Developing Your Online Content Marketing Strategy

1. Get Organized
Detail specific marketing activities you intend to activate and create goals to measure your success. Are you focusing on content marketing initiatives or Pay-Per-Click online marketing strategies? Determine your objectives and goals and use this information as the foundation for your marketing strategy.2. Identify Your Audience
The goals of any marketing strategy are to create awareness, generate leads, and convert leads to new clients. To be effective, you must intrinsically know your target audience – buyer persona. Who is your buyer? What interests them? What are their buying habits? What are their seasonal buying requirements? Research your buyers to tailor a marketing strategy ideal for communicating – and converting – the right people.3. Build Awareness

4. Create Awesome Content
Content marketing is the backbone of today’s most progressive marketing strategies. Businesses today have content directors and content strategists. What does that tell you? Content marketing is huge. Whether you refer to it as brand publishing, brand storytelling, social media engagement, blogging, podcasts, webinars, ebooks – it’s all content. What else is content? Your newsletters, website, engagement in online communities, white papers, and even branded events are all content generators. Determine the best content pathways for sharing your brand’s identity with your targeted buyers. Then, deliver the content!5. Inspire Your Team
Your best intentions for marketing success mean nothing if you do not have a driven, dedicated team leveraging effective marketing tactics. Make sure all marketing team members are engaged and aware of messaging. Stipulate who on the team is responsible for each activity and what the consistency, goals, and deliverables should be for each task. Allow wiggle room for new ideas and opinions, but keep your team informed and focused on the marketing plan you believe will result in measured success. To keep your entire team on the same page, it’s beneficial to create a brand library that you can reference at any time.6. Go Mobile
Whatever your precise marketing tactics may be, make sure to keep in mind the mobile user experience. Mobile-friendly content is widespread, as the use of smartphones and tablets is increasing daily. According to Forbes, 87 percent of connected devices sales by 2017 will be smartphones and tablets. You have to make your marketing mobile. From ensuring you have an alternate mobile version of your website to creating consistent content to engage mobile content sharers, make sure your marketing can engage the mobile buyer.7. Get Visual
Incorporate visual content marketing into your overall marketing strategy. Keep in mind, today’s mobile users are glancing quickly at social platforms, websites, advertisements – the average attention span is eight seconds. Unique visual content will help capture your target audience. Make creative visual content a mainstay in your overall marketing strategy.8. Harness Online Advertising

For example, is ad retargeting right for your business? Retargeting is a form of online marketing that lets you target users who have previously visited your website with banner ads on display networks across the web. Is this a strategy that will help your overall marketing plan be more effective? Research and harness the right online advertising opportunities for your business.