Getting Started
So now that we have a solid understanding of what content marketing is and how we can use it to extend the reach of our own business’, now is it is time to learn how to really get started, the process involved and at what stage is it time to start seeing a return on your investment.
The process behind content marketing might seem like a long haul, a tedious grind that you will have to constantly hammer out work before you start to see a return. If this is your mindset, content marketing might be better left to a professional since is far from a quick turnaround and won’t bring instant gratification any time soon. With this in mind, content market can be seen as a growing tree. In the beginning, the tree will need constant care and support to keep it growing. It is weak on its own and will be a long time before any fruit starts growing. The longer you water it and put in the work, the further it will grow and in time you will start to see it can support itself on its own, it needs less work and it will start bringing you the sweetest fruits. Basically content marketing will take a long time to grow but once it reaches the later stages, there will be immense returns on your investment and requires less work on your part to grow your audience.
So where is the best place to get started? Your first stage is to start building a website. This will likely be focused in a blog style, remembering that content marketing is so much more than just written articles. Your blog can be exclusively videos, photos, audio content or any combination of these media types. There are a number of websites you can use to establish your website for free which is an advantage particularly in the earlier stages.
If you have your website established and you have been publishing content, now is the time to start driving traffic towards that content and start building yourself an email list. Fortunately there are a number of websites which allow you to publish content for free which can help your content get noticed and of course redirect your audience over to your website. Sites like HubPages, Medium and Reddit all allow you to publish content, which can be seen by millions of others. Using tag lines and keywords, you are able to successfully target your ideal customers to capture their interests.
This, as mention before, will take a great deal of time. You can always find extra help by setting up marketing campaigns and sponsored posts but keep in mind the return on investment will not be seen for some time. At this stage it is important to not try and sell a product or your business, instead you providing interesting content to your ideal customer, you want to impress, excite and engage them and without the push.