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Content marketing has become one of the most effective asset classes when it comes to connecting with target audiences. Why? It provides a wealth of information that includes social data, gathering feedback and openly engaging with customers.
Naturally, content marketing plays into what business owners love the most about business — the people. This is why I wanted to discuss the need to differentiate between a path and a plan. As a business owner, you know where you want to go and what you want to do when it comes to marketing your products and/or services.
The real question is: How do you get there? And when you get there, what’s the best plan of action to make the most of your opportunity. In this article, I am going to be discussing the appropriate approach to content marketing, the importance of keeping an open mind & why you should view content marketing as an asset class.
Let’s go ahead and get started below.
What Is A Path?
The beauty of content marketing is that there’s no right or wrong path. Establishing a path for success should be approached like any other business endeavor. There should be a focus on improving, setting up metrics for success and meeting timelines.
PATH = PRACTICE
The best example of establishing a path in content marketing is cooking. People often work on recipes until they find that perfect mix or combination that speaks to the idea they originally had in their heads. When it comes to content marketing, the idea of ‘content iteration‘ has to be a built-in mindset.
The overall goal should be, ‘How can you constantly improve and connect better with your target audience?’
If you think about many of the major businesses and brands of today, they have gained a deep connection with their consumers through practice. Relentlessly following a set path and using content iteration to garner brand loyalty over an extended amount of time.
The value created by following a set path towards a goal is that you discover sweet spots that become mainstays within your content mix. This openness to improvement allows for continued discovery, experimentation and feedback. Your journey on a set path will ultimately provide you with the tools to create and execute ‘highly-favored’ plans.
What Is A Plan?
Undoubtedly — as a business owner or entrepreneur, you understand the value of a plan. Throughout life, we have been conditioned to place a certain amount of significance on plans. For example, in college: ‘No major = No degree’. As with business, ‘No financial plan = No loan’.
Also, one of the main benefits of doing business in the ‘Information Age‘ is that there’s a wealth of examples to pull from when it comes to how to effectively reach your target audience.
As a business owner, you can easily figure out what channels, platforms and content formats your target audience frequently use. As with any plan, you’ll want to increase your odds of success by meeting your ideal customer where they live.
PLAN = EXECUTION
When it comes to content marketing, plans can be ‘highly-favored’ and help you to execute endeavors that are tried and proven. Not just speculation. Having a concrete plan in place can ultimately lead you to answer the question: ‘What is your bread and butter?’
As well as, how can experimentation be applied to improve your overall bottom line?
The same can concept can be applied to what we’re building at 227. There’s this vast World of content marketing that includes a wealth of information and innovation. There’s always new technology being launched and leveraged everyday.
Therefore, our bread & butter is information and services.
The real questions are: How can we present a mindset where content marketing is considered an asset class? While also introducing a proven perspective when it comes to organizing business ecosystems.
Lastly, how can we help business owners maneuver and operate on a path to success?
Plans are primarily about execution, once we’ve reached our 1st checkpoint on our journey. How can we continue to build on top of what we’ve already accomplished. Whether it be growing a larger social media following, building an online community or simply developing digital assets that are backed by advertising.
Our need to identify and connect with others has only grown deeper. The Internet is an ever-evolving place and content marketing should be approached as an asset class that only gets better with time and effort. At the end of the day, people are still people and what draws us to connect with people will never change.
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