that is devel­oped and dis­trib­uted remains con­sis­tent with the busi­ness’ over­all mes­sag­ing on every plat­form. Cus­tomers love con­sis­ten­cy and we want your brand to be one that cus­tomers trust. Using these basic ele­ments, you can achieve brand loy­al­ty and awareness. 

Marketing Content and Process Basics

What is the mar­ket­ing process? It encom­pass­es numer­ous ele­ments and con­sid­er­a­tions for a clear and engag­ing strate­gic approach. Con­tent cre­ation is just one small part of an inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing process. Decid­ing what you want to talk about and how you want to share this infor­ma­tion is one of many ele­ments. Suc­cess is found when con­tent cre­ation is com­bined with oth­er ele­ments on a reg­u­lar basis. Flex­i­bil­i­ty and the abil­i­ty to iden­ti­fy trends can help enhance your pres­ence both online and offline. Here’s how we can achieve mar­ket­ing con­tent and process excellence: 

• Strat­e­gy - This ini­tial step is where the mag­ic starts! Before you begin cre­at­ing your con­tent or open­ing social media plat­forms, hav­ing a clear strat­e­gy is a must. You should iden­ti­fy your audi­ence, call to action, plat­forms, top­ic, and how you plan to get it all done! Addi­tion­al­ly, fig­ur­ing out how to opti­mize and max­i­mize your results con­sis­tent­ly will keep your busi­ness top of mind for poten­tial cus­tomers. You’ll have to revis­it this strat­e­gy a cou­ple of times through­out the year to make adjustments. 
• Cre­ation — Now, the fun and cre­ative part of devel­op­ing your con­tent you’ve been wait­ing for! It is one of the most chal­leng­ing and time-con­sum­ing aspects of the mar­ket­ing process because it requires care­ful plan­ning, struc­ture, and inno­v­a­tive think­ing. You’ll want to start with research and hav­ing a full under­stand­ing of the top­ic you plan to dis­cuss. When ini­tial­ly cre­at­ing a struc­ture, you’ll have a num­ber of ideas that you should grad­u­al­ly nar­row down. Iden­ti­fy­ing key talk­ing points is an exer­cise that can be used in many for­mats like pod­casts and videos. After you’ve bro­ken down your top­ics and points you want to make into baby steps, it will get much easier. 
• Opti­miza­tion — The next step to tak­ing your con­tent mas­ter­piece to the next lev­el is opti­miza­tion. No mat­ter how great your con­tent is, it must be dis­cov­er­able by your tar­get audi­ence. The buyer’s jour­ney must be top of mind to opti­mize your con­tent in the form of lead gen­er­a­tion forms in the right places and SEO tar­get­ed key­words. A sec­ond look is always rec­om­mend­ed before going live with content. 
• Dis­tri­b­u­tion — Get­ting your opti­mized mar­ket­ing con­tent to the mass­es should be a tar­get­ed and strate­gic plan­ning process. This will not only speed up the dis­tri­b­u­tion but can gen­er­ate curios­i­ty with poten­tial cus­tomers. Some of the most pop­u­lar chan­nels of dis­tri­b­u­tion include social media plat­forms, email list, and net­work influ­encers. It’s impor­tant that the excel­lent con­tent and time that you’ve invest­ed doesn’t go unnoticed. 
• Rep­e­ti­tion — Why rein­vent the wheel when you don’t have to? Mak­ing the most of your hard work and repur­pos­ing your con­tent is a resource-sav­ing tip and allows you to main­tain con­sis­ten­cy in your mes­sag­ing. For max­i­mum vis­i­bil­i­ty, repur­posed con­tent can be revised and reused on oth­er plat­forms. The most com­mon meth­ods of repur­posed con­tent include refor­mat­ting old con­tent for a new medi­um, divid­ing long-for­mat con­tent into small­er chunks, com­bin­ing short­er pieces of con­tent, or repub­lish­ing cur­rent con­tent to oth­er plat­forms. By stretch­ing your con­tent to sev­er­al medi­ums and plat­forms, your hard work will pay off. 
• Main­te­nance - In the­o­ry, con­tent is ever­green. In prac­tice, it’s best to main­tain con­tent “fresh­ness” to avoid it becom­ing stale or out­dat­ed. Like water­ing a plant, well craft­ed and high per­form­ing con­tent requires reg­u­lar main­te­nance and atten­tion to ensure that it is aligned with cur­rent busi­ness goals. As your busi­ness goals and objec­tives evolve, your opti­mized con­tent should as well. 

