Establishing Your Content Marketing Goals and Accomplishments

With all of the hard work that you put into your content marketing strategy, it is about time that you figure out if you are accomplishing what you want. Developing a checklist is an effective way to find out.

It is very possible that you already have some sort of tracking system in place that will give you the results of your social media efforts. However, chances are that those will give your results of specific pieces of content rather than giving your results on a broader scale. It is an excellent idea for your to look at your strategy and then examine your accomplishments over the longer term and with a larger number of criteria. As you are looking into the results of your efforts in such detail, the first thing that you should do is make sure that you are asking the most appropriate questions. Before you begin your analysis, you should compile a list of questions that are well thought out and carefully organized. The following are questions that you may want to consider posing because the responses will definitely help you.

• Are you being consistent in your online marketing efforts? In order for your online marketing  efforts to be successful, you need to be consistent and other people need to be able to depend on your efforts. If you can do this, you will be building trustworthiness and credibility. You should examine your consistency when it comes to sharing your content, which will help you to maintain your relationships that already exist as well as cultivating new relationships. The best tool to use when it comes to successfully maintaining consistency is an editorial calendar. Of course, it goes without saying that you need to not only create an editorial calendar but you also have to work on keeping it up to date on a very regular basis.
• How relevant is your content to your target audience? You need to evaluate how relevant your content is to the needs and wants of your target audience. It is critical that you find a way to help your target audience members to solve their problems. A great way to do that is by reading the profiles of your target audience. In many cases, that will give you a very good idea about what they are looking to you to help them accomplish. Another good way to understand your target audience is by paying close attention to the comments that they make after reading your content.
• How compelling is  your content to your target audience? If the quality of your writing is excellent, it doesn’t just mean that the grammar, punctuation and spelling are correct. It also means that the writing is exciting, enticing and thought provoking. It is important that your writing entices your readers to want to come back and it is equally important that your writing makes them want to share it with other people they know. When you are writing, it is essential that you always remember to tell a good story. Your stories must have elements in them that touch your audience. They need to be able to relate to what you are saying on an emotional level (in a human way). It is a matter of writing style and it is also a matter of the kind of passion that is found in your writing.
• Do you have an organized system for coming up with fresh content on a regular basis? It can be a challenge to come up with new topics on a regular basis; however, it is absolutely imperative that you constantly share fresh content with your target audience. There are times when recycling content is appropriate but if you are hoping to increase your client base, you will need a way to accomplish that. It is a very good idea to keep a file (or repository) of topic ideas and draw from there. You should also devote yourself to replenishing topics on a regular basis and never let the number of topics go below a certain number. If possible, try to avoid doing anything at the last minute. It will only cause stress and your content needs to be of the best quality possible.
• Does your position of influence increase on a regular basis? Your influence is extremely important. The more influential you are and the more you surround yourself and your business with other influencers, the more successful you will be. The way in which you measure your influence may change; however, the presence of the influence will not. Influence survives over the long term and in a broad way. It is important to constantly strive to improve upon your offerings constantly.

Conclusion

You work so hard at accomplishing your marketing goals but building and setting up the strategy is only half the battle. The other half is working it so that it becomes extremely effective and your business becomes outrageously successful. The more you work it, the better your results will be. It is all up to you. You should revisit the success of your online marketing efforts regularly and if you see that something isn’t working, you will need to tweak it until it makes sense again. Make sure that you are truly there for your target audience and let them know that your purpose is to solve their problems in the best way possible.

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