The Content Marketing Routine: What Are the Main Steps?

So, you’ve created a great content asset? Good for you.

But can you guarantee that it will be successful? Can you define “success” in terms of content?

Not sure? You’re not alone.

Most content creators and marketers have jumped on the content marketing bandwagon without proper preparation. They are not familiar with the start-to-finish process, proper tools, or best practices. The lack of preparation impacts their content’s performance and their overall marketing ROI.

Five Basic Steps of Content marketing

To avoid these pitfalls, you need to follow a proper content marketing process. Here are the five basic steps involved:

1. Content Planning and Research

To create content that your audience finds engaging, you need to understand your audience first. To do so, follow them on the web and analyze their actions. To gain insights about your existing customers, use quizzes, surveys, and customer feedback and reviews.

2. Content Creation

Once you have a good grip on your audience, get down to crafting content. But first, find keywords with good ranking potential. Then, drill down into the topics trending in your domain.

With the topics and keywords sorted, your content can fare better on the SERPs (search engine results pages).

3. Content Scheduling and Publication

The next task is to publish your content on the right platforms.

Like where?

The social networks where your target audience is most active. Plus, your website and email newsletters. Don’t forget to cross-promote across platforms to ensure maximum exposure for your content.

4. Content Promotion and Distribution

If you think your job is over after content publication, think again. Your target audience may not discover your content on their own. You need to make noise about it and grab eyeballs.

But how?

• Write social media posts with links to your content.
• Publish on networks with massive reach (like Medium).

5. Analysis and Strategy Revision

Last but not least, you have to track and analyze your content’s performance. How many clicks, comments, and reshares did it garner? If the numbers are low, evaluate your strategy and plug the loopholes.

That’s it. By following the above process, you can ensure that your content is actually “successful.” To learn more about these steps, check out this infographic I created:

Image Courtesy: ShaneBarker.com

Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing, content marketing, and SEO. He is the co-founder of Attrock, a digital marketing agency. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities.