Does it seem strange to you to set goals for your Content Marketing?
If you’re a small business owner then maybe you’ll feel the constant pressure of trying to churn out content every week, month and see very little return so chances are you’ve given up.
But what if I was to tell you that Content Marketing is the most cost effective way of generating sales and leads in your business? Not only that but the conversion rate is 62% higher than traditional forms of outbound marketing. Click To Tweet
That’s some statistic, right?
I urge you now to take a look at the earlier blog post ‘How to go from good to great with your content marketing’
Once you’ve done that, pop back here and I’ll shed a little light on setting your goals, the why and the how.
You’ve taken into account the 6 Key Elements you need in your content marketing strategy, downloaded the free content planner, it’s now time to start the goal setting.
Here’s a quick video taken from the Content Creation Made Easy Challenge that was recently rolled out over on Facebook. This is one of the units that we go through, and I share just how I set my content goals throughout the year – ahead of time.
Watch the video here >>> https://youtu.be/5y0ZAEdwJms
As you will see, it’s not an exact science but the point is I do it, every single year and review every quarter, month and week so I can make sure I’m on track. In fact, along with my financial goals it’s one thing I obsess over!
Here are 4 main goals that should be part of your strategy.
- To earn links – from high authority websites
- To educate our audience – adding value wherever possible.
- To drive social engagement – that results in conversations.
- To rank on search engines – higher Search Engine Rankings.
As an example, my main focus for the end of this year has been to build my audience on Facebook and also to grow my email list. Every single piece of content I’ve created has been focused around those 2 goals, so I have created maybe 10+ free downloads (list building), an active Facebook Group (audience growth), and invested my time heavily in creating videos (audience growth). I set targets as follows;
Email list – grow by 500
Facebook Group – up to 500 members
Youtube – Up to 100 subscribers
Now, I know these are modest figures and not huge but I was starting from complete scratch, still learning and understanding my audience plus I don’t have a huge budget to spend on advertising so everything had to be done organically.
With 2 months of the year left, I’ve surpassed by email list goal (more opportunities to build relationships that leads to sales), have over 300 members in the Facebook Group and 50 Subscribers on YouTube.
Looking at the content I have coming up in November and December, I know I am well on my way to achieving my targets (which were set back in March by the way, before I’d even launched).
I’m now working on my 2019 targets – which are HUGE!
So can you apply this to your business? What are your goals for 2019? How can you make your content marketing work hard for you, without the stress?
In the next blog post i’ll be sharing a top tool I use when it comes to fresh new ideas so stay tuned!
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