Content marketing still works, but knowing how to improve it and reach even more potential customers isn’t easy. Content marketing generates three times the number of leads to outbound marketing but costs 62% less.

However, knowing you should content market and knowing the best ways to spend your time and money are two different things.

Many steps are involved in the process of creating a successful content marketing campaign, including the following five!

1. Make a Content Plan

Take the time to research what content marketing entails. It’s far more than just an article posted here and there but includes a complete strategy. Content is often written words but also includes videos, infographics, images and even social media posts.

If you want to improve your content marketing, your first step should be to create a plan for a variety of content types on a regular editorial schedule.

There are many different opinions about how frequently you should post content, but when you look at all the advice and mesh it together, the conclusion seems to be around 16 posts per month or about four or five posts per week. The key isn’t just in frequency either — the value of the content is equally important.

Take the time to figure out how often you’d like to publish content, what type of material it will be and where you’ll post it, from social media to your own website or somewhere else. Don’t overlook the value of seasonal promotions that tie into a specific holiday or special event.

2. Know Your Audience

This isn’t unique advice. You’ve likely heard many times before that you have to truly know your audience if you want to do a better job of reaching them, but what are the steps you need to take in order to reach a highly targeted audience?

Knowing your audience is about far more than simply studying analytics, although data provides some important general details. To truly understand your audience, you must interact with them and analyze their buying trends. For example, if most of your customers fall in the millennial age range, then you should study millennial buying trends.

Take the time to interact on social media with your target audience and learn about their preferences. Poll current customers to get feedback. Pay for market research. Conduct A/B testing to figure out what colors, styles, and topics your audience responds to.

3. Invest in Quality

People sometimes say that writers are a dime a dozen, and that might be true since anyone can call themselves a writer. However, quality writers are more difficult to find. Invest in high-quality writing for your blog as well as high-quality editing. Take the time to ensure your content is great and not just so-so.

If you want visitors to not only come to your website but also visit, again and again, you must offer something of high value. There’s content everywhere. Each day, more and more content is created. However, high-quality content isn’t as easy to find amid all the noise on the internet.

Even though there’s a massive amount of content online, in truth, only 10 percent of stories see the majority of internet traffic. If you want your content to be among the 10 percent, you need to invest in content worthy of people’s attention.

4. Meet a Need

Take the time to think through the needs of your readers and figure out how you can best meet those needs. Is there a question that’s asked over and over that falls into your niche? One way you can figure out the needs of your readers is by studying search engine query trends. People often search for something on Google to fulfill a requirement, so invest time in keyword research.

While keywords aren’t used as they once were as far as saturation of words goes, they’re still used to guide search engines to pages that answer a question for the reader. Go beyond just answering the question, though, and explain how you can meet whatever need prompting the question.

One example of this process might be a woman who needs a recipe for an upcoming family reunion. She might search for a term such as “family reunion recipes” or “pitch-in picnic ideas.” For your part, you would offer her actual recipes and tips for taking dishes to a family reunion that will both keep and be appreciated by those in attendance.

You’ll meet the need by providing an in-depth article. You might also offer some tools the user can order, such as a carrier that keeps foods cool or warm. The way meeting reader needs works varies from business to business, but that should give you a good idea of how to accomplish the task and meet your readers’ needs.

5. Plan Your Marketing in Advance

If you never market your content, how will anyone know it’s there? As you follow the other steps and come up with a plan to create content, you should also have a plan for how you’ll market it.

If you specifically want to reach the millions of daily users on YouTube, for example, you’ll create video content to answer some of the questions and needs your typical target audience has.

On the other hand, if your goal is to reach younger people on Snapchat, then your content might be more geared toward images that can be shared on that social media platform.

Scale Your Content

Take the time to scale your content and figure out the many different ways you can use a single piece to reach multiple markets. The more traction you get out of each content piece, the better value you’ll get from that investment.

Invest in the best people, editing, and methods to reach the audience you wish to target. If you focus on the steps listed above and consistently release stellar content, you’ll slowly grow an audience of raving fans who will come to your site again and again and tell others about what you have to offer along the way.

And if you need help, that’s what we’re here for. More about our content services here.