The 10 Content Marketing Commandments

Follow these 10 Content Marketing Commandments to ensure content marketing success at your shop:

  1. Thou Shalt Listen
    Content marketing success entails more listening and less talking than traditional outbound marketing strategies. Join online conversations where your target audience is present and read their content. This tactic will help you learn and understand what’s important to the folks you are trying to reach, which is a vital ingredient when aiming to create content they will find valuable.
  2. Thou Shalt Pay Attention to Quality
    In content marketing, quality beats quantity almost every time. Quality earns trust and trust creates organic connections with prospects. It’s as simple as that.
  3. Thou Shalt Practice Patience
    Your content marketing plan wasn’t built in a day, so don’t expect it to impact your bottom line overnight. There are exceptions to this rule, but generally, content marketing is best at producing stronger results over a period of time.
  4. Thou Shalt Expand Content Beyond Promotional Content
    While promotional messaging should be part of your overall content strategy, contemporary marketing best practices dictate the importance of establishing trust and community around your brand. The most effective and easiest way to do this is by broadening the types of content you share to encourage engagement and keep things interesting.
  5. Thou Shalt Refine Messaging
    When it comes to your strategy, remember the K.I.S.S. rule from grade school-“Keep It Simple, Stupid.” You will never be able to reach everyone, and trying to do so by spreading and thinning out your messaging is a waste of resources. Instead, keep your content marketing plan focused and uncluttered in order to build strong brand recognition and trust among your target audience.
  6. Thou Shalt Harness the Power of Influencers
    Invest time and energy in locating and building relationships with online influencers in your market and adjacent markets. If you can convince them through your content that you are a respected, stimulating channel for valuable content, they may share your content with their followers, expanding your reach to a wider audience and strengthening your brand by aligning it with trusted influencers.
  7. Thou Shalt Manage Frequency of Messaging
    Email messaging and social media updates don’t last long, but there is no universal best practice for what timing and frequency are most effective for every audience. Take time to understand how long your audience is engaging with and sharing content, then test out a few different strategies to see what works best.
  8. Thou Shalt of Acknowledge and Engage
    Building relationships is one of the most important parts of content and social media marketing success, and in order to do this, you must invest time in acknowledging and responding to users’ mentions, questions, commentary, etc. Engagement is also critical; promote engagement by posing questions (in the form of surveys or responses on social platforms) to encourage user interaction or by gamifying your content through incentivizing certain desired actions.
  9. Thou Shalt Make Content Accessible
    As a content marketer, you always want to ensure that your content is accessible to your users. One easy way to do this is through cross-promotion-be sure to link to your website or blog from your social accounts.
  10. Thou Shalt Keep Branding and Voice Consistent
    Your online presence and all of your messaging and content serve as your “voice” or the outward extension of your brand, allowing that brand to reach many more people through a large network of experiences and engagement. Be sure to keep that voice consistent with your brand using tactics such as integrating the look and feel of your campaigns across all your communications channels, keeping your messaging focused on and tailored to your audience, and creating and adhering to brand guidelines.

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