9 steps for optimal content marketing

Setting goals, strategizing and conducting research are crucial underpinnings of creating and curating content that will engage your target audiences. Here’s what you need to know.

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Creating snappy content and posting it consistently are only two aspects of a broader content marketing process.

Every piece of content has a lifecycle, so you should understand clearly what it is designed to achieve, a strategy for fulfilling that purpose, and a way of measuring success.

Follow these steps to wring the most long-term benefit from your content:

1. Set your goals. Clearly define what you want to achieve. Your goals can be ambitious (total dominance of your market) or humble (increasing your Instagram followers), but they should be achievable and measurable. This enables you not only to budget for digital marketing, but also to accurately assess the success of your content and change your strategy if it is not working.

2. Create a strategy. Build on the goals you have set, and specify how to achieve them. Focus on your target audience, and outline the way(s) that you plan to engage with them. Your strategy should be informed by an assessment of your competitors, identifying areas where you might gain a tactical advantage and where you could emulate your competition’s successful techniques.

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