The Three Questions You Need To Answer Before Starting Your Content Marketing Campaign

“Be sure you positively identify your target before you pull the trigger.” Tom Flynn

​​In this blog post, we will discuss content creation, content marketing and the three questions you must answer before you can create success in pushing your brand or product forward.

Content creation and marketing is one of the keys to becoming established as an online authority and the go to expert in your particular niche. While paid marketing can get the job done, however once you stop spending, your campaign can end. Content creation and marketing is an effective strategy, because it leverages useful assets(video, blog posts, ebooks, articles, reports, infographics, memes.) to actually provide value to your prospect while keeping your brand in front of them and ultimately presenting you as the solution.

Some think that just throwing a few digital assets(videos, social media graphics, memes) up will get the job done, however without a conscious strategy and endgame, you will not get the returns needed for success and thus frustration develops as you try, unsuccessfully, to reach your audience.

Who

Before you start discovering what you are trying to deliver as far as content and why you are trying to deliver your content, you must figure out who you will be delivering your amazing content to. You must not be a “jack of all trades, but master of none” with your content marketing focus. You must narrow down your focus to a particular audience who appreciate and find value in what you present. For example, if you are clear in trying to reach a young demographic then this will let you know to focus on youth centric platforms(ex. TikTok, Snapchat).

Take some time to think about who your ideal and perfect audience is. Do you want to reach a certain gender, race, educational background, age, religion, city, etc? Based on your research, you can come up with a buyer persona, which will be a visual representation of who you are trying to reach. Click on the link in the aforementioned word “buyer persona” to learn more about creating your own buyer persona.

What

In this second step, you will have to determine what you are trying to reach your particular audience with. There are many types of content, so you don’t have to limit yourself to just one.

Some of the content strategies one can use are: video marketing, blogging, article marketing, meme marketing, infographics, ebooks.

However, whether you are using one, two or three content strategies, you must be clear on what you are going to market and how they compliment each other. For example, perhaps you choose to go with a video marketing strategy complimented by a blog marketing strategy. With this strategy, you can repurpose your content from turning your blog post into a video summation to vice versa turning a video into a how to blog post.

Why

We will conclude this section with the last, W, which represents your why. When you know your why, it will give you the motivation to continue when things are not immediate. You have to answer the question: Why must you reach your particular audience with your amazing content?

When I worked in sales, they drilled the following mantra into my head: “Features tell, but benefits sell.” Therefore, we have to create value in what we are offering that will answer why a prospect should accept what you are offering. What benefit is in it for them? What problem of theirs does it solve?

I have seen some try to market online, but they are all over the place, because they haven’t addressed the three foundational questions mentioned in this blog post. Therefore, before you try to build a house online, establish a strong foundation.

Let’s not have this be the last time we stay in contact. Sign up for my email list to stay in the loop when new information comes out, special offers are presented and for new tips. Sign up here.