Secret Benefits of Content Marketing Elements

The impact of ini­ti­at­ing and exe­cut­ing these mar­ket­ing ele­ments suc­cess­ful­ly has a huge upside. There are obvi­ous ben­e­fits like increased vis­i­bil­i­ty, increased prof­its, and secur­ing new busi­ness. But there are few known ben­e­fits that only con­tent mar­keters are aware of that can have a mas­sive impact on your busi­ness rev­enues. This impact does not hap­pen overnight, but can gen­er­ate pos­i­tive, long term results when strate­gi­cal­ly focused. 

• Brand affin­i­ty — Devel­op­ing your own voice can take your con­tent to the next lev­el. Cus­tomers want to engage with a brand that they con­nect with. When you take a stand on an issue or trend­ing top­ic that is aligned with your busi­ness mis­sion, you can cre­ate a strong brand affin­i­ty. Demon­strat­ing your orga­ni­za­tion­al val­ues through your con­tent shows your cur­rent and poten­tial cus­tomers what you care about and will sep­a­rate you from the cur­rent bland and dry con­tent cir­cling the web. 
• Image search traf­fic — An emerg­ing trend among cus­tomers is image search­ing. A sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­age of Google users are search­ing for a spe­cif­ic image. Qual­i­ty con­tent that is pub­lished on a con­sis­tent basis opens oppor­tu­ni­ties for image opti­miza­tion. Visu­als are appeal­ing to cus­tomers and can light­en the tone of your con­tent or add inter­est to typ­i­cal­ly dry top­ics. When your con­tent is asso­ci­at­ed with an online image, you can sig­nif­i­cant­ly raise your brand vis­i­bil­i­ty and dri­ve traf­fic to your sites. This can be accom­plished using metadata. 
• Fly­wheel effect — Social media is a pow­er­ful mar­ket­ing plat­form. Over 3.6 bil­lion peo­ple use social media around the world and you can expect this amount to grow as remote work becomes the new nor­mal. Pub­lish­ing con­sis­tent con­tent to social media plat­forms cre­ates a “fly­wheel effect” that dra­mat­i­cal­ly increas­es your audi­ence, adds cred­i­bil­i­ty, and cre­ates con­ver­sion oppor­tu­ni­ties. The hard work and ener­gy to devel­op the con­tent ini­tial­ly will trans­late into long term results with min­i­mal upkeep. Main­tain your momen­tum with reg­u­lar con­tent revi­sions and you’ll see a surge in growth over time. 

Call Us Today to Start Your Marketing Process

These mar­ket­ing process basics will get you going in the right direc­tion in no time. When you’re ready to ele­vate your mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy into a cohe­sive plan using expert assis­tance, we are here to help you! Since remote work process­es have become com­mon­place, now is the time to make your busi­ness stand out above the rest. Every­one will be on social media but they won’t have your unique voice or vision. Ensur­ing that cur­rent and poten­tial clients and cus­tomers are notic­ing your unique val­ue propo­si­tion amidst the noise is more impor­tant now than ever before. 

Our exten­sive pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence in mul­ti­ple indus­tries will help you devel­op a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach to max­i­miz­ing your vis­i­bil­i­ty through pub­lic rela­tions, brand­ing, mar­ket­ing, web devel­op­ment, SEO, social media, and con­tent mar­ket­ing. With a strate­gic and mis­sion-focused approach, we look for­ward to part­ner­ing with you to grow your business. 

Give us a call today to get start­ed on con­tent mar­ket­ing process development!