One of the best strategies that a top digital marketing agency uses is creating and deploying a variety of content for their clients. Why would an agency do this? Don’t articles featuring keywords and shared to a few news and social sites suffice? The answer to this question lies in the definition of content.
When you are looking for a digital marketing agency to handle your content marketing campaign, ask the prospective agencies how they define content. You want to work with the company that offers the broadest vision. Content is much more than articles or blog posts; although these are a subset within this category. Today content innovation occurs at a staggering pace. It includes selfies, Periscope videos, a kaleidoscope of images that live on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other social sites, plus an array of guides, advertorials, email newsletters, landing pages, and much more.
Now that we’ve gotten a glimpse into the cornucopia that is content in 2016, let’s look at an effective way to get your agency to match your online goals with the right content campaign.
Actively Participate in Your Content Strategy with Your Agency
Whether you are in the pre-hire stage or you have already engaged a digital company, it’s important as the client to be an active participant in the structuring of your content strategy. Offer your agency direction at the outset of the campaign: What is your goal? Do you want people to download your e-book? Buy your latest product? Learn why your product lasts longer and performs better? Set the goal at the outset of the campaign. Then set dated milestones that lead to the goal. For example: Say you want people to discover why the lawn mower you manufacture offers 3 environmentally-focused benefits. You and your agency decide that you will begin the campaign in early February as you are targeting a Southern states audience, and in that section of the country people will begin yard work in early spring. Next you attach numbers to your goal. Example: Get 1,000 lawn mower orders by March 31. Once you have set an end date for your goal, you and your agency can set dates for the milestones. Attached to each milestone is a specific piece of content to engage your audience across multiple networks where they congregate:
1) Create product web page copy and a demonstration video (to live on your website and on YouTube) – launch February 1
2) Introduce the product on Twitter & Facebook with special offer – February 1
3) Create humorous Vine video showing rapid lawn mowing capabilities & environmentally conscious features – February 2
4) Create and post 3 blogs per week to the website that offer details and content variety – lists, video, audio – full months of February & March
5) Continue this process until March 31.
As you can see the content provides multiple ways for the audience to engage. Ideally content should be planned out using an editorial calendar. Here are some great templates to use for that, and even while you and your agency are planning; don’t feel completely locked in. Leave yourself a bit of room to be spontaneous with content creation initiatives.
Don’t Wait to Measure Success Until Campaign End
The goal was to sell 1,000 lawnmowers by March 31. Don’t wait until the end of the campaign to review your content’s effectiveness. Each week take a look at the data and see what is working and what isn’t. Adjust your editorial calendar to provide more of the content that your audience loves. Your Internet marketing agency can then help you get closer to your goal by delivering precisely created and distributed content.
Ready to launch a content marketing campaign of your own? Let’s talk about your goals and how we will use a variety of content to excite consumers about your products and services. Organically is an award-winning Gatlinburg agency that can transform your content marketing – get started today!