Adopting a content marketing model can be a daunting undertaking. What are the most important activities in the first year, how do you measure success?
Think of your first year of adopting a content marketing model as building a factory. It takes an up-front investment to build the foundation and infrastructure, but you are essentially creating an annuity that will pay off over time.
What goes into this content marketing factory foundation? There are four key elements:
1. Audience personas
2. Brand positioning and messaging
3. Content marketing plan
4. Website and supporting technology
In this episode I'll walk through each of these steps, explaining their importance and introducing various actions to take within each step. This is a great overview to help you understand the big picture of year one, one that could be shared with team members to help them understand what year one is all about. If you'd like a more in-depth dive into this foundational year, see the additional resources below.
It is critically important that your leadership team understands the nature of this foundational year. If they are expecting the leads to magically start flowing into your website, they will be discouraged and may even pull the plug on the whole thing. Depending upon what shape your foundation is in, you may find yourself needing a full year to complete these steps. For others with fewer gaps, time to results is much faster.