7 Steps to Successful Content Marketing (via PR Agency Pros)

Marketers like to say the catch phrase such as “content is king”, but in the world of public relations and social media marketing, what does that really mean?

Recently I attended an American Marketing Association, “Evening with an Expert” event about content marketing with featured speakers Andy Crestodina, Founder and Strategic Director at Orbit Media Studios, and Laura Chavoen, SVP and Director of Digital Strategy at MSL Group. The speakers addressed how they create successful content for online marketing and further, how to reach as many consumers as possible with content

While communication was once a linear process, in which brands communicated to media who communicated to consumers, it’s now a continuous process in which brands, media and consumers all work together to spread messages. Content marketing does not talk AT consumers, but rather with them.

How can successful public relations campaigns leverage content marketing to build awareness of a brand’s product or services? Let’s look at a few examples from recognizable companies.

• Hubspot: By providing contextual and action-oriented content such as news, articles, slides, video, guidelines and tips, Mint.com is able to differentiate itself from a comptetive landscape. Because its information is relevant and easy to use,  the company can reiterate the need for its user-friendly software and app.
• Betty Crocker: To extend the reach of the data-driven learnings of the “Betty Crocker Kitchens” across all social media marketing channels, Betty Crocker published a variety of content online, including how-to articles, video, recipes and cooking tips. The company was able to use “Q+A” to engage consumers with its experts to drive brand loyalty.

Now, how should your business develop a content marketing plan?

To develop a content marketing campaign aimed at engaging consumers and media, it’s important to start with your business objectives. If content marketing does not drive your business objectives, it will be difficult to justify spending future resources on additional marketing endeavors. 

To create your campaign, take the following steps:

1. Decide what your objectives are first and foremost.

2. Assess and audit where your customer is.

3. Create a strategic plan.

4. Define your brand’s voice and key characteristics. These include:

• Promise: a brand’s vision/mission, values and value proposition.
• Personality: a brand’s tone, creative guidelines and ethical limitations, such as topics that they will and will not engage on social media or in public discourse.
• Experience: a brand’s behaviors, touch points, brand, key responses and utility (how things get shared and consumed). This includes the public actions and reactions of the employees of a company or brand.

5. Develop a content plan or calendar. It is important to have a strategy that has a consistent cadence.

6. Begin the content creation and curation. Not only should contet be informative and engaging, but it should be contextual.

7. Execute and engage your content plan. A quality content plan should contain approximately 75% branded content (brand mentions, products, services, information and education) and 25% non-branded content (current events, industry information and reactive engagement).

If this sounds overwhelming, you might be ready to take the next step and hire an experienced public relations agency that can develop content that will help your brand get found on and offline.