Research to Perform Before Beginning Your Content Marketing Campaign
It’s important for any company that is serious about digital marketing to include a content marketing plan in its online endeavors. However, before you jump right into the world of content marketing, there’s some important background research that you need to do first.
Here are some of the areas that you should research before beginning your content marketing campaign:
- Your audience. Put together a comprehensive audience assessment that will help you to understand exactly who your audience is and what they’re looking for. Some of the research tactics you’ll use for this process
include keyword research, an analysis of user-generated content, expert interviews, analytics assessments, customer interviews and surveys and more. All of these tactics will help you to identify your customers’ pain points and understand their purchase considerations.
- Content trends. By researching some of the more engaging content in your industry, you can determine patterns that show exactly what gets people engaged. Keep an eye on commonly cited resources, experts that tend to be quoted and more. Other research tactics include sentiment analysis, sub topic identification and angle identification.
- Media influencers. What sources drive the most traffic in your market? Determine who or what are the biggest social influencers in your industry, what industry publications get a lot of respect, which social media networks yield the most engagement and more.
- Your competition. If you’re using content marketing to help give yourself an edge on the competition (which you are—that’s at the heart of all marketing efforts), then you need to familiarize yourself with exactly what kinds of content marketing those competitors are performing. What works or does not work for them? What kind of tone do they use in their content? What types of content are they creating? What specific demographics are they targeting? All of this information will help you to create a campaign that works for your company.
If you need assistance in creating a content marketing campaign for your small business, reach out to our team at Viral Solutions today and we’ll be happy to work with you.
Copyright 2015 Viral Solutions LLC
by Thomas von Ahn | Chief Elephant Slayer
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, Infusionsoft Certified Consultant and a Mobit Certified Partner. We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.