You’ve finally been able to get buy-in at your company to launch a content marketing strategy. Before you begin, it’s important to take a step back and set content goals. Here is your quick-reference guide to what you need to know about setting goals for your B2B content marketing strategy.
What Is Your Main Goal?
You need to have a direction before you start creating content for your company. Start with a general idea about what you would like to achieve with your content. Are you creating content to:
- Drive Conversions?
- Create Brand Recognition?
- Build Industry Authority?
- Attract Traffic?
- Establish Credibility?
Many companies will have a few goals for their B2B content strategy, but it’s best to whittle it down to 1 – 2 main goals. This enables you to objectively review each piece of content to ensure it aligns with the overall goals of your strategy.
S.M.A.R.T. Goals
Regardless of your job title, you are likely familiar with setting S.M.A.R.T. goals. To effectively evaluate the success of your content efforts, your goals must be:
- Specific (avoid vague language)
- Measurable (the good news is that most content can easily be measured using tools like Google Analytics)
- Attainable (getting to the number one spot in Google after 4 months is not a reasonable goal)
- Relevant (this speaks to the “why” of your goal. Why do you want more traffic? To attract more potential clients.)
- Timely (set a deadline that is realistic and can be measured along the way)
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How Do You Plan to Achieve That Goal?
Once you have established your goal, you’ll need to have an idea of how to reach it. What types of content will you be creating to meet those goals? Ideally, you’ll have a good mix of different types of content, but it’s important not to be too ambitious. Trying to create every type of content ensures that a strategy will fail.
Here is a handful of different types of content that can enable you to reach your goals:
- Website Copy
- Blog Posts
- Case Studies
- White Papers
- Guest Blogs
- Interactive Content
- FAQs
For example, if a new biotech company is looking to establish credibility, professional website copy explaining their process and products along with case studies of successful projects will create a good mix of content that prospective clients or partners can view and evaluate.
What Resources Do You Have?
An often overlooked part of setting content goals is understanding what resources are at your disposal. We’ve seen content marketing strategies fail because the internal sources don’t have the bandwidth to execute the plan. If your company plans on creating two blog posts a month, ensure you have a copywriter and the subject matter experts scheduled for each month.
Who Is Your Target Audience?
To execute a content marketing strategy that is successful and achieves the desired goals, there needs to be a fundamental understanding of the end user. Who is your target audience? When setting the goals for your content strategy, you must understand your target audience, including:
- The Industry or Company
- Their Job Title or Position
- Their Needs & Pain Points
Creating content for the C-suite is different than creating content for technical software engineers. Understanding who the end user or target audience is enables you to set goals to create content that is valuable.
Consistency = Success
Last, but not least, the main thing you need to know about setting content goals is that consistency is often the key to success. Just like you need to keep exercising to reach a weight loss goal, you need to continually craft professional content to reach your content goals. When you set your content goals, put measures in places to ensure continuous progress towards achieving them.
Have questions about content marketing and goal setting for your company? Contact us today for a personalized consultation with our marketing experts.
