Objectives First, Content Marketing Second

Photo source: DigitalRalph on flickr.

If you already started creating content, then you know that it's not free. Creating content can be very expensive. If you don’t believe me, see how much it costs to create a professional video or a white paper.

Creating content is an investment for your organization, and as such, you want to see a Return On Investment (ROI). The good news is that if you open Google and search for “content marketing strategy,” “content marketing ROI” or “content marketing objectives,” you will get a few million results. Maybe not all of them are relevant, but it won’t take you long to find some good information.

It's Too Easy to Jump Ahead

I’ve done this myself and after I read a few of these blogs and articles, something doesn’t feel quite right. The ones I found speak about content marketing in (almost) isolation. For example, they teach you how to calculate the ROI of your blog. They get into analytics, conversion rates, engagement, etc. In short, they jump ahead.

But wait! Resources are limited and you can’t invest in everything. It’s like opening Netflix and choosing every movie you think you’ll like. If your time is limited, then you’re going to have to choose, and the same happens when you have limited content marketing resources.

Focus on the Problem At Hand

Avoid the trap: don’t fall in love with a solution, fall in love with the problem.

Before we decide that content marketing is the solution, let’s first look at the problem. So let’s put content marketing on the side (for now) and take a look at our business plan or business strategy. Your business plan will very likely include a number of goals, like:

• Increase sales by 50% in the next 24 months
• Reduce the number of support calls by 30% in the next 18 months
• Increase the number of qualified leads by 75% in the next 24 month

Photo source: Carla Gates on flickr.

After looking at the plan, it will be more clear what your organization wants to accomplish in the next 12, 18, or 24 months and you can decide if content marketing can help you get there. For this, we need to answer these questions:

1. Can content marketing help my organization increase sales?
2. Can content marketing be used to educate and reduce the number of support calls?
3. Can content marketing be used to increase the number of qualified leads?

The answer to many of these questions is going to be “yes” and for the purposes of this blog post, we’re going to assume it is your most cost-effective option.

Now you have a good starting point to define your objectives, you can move to the next phase, where you can start making more concrete decisions. The possible objectives for content marketing differ from author to author but in general terms they are the following:

• Branding and Engagement: content can be created to put your organization in front of your prospects where they can enjoy the value you deliver and engage with you.
• Information and Education: to create valuable information, it is important for you to understand your audience and the information gaps they may be dealing with. Then you can create content that fills those gaps.
• Drive Traffic: publishing content is a great way of bringing people to your website, and this is an obvious goal for many organizations. If this is one of your goals, I’d recommend you consider creating evergreen content (content that is not bound by a period of time) since that will deliver the best ROI for you. For more on evergreen content, check out this useful article from Search Engine Journal.
• Generate Leads: you have to make sure your content is reaching prospects at moments when you can influence their decisions.
• Increase Conversions: content can be used to help drive sales. The decision journey is going to change by industry and whether you’re B2B or B2C, so make sure the content you deliver is relevant at key decision points.
• Increase Site Ranking: the last advantage of creating content, when done well, is that it can increase your site ranking through strong SEO. This means that you’ll have more of your site visits come from organic traffic.

Conclusion

With content marketing, you need to be careful about riding the wave (i.e. jumping in because everyone else is doing it). Make sure it’s driven by your business strategy. Define clear and measurable goals. Understand the needs of your audience and create content that meets their current needs. Very few marketers get it right the first try, so implement short cycles where you create content, measure the results, learn, and then plan the next cycle.