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Creating epic content marketing: Is it easy?

70 percent of marketers are actively investing in content marketing - but how do you know whether you’re doing it right? And how easy is it to create epic content marketing? Well, it’s not just as easy as writing a few blog posts and hoping for the best. Firstly, like anything, you need to have a clear structure and goals if you’re going to see any form of results from your efforts. 

To really nail your content marketing, it’s not just about being ranked at the top of search engines. Sure, that’s the optimum position but what good is being ranked at the top of the SERP if your content isn’t engaging, personalised, compelling and problem-solving for your audience? That’s where a lot of businesses go wrong - don’t get too fixated on rankings! 

Before we go off on a tangent about not becoming too fixated on technical SEO when creating content (there’s plenty of time for that later) - this post will outline the importance of content marketing and what components make for a killer content campaign. Plus, some helpful tips and guidance on how you can create epic content marketing. 

 

We’ll cover: 


Is content marketing important?

Quite simply, for as long as your business has active customers, content marketing will always be important. After all, it’s one of (if not the MAIN) trust-building sources. How do you gauge if a business is legit? Check out their content marketing. How do you know if they know their stuff? Again, content marketing. Where do you look for education pieces? You guessed it, content marketing. 

With that in mind, it’s important to not just produce content for the sake of it. Nothing grinds customer’s (and our) gears more than seeing content being rolled out mindlessly and for the purpose of organic ranking alone. It’s neither helpful nor beneficial - in fact, it’s counterproductive to what you’re trying to achieve as a brand. 

Red-Fern Media content marketing

To ensure that your content marketing is a success, it must be relevant. Relevancy is KEY. Whether that’s on an industry or brand level. Your audience isn’t interested in content that isn’t relevant, are they? NO - so, why do businesses think it’s a good idea to create irrelevant content? 

Relevant and well-written content can be the difference between a prospect and a loyal brand advocate. For us, world-class businesses rarely make mistakes, they care about their appearance on every channel - but most importantly, they care about producing content that best suits their audience’s needs and requirements. 

 

Are your Buyer Personas up to date and accurate?

Buyer Personas are crucial to shaping your content marketing - so, it’s vital that they’re accurate and updated often. Otherwise, you’ll be producing content that your audience might not engage with. They’re a semi-fictitious representation of your ideal audience. So, if you shape your content towards them, you’re putting yourself in the best position for your target audience to engage with it. 

Without tailoring your content to Buyer Personas, you’re casting a very very wide net. You’re trying to appeal to the masses when in reality, the masses aren’t your ideal audience, are they? Perhaps they are - well, the different age groups, genders and job roles will react and engage differently to various forms of content. By keeping your Buyer Personas up to date, you’re always ensuring that your content is following best practices. 

For example, if the targeted Buyer Persona consumes information most effectively on their 15-minute commute, they’re not going to sit there and read your 10,000-word pillar article, are they? They want short, concise and sharp wins - so, you need to reflect this in the format that you release your content. 

 

In-detail strategic keyword planning

As we mentioned earlier, we believe that a lot of businesses are too focused on the technical SEO side of things when it comes to content marketing. In this case, we’re talking about the angle of keywords - but a lot of businesses do the exact same thing when it comes to article length too. Stop putting too much onus on these two factors!

To make it clear though, that’s not us saying that organic rankings aren’t valuable - oh no, of course, they are. However, we see a lot of articles that could be a whole load better if they weren’t restricted by their keyword choice. 

keyword research red-fern media

Sure, you need to target what your audience is searching for, don’t get us wrong. But due to some keywords being overly competitive, some businesses change their angle to a much less effective one just because of a keyword opportunity. This is where things need to change - there’s a reason that the keyword is popular, but that doesn’t make it impossible for you to rank for it. 

In fact, it should encourage you to be bold in your content marketing and make it the best article out there. Note the current top spot and set yourself the target of smashing it out of the ballpark. There’s always room for improvement and you can certainly tap into this. Keyword research is a useful tool, but don’t let that dictate your content topics - keep producing content that’s relevant to what your audience is searching for.

 

Plan for quarters - not month-to-month!

With content marketing, what can be achieved in a month? Well, you can make a great first impression but it’s unlikely that you’re going to carry out a full campaign that provides content for your audience at various stages of the journey. You need a lot longer than a month - unless you’re planning on EXTREME posting. 

So, that’s why content marketing campaigns should be planned quarterly. Quarterly campaigns allow you to produce enough content to educate your audience around a certain topic - with other blogs pitching in and linking in at later dates. During a month, one blog a week isn’t going to be able to educate your audience enough around a certain topic, is it? 

Whereas, 12 blogs a quarter should allow them to be confident in their own knowledge and grant them the ability to make a much smarter decision. Content marketing is all about building trust - and what do you need to build trust? Time! Brands that produce content for longer terms have a larger archive around set topics, which makes them appear a lot more credible.

You don’t just plan your other marketing channels month-by-month, do you? No! So, why should you plan your content that way? It’s important that all your marketing channels dovetail with each other. That way, they’re all pulling together in the right direction, instead of working against one another. 

 

Keep up with the latest trends

When producing content, you should always stay on trend. There’s nothing worse than outdated content trends still being plugged. You could produce the most amazing piece of content, however, if it’s in an outdated format, you’ll lose all credibility before your audience has even read the introduction of the article. 

The easiest way to keep up with the latest trends is to keep an eye on what’s being recognised in the industry and not be afraid to try new things. Who likes steady, middle of the road, comfort zone content marketing? Not your audience! You need to stand out from the crowd, there’s a lot of content out there, how are you going to make sure that they choose to engage with yours? 

 

Campaign analysis is key

Do you know what’s working? Do you know what’s not working? Or, do you know nothing about the performance of your content marketing campaigns? Quite simply, if you’re not analysing the performance of your content marketing, how do you know whether it’s working or not? You don’t. Insufficient or no analysis at all is a cardinal sin in all walks of marketing - not just content.

Think about it, if you’re producing blogs that follow the same style over and over again but aren’t realising that they’re actually performing poorly, your campaign is going to be unsuccessful again without you knowing. Analysis allows you to make smarter content marketing decisions and is crucial when it comes to developing the strategy. 

red-fern media campaign analysis

What’s brilliant about blog analysis is you can be as granular or broad as you like. Perhaps you’re only measuring your blog against engagement and click-through-rate - perfect, then just concentrate on those metrics and shape your strategy to help bolster those results. Or, if you want to dive into reader times, page journeys, blog styles and much more - you can do. 

Don’t make content marketing decisions blind - use the figures to back up your decisions. Trust us, you’ll find that your campaigns are a LOT more successful. 

 

Red-Fern can help you ALWAYS nail your content marketing 

So, there you have it… we’ll let you make your own decision on whether creating epic content marketing is easy or not. It’s now time for you to take the leap of faith into the content world - we know how this feels and it can be particularly daunting. However, it doesn’t have to be - we’re here for you!

At Red-Fern, our content marketing team possess the necessary skills, quality and experience that you need to smash your overall goals and results. Getting your content marketing right is crucial to the success of your wider campaign. So, rather than stress about the pressures of that, let us deal with it. Or, if you’re looking at doing it yourself, at least let us help. 

For further information and reading about how you can put together the perfect content strategy and the secrets to perfecting your execution, please download our free guide below. Just hold that thought for a moment though - it’s coming soon! But in the meantime, for any questions or queries about content marketing or how Red-Fern can help you, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. 

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