Almost everyone in the marketing and business space is talking about content marketing. It’s a successful long-term inbound marketing based on statistics.

But what everyone is discussing non-stop is the benefits and how to make it work for businesses. Something important is missing here.

The most important factor to succeed in content marketing is not emphasized enough. That factor is what consumers care about the most.

The truth is, consumers only care about what matters to them. Not so much about how good the quality of your graphic design.

Of course, there must be a certain degree of quality for it to be consumable. But, it’s not the most important factor for a successful content marketing campaign.

Content is all about relevancy

As content marketers, content is created for consumers to engage with and consume. Quality should be one of the criteria during creation.

Most content marketers adopt the “trial and error” mindset which is a must as marketers. But what about relevancy? If you want to succeed in content marketing, you should focus on relevancy even more.

Because consumers don’t pay attention to content that doesn’t resonate no matter how visually appealing the content looks. You should also keep in mind that you need engagements from the consumers to have reliable data.

They’ll tell you what they really want in terms of product creation or any other marketing campaigns you’re running. That’s where the power of content marketing lies.

It’s the ability to obtain information based on what the consumers respond to the most. These are the data you can use to plan your next move.

Focus on relevancy first then quality

Don’t go straight into research. Double down on your ideal target audience avatar first.

You need a direction for your research. Most content marketers would research day and night to find out what works for their competitors. They study their competitors’ well-performing content to make their own.

Those content worked for your competitors, but not necessarily for you. Therefore, testings are required in determining the well-performing ones for you. It’s either the format works or the content trend would.

Competitor research helps in the ideation process. But, if you still don’t know who you are talking to, your content won’t resonate with consumers well.

Here’s the thing - you might not have the same target audience as your competitors. This is the reason why you need a target audience avatar for yourself.

You have to make sure you have a clear idea of who your target audience is before the research phase. A research direction is crucial. It gives you clarity.

Nailing the perfect research

There’s no better place to do research other than your competitors. We all strive to create the perfect content for our audience.

And in our journey to become the best among the competition, we always try to create something better than our competitors.

That’s what I read on various blogs teaching content marketing. This concept leads us to create repetitive content rather than being creative with our creation.

You have a clear target audience in mind. Yet, you still strive to create better content based on what your competitors have on their site. Content marketing has become a game of competition.

Let me ask you, are you creating for your audience, or are you creating to beat the competition?

The content your audience craves for has only one requirement— give your audience what they care about the most. That’s all. Nothing complicated.

So what’s your research should be like?

Step 1: Find out what they are paying attention to nowadays.

Step 2: Find out what types of content made them engage

Step 3: Find out if your competitors are implementing them

Step 4: Find out what can you implement in your content marketing strategies

Step 5: Find out if you can repurpose those content if they work

Step 3 and step 4 are important. This is where content marketers usually mixed things up in their strategies.

We’ll go into each of these steps. I hope you’ll gain some insights from what I’m about to explain.

Step 1: Find out what they are paying attention to nowadays

The best insights are in the marketplace. The market never lies. Good content marketers turn to competitors and their data for insights.

Great content marketers turn to their audience to tell them what they want. This can be done directly or indirectly.

The black lives matter movement is a good example. People are talking about this across all the social media platforms through hashtags, groups, DMs, etc.

It has been trending for quite some time. You have to be living in the deep Amazon jungle to not know what is happening.

The same goes for every industry. Each of them has its own topics that are trending. It’s the job of a content marketer to tune into these social cues and get something out of it.

Find out what’s trending because people are looking for content about those trending topics. It’s the easiest way to gain traction, and it guarantees the spotlight on your content.

You can invest in social listening tools to help you do this. These people are passionate about these topics. They are your target audience.

Step 2: Find out what types of content made them engage

Why focus on the types of content you asked? Because different industry has different types of content its audience prefer.

I’m a writer. My target audience is writers and marketers who read. It makes perfect sense to produce content that consists of words. A little bit of graphics into my content strategy works well.

The emphasis here is, to connect what your target audience prefers to consume to the types of content you’re willing to invest in.

I know video works best at the moment. It won’t be if it doesn’t fit well in your niche. Remember, relevancy should always be your focus when creating content.

Think for a second. If your audience hangs out on Facebook and Instagram often, it’d be wise to invest in great visuals and videos to keep them engaged.

Because those types of content work on those platforms. If I were to make a group on Facebook, my content would be blogs and written status updates most of the time — my audience is mostly readers.

You need to craft a solid target audience avatar and connect the dots. That way, you’ll start to see what type of content you should invest in, and where should you distribute your content.

Step 3: Find out if your competitors are implementing them

This step is tricky. Many are told to make better content than your competitor. In the end, the content is almost the same. The only thing that’s different is the headline and logo.

There are many ways you can pull this off. But you need to get the mindset right first. Steal the context, make your own content.

If you observe closely, the context which exists in each industry is almost the same. Search Google, and type social media marketing. Same context but different headlines.

The best way to differentiate your content from your competitors is to create your own content. If you’re reading this, chances are, you have an audience.

You can create your own unique content, and present them to your audience. Your content, is your creation, in your own way. Your audience chooses to follow you because of this.

To be honest, Google is only for people who know what they’re looking for. Not ideal for people who want to learn something new. People who are new, don’t know what they don’t know.

And they’ll turn to you for guidance if you manage to get their attention. Google’s suggestions won’t be enough to educate them on topics they are unfamiliar with unless they read blogs like HubSpot.

You know your audience trust you if they chose to follow you. It’s your job as a content marketer to produce something they want to consume. Whether it’s to be educated, entertained, or inspired.

Step 4: Find out what can you implement in your content marketing strategies

Now you know who you’re talking to, and what your context is. The next step is to strategize your content marketing.

Content marketing is a process. It starts with research and ends with repurposing. Every single phase in this process is crucial to the success of the campaign.

Don’t mistake content marketing with selling just because it has the word marketing in it. Your content should promote your offers to raise awareness of your business but they shouldn’t sell.

The reason for this is content marketing deals with the top, middle of the funnel leads. These leads aren’t ready to buy yet. You can still promote so they know what you offer.

Many marketers found success in video. Many have also found success in podcasts. You were told to just start producing content. But where do you start?

Start from creating your target audience avatar. You need a solid direction for your strategy. This is where all content marketers should start.

Social media, podcasts, YouTube, Google are all tools for content distribution. They should not be the reason you start creating content. Only double down on channels where your target audience spends their time.

First, dive deep on your target audience (what they like, where they spend their time, what type of content they engage with). Then, brainstorm on how you can best present your brand to your audience.

That includes suitable platforms to distribute your content, how you want your content to feel like, and the type of content your target audience engages with.

This is a process you should never rush to complete. Be as thorough as you can to get the most out of your content marketing.

Step 5: Find out if you can repurpose those content if they work

Out of so many contents you’ve created, there should few that receive higher engagement than most. Those pieces of content resonate well with your audience.

This is a great opportunity to repurpose those pieces of content because they performed well. Your audience is indirectly asking you to produce more of those content.

Repurposing isn’t always taking chunks of the content, and convert it into smaller pieces or other formats. It’s also finding relevant sub-topics on those specific content.

No matter how long or short the content is, there will be ways to repurpose them into relevant format or topics. This section worth its own topic.

It’s best to always have the mindset to repurpose every content that works. This saves time and it gives you the ability to produce content at scale.

Conclusion

A successful content marketing strategy is audience-centric. Your audience should always be the focus of your strategies. Because only they can tell you what works and what doesn’t. Once your content marketing strategy starts gaining momentum, you’ll see an exponential return on investments.