It isn’t enough to churn out daily content if your content has no purpose. To be truly effective with online marketing, you have to define your goals and make every task you perform fit into your business’s mission. To do that, each content item needs to have its own purpose.
Format is largely irrelevant. Each content format has its unique advantages, but the purpose for creating that content is what dictates its message.
Let’s take blogging, for instance. Are you writing a blog because you are trying to generate leads for your business or are you trying to funnel your audience into your e-mail list? Perhaps you are selling through your blog (which may not be the most effective way, by the way). Whatever the case, you’ll write your blog in a different way depending on what you are trying to achieve with it.
First Things First: Define Your Content’s Purpose
You can’t achieve what you don’t define. If you merely produce content without thinking about what you want that content to achieve, you are as likely to fail as you are to succeed. On the other hand, if you define your content’s purpose before you start, then your chances for success go up tremendously.
When you define the purpose for each piece of content you produce, think about how it fits in with your overall mission. Then write to that purpose.
Let’s say you are an automobile dealer. Ultimately, your goal is to sell more cars. But how are you going to do that? Your online marketing strategy may include a blog, a newsletter, and downloadable spec sheets for each of your product lines. If you’re a Ford dealer, you may provide information on each of the following Ford model vehicles:
- Mustang
- Focus
- Fiesta
- Explorer
- F-150
- Taurus
- Fusion
- Expedition
You get the idea.
Define Content Purpose Then Plug It In
All content must have a purpose. Each piece of content as well as the format in which you present it should support your overarching goals. A blog post may contain much of the same information as a newsletter article, but each piece can be tweaked to conform to its unique purpose. The purpose of your blog post may be to drive traffic to your newsletter opt-in page. If so, then write to that goal. Your newsletter content may be to encourage people to visit your dealership and test drive a vehicle. If so, write to that goal.
Hopefully, you see how content purpose fits into the overall goal of increasing sales and marketing your business. If so, then start defining.