Connecting Through Online Marketing

September 22^nd 2011 Sally Ormond content generation, online marketing, social media, social media marketing

Content marketing online, gives you the power to educate, communicate, influence people and attract a continuous stream of potential customers.

But you must have a strategy. Jumping in without thinking rarely works. You must be realistic and understand that results won’t happen over night.

To make it work you need patience and perseverance. As a freelance copywriter, I’ve been content marketing since 2007 and it does work – you just need to understand the process and have a plan.

What’s your content marketing plan?

If you want readers to read what you write, you must have empathy for them and the problems they face. Writing about what you want to know isn’t necessarily the same as writing what your readers want. Therefore, before you start to blog, tweet or Facebook, work out:

What your readers are looking for
How they want to read it
When they need the information

If only you had a crystal ball eh? Well, you can find the answers to those questions fairly easily. All you have to do is…

Ask them – ask them to complete a short online survey or just ask them face to face. What is it they’re looking for? How to guides, eBooks, video tutorials, podcasts etc.

Analytics – this will show you what’s most popular on your website – video, case studies etc.

Listen – social media is the new black (we all know that) so make sure you use it. Engage with your followers on Twitter, read the comments on your Facebook page – gathering customer intelligence has never been so easy.

The only way to make sure your content strategy works is by listening to the needs of your customers and giving them what they want, how they want it.

Above all listen, react and be prepared to be flexible.