Content Marketing 101: Getting Started With Content Creation

Ever since the world shifted from the industrial revolution to the information age in the mid-20th century, virtually all aspects of society have changed markedly. Evolution has come with its opportunities and challenges. On one hand, unlike during the old era, we have multiple channels of communication that have greatly endowed relationships between businesses and customers. However, on the other hand, the multiplicity of new media has resulted in information overload that impedes the decision-making process.

With too much information flowing throughout the various channels and networks, many people today are having a difficult time in consuming material beaming from all corners. For marketers, the two most important primary objectives, customer acquisition and retention, have even become bigger conquests than ever before.

Indeed, human attention is now one of the most prized possessions. Getting and maintaining one’s attention is no mean feat in a world where at least 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is produced every day. As a result, businesses need new approaches to ensure that they are always connected with the various stakeholders, lest they lose their foothold. Thus, to stand out and be seen by the large swathes of audiences, information shared must be valuable and meaningful.

Enter content marketing
In the realm of business promotion, the evolution has seen a move from interruptive marketing to permission marketing. And from it, content marketing has emerged as a panacea for keeping the ever-distracted customer engaged. It is a genre of marketing that entails the creation and distribution of material such as videos, articles, infographics, and other media to attract, engage and retain an audience.

Gone are the old days when marketers used to bombard customers with intrusive, annoying promotional messages. Mostly done online, the content usually does not explicitly promote a brand. The end goal is to stimulate interest in the company’s products or services. As a small business (SME), it is possible and vital that you incorporate content marketing as part of your overall business marketing strategy.

Content planning
At the core of content marketing is content creation, a process that involves brainstorming captivating ideas and turning those very ideas to reality in a presentation format that will appeal to much of your target audience. By doing it consistently whilst maintaining the highest quality standards, your business will increase its awareness and attract potential customers. Ultimately, it will be able to establish its brand as a perceived category leader. Thus, keeping the business top of mind whenever customers find themselves in purchase moments involving your brand. But first, you need to put together a nice content strategy to guide you in producing out relevant and impactful content. How can you get started?

1. Define your content goals
The first question you should ask yourself when getting started with content creation is: what are you trying to accomplish? Like any other business, the overarching goal is to generate a steady stream of customers that can sustain the enterprise throughout. Content marketing helps with this by building a strong brand using content educates, engages, inspires, and entertains. Now, depending on the nature of your business, you could figure out which one of these goals you would like to pursue when creating content.

2. Identify your target audience
The success of content marketing is dependent on the ability of the resulting content to resonate with your target customers─quality engagement. You don’t want to spend a lot of resources in producing material that your customers will find repulsive. So, you should clearly map out comprehensive buyer personas to understand what makes them tick─their needs, wants, motivations, interests, and behaviours.

3. Determine types of content
Having identified and understood the members of your target audience, the next bit is now to figure out which type of content will be suitable for them. And here, we are particularly interested in the accessibility of the content, i.e., the content format. The key question is: in what format would the content be most accessible to members of the target audience? There’s no point in producing content, no matter how brilliant it may be, when it will not be accessible to much of the target audience.

4. Select channels for publishing & distribution
Different content formats will require different channels. This means that you need to evaluate customer behaviours to establish which channels they spend their time on the most and from that insight, push the content on that channel. If your product or service caters mostly to teens, for example, you may consider using short videos published on Instagram and TikTok. In most channels, though, you may need to amplify the reach through advertising since the organic reach is extremely limited.

5. Set key performance metrics
As it is often said in management talk, what gets measured, gets done. You, too, should set metrics that will determine whether your content is being impactful or a dud. Some key metrics that you should consider include: the number of views, number of enquiries, and sales revenues generated from a particular content.

6. Brainstorm ideas & create content
The next step is to brainstorm ideas aligned with your goals and then proceed to create content. This entails coming up with a comprehensive content calendar that details the content idea, the individual responsible for its creation, and when it will be delivered. You can either outsource the entire process or do it internally if capable. Some content you can consider include blog posts, white papers, podcasts, insight reports, videos, and e-books among many others.

7. Publish & manage your content
With a ready to go editorial calendar, you can now publish the final content on the channels chosen including but not limited to the company website, social media, and independent streaming platforms. Even after the content has been published, constantly monitor performance through analytics and adjust where possible.

Final Thoughts
Content marketing has carved its place as one of the most viable business promotion strategies as the world gets fully entrenched in the grooves of the information age. There’s no doubt that it will continue to dominate the arena of marketing for the foreseeable future as customers continue looking for meaningful information that educates, inspire, entertain, and engage. Indeed, it has changed the fortunes of SME marketing. Small businesses can now turbocharge the performance of their enterprises by leveraging content that cost little or nothing to make. Remember, you don’t have to start with grand content ideas. Instead, start with small ideas and do them consistently as you build your way up. Be patient while at. It takes time to forge a formidable brand.

Stephen Osomba currently serves as the Lead Partner, Communication & Marketing at SMD Consulting Associates where he helps SME clients deliver value by adjusting the solutions to each company's mission, product, strategy, and industry.