If you find yourself struggling to develop effective content for your business, you are not alone. In fact, a 2022 HubSpot study found that only 30% of marketers feel their organization is effective at content marketing. Adds Neil Blumenthal, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of international prescription optics retailer Warby Parker, "Content marketing is really hard. It takes a lot of time and effort to create high-quality content that engages your audience."

Yes, producing consistent, high-quality content can be a challenging task. As a company Running on EOS^® (the Entrepreneurial Operating System^®), achieving content goals (for a one-year plan) and Rocks (90-day priorities and focus) are typically on the to-dos for our marketing firm, and for the clients we work with. How can you gain “traction” and convert the key information you understand about your customers, company, products, and services into meaningful content that connects, engages, and inspires?

Here are ways you can create content that connects with your target audience, provides valuable information, and ultimately drives more sales.

Set SMART goals.

The path to achieving your content marketing goals begins by establishing specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. SMART goals provide a clear roadmap for your content marketing strategy and help you stay on track. For example, your goal might be to increase website traffic by 30% over the next six months. This goal is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timeline measurable.

Understand your audience.

Effectively reaching your audience starts by understanding their needs, pain points, interests, and motivations. At Spoke, we develop Ideal Customer Profiles (ICPs) for our clients to help us develop a clear understanding of who we are communicating with and how best to do that. This knowledge will help you create content that resonates with prospects and provides value during every phase of their customer buyer journeys.

Apply what you’ve learned.

As a company focused on EOS principles, we constantly refer to the things we’ve learned about our company, including V/TO^® insights, our 3 Uniques, and Core Focus to clearly communicate why Spoke is the optimal solution to our customers’ challenges. Play to your strengths. What makes your brand special? And more importantly, how can you develop stories (we call it StorySelling) that build your brand, provide helpful information to your customers, and ultimately convert prospects into loyal brand followers? These questions should drive every content element you create.

‍Create a content calendar.

A content calendar is a tool that helps you plan and organize your content marketing strategy. It allows you to schedule content in advance and ensures that you are creating a variety of content types (such as blog posts, videos, and infographics) and covering a range of topics. This will help you stay on track and ensure that you are developing content that aligns with your goals and target audience. Also, it helps your content work together as a campaign for maximum impact (and maximum impressions) that engages and resonates with your audience.

Promote your content.

Creating great content is only half the battle – you also need to promote it effectively. Use a range of channels, such as social media, email marketing, and paid advertising, to get your content in front of your target audience. At Spoke, we believe you haven’t told your story until someone else can tell it. Spreading the word about your brand story will connect potential customers with your content, create inbound marketing opportunities, and ultimately lead to more loyal brand followers.

Monitor your results.

Monitoring your results is an essential part of achieving your content marketing goals. Track your progress, identify what is working and what isn’t, and make changes as needed. Use tools like Google Analytics and social media metrics to measure the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts. The goal here is continuous improvement. Apply this powerful data to get a complete picture of how your blogs, eBooks, infographics, case studies, and social media posts are bringing customers to your website – and creating greater brand awareness.  

Stay the course.

Achieving your content marketing goals takes time and effort – it won’t happen overnight. Be patient and persistent in your efforts. Our experiences as an EOS company help to give us (and our clients) the resources and focus to translate vision into action. And convert prospects into customers. Creating clear and engaging content is an important element in making this all happen.

We’re always here to talk about how we use EOS to achieve our business goals and how our clients who run on EOS achieve theirs. And we can help you use your marketing Rocks to go from where you are now to where you want to be.™

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