Kristine
Q4 of 2021 is quickly coming to an end, so it’s time to start thinking about your business goals and marketing strategy for next year. Beginning the planning process now will give you a head start over your competitors and more time to create valuable content for your audience.
To help you start the new year on a strong note, here are our top 5 tips for mapping out and optimizing your first marketing campaign of 2022!
1. Review what worked (and didn’t work) in 2021
Before you can plan an effective content strategy, you have to see which content types were most effective. Go over all of the blogs, videos, social media posts, and other content you created to determine which ones convert the most customers and attract more views. Utilize analytics to really hone in on your top-performing pieces and identify any patterns that seem to work the best for your business.
2. Research the competition
While assessing your own content is a helpful way to further improve your content, it’s equally important to check in on your competitors’ marketing efforts. To create the most successful and effective marketing strategy, you should be aware of what similar brands are trying to accomplish.
You don’t necessarily need expensive analytics tools to research the competition. You can find tons of valuable information by simply combing through these businesses’ social media profiles and blogs. See which platforms your top competitors are using and what they’re doing to boost attraction and followers. Take note of:
- What type of content they’re prioritizing. Are they posting more videos? Live streams? Long-form articles?
- How they tag content. Look at your competitor’s most popular posts and review their tags. Are they using any tags that you haven’t considered and may be relevant to your own business?
- Level of audience engagement. How quickly does the brand respond to customer questions on their social media page? How many likes, comments, or shares are they receiving per post?
You can also do competitor and industry analysis with nothing but a simple Google search. Just type in relevant industry terms, keywords, and common phrases to see what pops up on the first page of results. Think about what you can do to increase your own SEO rankings and better answer your target audience’s questions.
3. Update and repurpose old content
traffic, despite being a little outdated? You can keep your content fresh and save yourself time for other marketing tasks by adjusting data and information as needed on these top-performing pieces.
For particularly text-heavy blog posts and articles, modernize it and make it more mobile-friendly by breaking up long paragraphs and adding more multimedia elements. If you have a great video of an interview with an industry expert, take some of the key stats and information discussed and turn it into an infographic. Remember, you don’t always have to start from scratch when creating content; you can always repurpose and recycle content by reformatting it.
4. Help your readers help themselves
People who are searching for answers and products online tend to want self-service options. If your website doesn’t offer enough information to sufficiently answer your readers’ questions, they’re far more likely to go to another site than contact your business directly. Once readers know they can trust your business, they’ll feel more comfortable purchasing your products and reaching out to your customer service reps.
Look up some common questions that your target customers may have, and plan to create informative content to directly answer these concerns. It’s a win-win situation for you and your customers: When done correctly, content marketing can satisfy your customers’ key questions while establishing your brand’s expertise in the subject matter.
5. Get a content writer to help you out!
If the thought of planning out a whole new year’s worth of content is stressing you out, why not get an experienced content writer on your side? With Content Cucumber, you’ll be connected with your own personal writer who can help you brainstorm new content ideas, rewrite old content, create new blog posts, and much more. You can even ask your writer to draft emails, write product descriptions, do SEO keyword research, create social media posts, or any other written content your business might need.
Still wondering if Content Cucumber is the best choice for you? Sign up for a demo to see how we’ll help your business grow.
