Effective content allows brands to take control of their narrative. If you’re interested in a digital marketing career, content will be a valuable tool for raising brand awareness for your clients, garnering trust, and, eventually, turning customers into loyal brand advocates. Content marketing isn’t new, and to carve out a niche and become a valuable asset to your clients, you must be strategic. Following these best practices during your content planning process can drive excellent results and open doors to advancement in your digital marketing career.
1. Set Clear Goals After Digital Marketing Training
Content serves various purposes in a marketing context. To narrow the focus of your strategy, goal setting is an excellent starting point. In fact, each piece of content you share should have a specific purpose. Here are some relevant, measurable goals you can start with:
- Improving search rankings: Because internet users rarely venture past the first page of search results, ranking high should be a chief concern for all digital marketers. Some SEO practices to keep on your radar include keyword optimization and link building. Remember that unique, relevant, and shareable content boosts SEO as well, so no matter what SEO strategies you choose to employ, focus on quality.
- Educating your audience and building authority: By establishing a brand as a thought leader in the industry, you garner trust with your audience or potential clients. Focus on content that is helpful in unique, evidence-based ways.
- Encouraging users to take action: After nurturing leads by gaining trust and providing value, it’s time to incite action. When this is the goal, focus on persuasive content that creates urgency around your offer.
2. Determine Your Target Audience to Reach the Right People
To accomplish your content goals after digital marketing courses; it’s essential to determine your target audience and create content tailored to their needs and interests. Start with a buyer persona. These are semi-fictional depictions of your ideal buyer developed from market research and educated assumptions. Ask yourself about your ideal buyer’s pain points, motivations, potential objections, and criteria for making decisions. The answers to these questions will help you to determine what sort of topics ideal buyers want you to cover in your content, what platforms they like to use to access your content, and what voice they’ll relate to most.
3. Experiment With Different Content Formats
If you enjoy novelty in your career, content marketing is an excellent specialization to pursue after digital marketing training. In fact, providing novelty is an important best practice to employ as you plan content as it keeps brand image fresh and relevant. As you create a content strategy, focus on striking a balance between some of these popular content formats:
- Videos: Among the most popular forms of online content, videos are highly engaging and shareable.
- Blog posts: An excellent way to provide valuable, informative content for customers and potential buyers. They should be published regularly and ideally be between 1000 and 2000 words.
- Podcasts: Not everyone has time to read. Podcasts are an excellent way to reach busy audience members and position your brand as an industry leader with interesting interviews with big names in your sector.
- Ebooks: Ebooks are an effective lead capturing tool. They are downloaded after contact details are submitted through a lead form, so you can be sure the reader’s interest has already been piqued. Focus on providing content that delivers on its promise and provides valuable information that helps readers resolve a specific pain point.
- Social media: Social media is an excellent way to distribute content, connect with your audience, and even provide customer service. Experiment with a variety of platforms and focus on the highest performing sites based on data analytics.
Digital marketing best practices are constantly evolving which is why you’d do best to pursue training that introduces you to strategies on the cutting edge of the industry. Our digital marketing courses are taught by experts in the field who will guide you through real world projects that will increase your eligibility for a variety of competitive digital marketing roles.
Are you ready to start a digital marketing program?
Contact Cumberland College BC for more information.
