5 key stages of a successful content marketing process

Most of the time, marketers who fail to succeed in content marketing don’t have a standardised framework that helps them break down the process into clearly defined stages.

They concentrate too much on writing and miss many other essential components that effectively deliver on goals.

Think about it this way:

You create fantastic webinar content, but no one shows up for your session. In this case, did you achieve the expected results?

No. And why is that?

You forgot about all the other essential components that make content marketing successful.

These include:

1. Planning and Research

Your first step is to find out who your target audience is and how you can successfully get their attention and convert them. 

In this case, find out:

• Who they are
• What they find interesting
• What channels they frequent
• Their browsing behaviour
• Their needs and demographics

Secondly, come up with a content marketing plan.

For this, you need to:

• Create customer personas
• Identify your content marketing goals and metrics
• Identify content types and formats
• Create marketing funnels

2. Create Content

The next step will involve creating content that offers practical value to your audience.

To make this happen:

• Conduct keyword research.
• Find topics with traffic potential.
• Analyse search intent.
• Write content.

Note: At this stage, you can leverage tools that simplify writing like Grammarly, Copyscape, Readable, etc. Using them can make it easier to conduct research, write grammatically correct content, and formulate content your audience finds interesting.

3. Schedule and Publish

At this point, you can leverage a content scheduling tool to help you publish your content on the various channels identified during research.

Note: Various platforms have different publishing styles and content types, and you should customise your content to them.

4. Distribute and Promote

You’ve published your content, but only those who ardently follow your blog or website know about it.

In this case, you need to promote your content on other channels, including social media, email, content syndication sites, forums, Q&A sites, etc.

5. Analyse and Optimise Strategy

Use analytic tools to track the performance of each piece of content and channel. Then use those insights to identify:

• Content that performs well
• Channels with better results
• Areas that need improvement

Your insights will also tell you if you achieved your goals and whether there is a way to optimise your process for better results.

Ready to succeed in content marketing?

Check out a more detailed version of the process in the infographic below. Using it and diligently following each stage can help you succeed in all your content marketing campaigns.