Every content writer needs to know how to build an effective and winning marketing campaign. But it’s important to remember when building a workable campaign that there are many pieces to the puzzle. While no individual piece is exceedingly difficult to accomplish, a savvy content writer needs to be thorough when creating or improving a content marketing campaign.
Like all great accomplishments, a winning marketing plan comes together slowly, takes teamwork, and requires a healthy dose of organization for maximum effect. Here are the individual parts of a typical strategy for constructing a powerful content marketing plan:
Build a Strategy
All successful campaigns begin on (virtual) paper. Having a strategy in place before you begin the marketing campaign is the first rule, and the most important one. Everything flows from the original plan, so spend time on this step.
Write the Strategy Down
Even if you have a photographic memory, write your strategy down so you and other members of the team can refer to it regularly. When the strategy needs to be tweaked along the way, don’t worry. Just remember to document the changes.
Communicate with Your Team
As the content writer, you need to let team members know about any changes from day to day. Regular team meetings, virtual or otherwise, are an important part of any business plan.
Make Sure Every Campaign Has a Clear Goal
Each campaign needs to have a goal of its own. Some will be more focused on selling a product or service, while others might be geared to bringing in new readers or advertisers. Treat each campaign as a separate entity and your marketing efforts will be more targeted and successful.
Follow the Metrics
The rule here is to “follow the right metrics”. If, for example, your business is reliant on buyers who are under the age of 30, focus more on age than geographic region. But if the reverse is true, and your sales are concentrated in a local community but are bought by people of all ages, you can afford to pay more attention to geography than age.
Too many content writers don’t know which metrics are relevant for their particular product or service. That’s why it’s vitally important to first identify the applicable metrics, and then follow the ones that make a difference in your line of business.
Work as a Team
Don’t put the entire burden on yourself. If you are a top-notch content writer you will want to outsource some of the tasks that are not your strong point. Typically, successful content writers get help with marketing, finances and other non-writing chores. Working as a team can pay huge dividends for a high-quality content writer who understands how to delegate responsibility.
Create a Marketing Plan
If you sold watermelons grown in your backyard, you would need to have a marketing plan. Having a quality product is not enough, as every retailer knows. A well-developed marketing plan will identify which channels you’ll use to sell your product or products. And don’t forget that if you sell several different items or services, each one might need its own separate marketing plan.
Know Your Customers
When you use a keyword-dense content marketing system, you’ll be more likely to bring in customers who are truly interested in what you’re writing about and selling. Keywords are the key! Like so many other parts of the overall strategy, this step relies heavily on that fact that you know who your customers are and can write content that they are searching for.
Learn How to Measure ROI
By keeping detailed records of your spending, you should be able to capably calculate ROI, which in its bare-bones form is merely the amount of money you generate from a campaign divided by the amount of money you spent on that campaign. Don’t worry if ROI is a negative number early on. Most campaigns are “in the red” for a while. But after you’ve been working for a few weeks or months, a campaign should show a profit. If it doesn’t, then it’s time to rethink the plan.
Don’t Forget About Google
If you want to place well in Google’s SEO rankings, then you’ll have to be a pro-active content writer by staying on top of Google’s rules. Check Google-related news and announcements at least once per week. The search giant sometimes alters the way it ranks websites based on things like high-quality content, traffic, image density, and age of the site, just to name a few.
Teamwork, persistence, analysis and re-evaluation are all parts of a successful campaign. A content writer doesn’t have to be a one-person show. With several specialists to assist with chores like marketing, customer profiling, financial management and strategy-making, a writer can make sure that excellent writing gets to the place it needs to be: in front of the eyes of potential customers and readers.
