People often ask when and how they should start thinking about strategic content marketing. My answer is it’s never too early—or too late—to start. But before you’re ready to roll, the first step is understanding what this emerging sector of marketing even means. The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as:
“A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience—and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
Chances are your company already owns a lot of creative content assets, but you may not know how, when or where to use them appropriately to build loyalty and convert customers. While there’s no time like the present, there are some especially opportune times to consider implementing a comprehensive content marketing plan, with the help of a content specialist.
When you start up.
If you’re a new company, you’ve lucked out on timing. Content marketing is taking off—and taking over traditional advertising as we know it. This form of marketing is downright affordable because you’re driving it, rather than competing with others for limited ad space. Forget saving up all your marketing spend for a single spread in a magazine. Build a beautifully multi-faceted content strategy into your marketing plan at the outset and your bottom line will love you in the long run.
When you re-brand.
If you’re an established company that’s ready for a re-brand, either because you are launching a new product, a new story or it’s just about time, the re-branding phase is a great time to begin baking content marketing efforts right into a fresh, long-term strategy. Brand messaging is the base of all content marketing—knowing how to tell your story to the right audiences—so it only makes sense that you’d start right here.
When you change design.
Whether you’re launching a brand-new website, shifting to a more universal platform or overhauling an older, outdated digital design, working on your website is a critical time to consider content marketing tactics. Why? Because sophisticated yet simple plug-and-play sites are coming with all the tools you need to easily update content, re-market content on social networks, start an online dialogue related to content, build a community of followers around content and so much more. A modern website platform is built for content marketing. You just need to leverage it.