If you’ve been paying ANY attention to marketing trends over the last year or so, you know that practically everyone on the web is buzzing about content marketing. Unfortunately, though, you can’t just randomly post pieces of content and hope they do the trick. Instead, you need a full-fledged content marketing strategy to generate real results.
But how do you know if your strategy is actually working? What can you expect to see once your web content starts reaching its potential?
#1. More sales
This is, obviously, the biggest measuring stick you’ve got. After all, if you’re not getting more money out of all the content you’re slaving away at (or paying someone to slave away at for you), your strategy isn’t working! OK, so you’re not going to see the money train pull up after you publish one article, but if your content has had time to “make the rounds” and your bottom line still isn’t getting a boost, it’s time to re-think your strategy.
#2. More traffic
If you’re making more money, you’re clearly going to wind up with more visitors on your website, so why even mention this as a result? Simple! Great content can inspire people to visit your website, but it won’t necessarily convince them to buy something. You could have the greatest content marketing strategy in the world, but if your website is hard to navigate or chock full of cheesy sales copy, people aren’t going to buy from you.
If you’re getting a lot of additional traffic — but that traffic isn’t converting — it’s a sign that you need to give your website an honest assessment. When you look at it that way, a successful content marketing strategy can open your eyes to on-site issues you never knew existed. That’s a major result!
No matter what industry you’re in and who your target audience is, a successful content marketing strategy will establish you as a legitimate expert. Your content will provide solutions and answers that your target audience desperately needs, and in order to make sure they don’t miss out on any other gems you have to offer, they’ll follow you on Facebook, Twitter, and the like.
Even just one high-quality piece of content can make your follower list bigger, but if you can keep the great content flowing, you’ll see your social media presence grow by leaps and bounds!
#4. More emails
If people truly think you’re an expert, they won’t limit their contact with you to comments on your blog or mentions on your social media pages. Instead, they’ll go directly to the source and ask questions. So, if your inbox seems a little more crowded these days, it’s because your content marketing strategy is working.
#5. A comfortable flow
In order for your content marketing strategy to truly succeed, you have to stick with it. You can’t just publish one or two pieces and call it a day. Instead, you need a constant flow of high-quality stuff.
Luckily, this flow will get more and more comfortable as you go along! After all, the more interaction you have with people, the more content ideas you’ll be able to generate. For example, you may get an email from someone that sparks an idea for a blog post, or someone may ask you a question on Twitter that inspires you to write a new article that discusses the answer in-depth.
Once this cycle begins, you never have to worry about publishing content because you HAVE to. Instead, you’ll have a flow of ideas coming in, and you’ll never wind up staring blankly at a Word document again!
Images: ”Highway Signpost with Content Marketing wording / Shutterstock.com“
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