Content Marketing is the new marketing. By now, everyone is doing it – but not everyone is doing it right.

There are three things that will determine the success of your content – whether it’s a blog post, website copy, email, or newsletter (heck, even internal employee communications needs these three things!)

To guarantee success with your content marketing strategy, make sure you have:

The Right People

Who is your target audience? Think way more specific than you just did.

When you’re writing content, you want to have a very specific niche of your target audience in mind. If you manage a hotel, for example, your broad target audience is going to be people who may travel soon or who already have a trip planned to your location. But in order for your content to resonate with someone, it can’t be that vague. Choose a specific buyer persona: The mom, travelling with her husband and two small kids; a businesswoman; a couple coming to town to look at wedding venues; a group on a Bachelor Party going to the hockey game; etc.

The Right Information

Once you have your specific client in mind, you can tailor the information you share specifically to them. The more useful the information is, the more likely the client is going to remember your company (because you were helpful) and trust you (because you have valuable information to share).

Targeting the couple in town looking at wedding venues? A blog post about the city’s best cake shops is guaranteed to be of interest. The family with small kids? Maybe offer a discount coupon to Fun Haven.

The key here is to share content that is of value to them – in other words, it solves a problem they have.

The Right Time

Putting the right information in front of your target audience at the right time will help move them along the buyer journey, taking them from a researcher, to a shopper, to a buyer. If you use a marketing automation tool, you can track a person’s engagement with your content and predict when they will be ready to move to the next phase – setting them up for success, and setting yourself up with a new client.

Even if you don’t have a tracking system in place, knowing who your niche audience is will help you ensure you’re putting out information at a time when they are likely to need it. It all goes back to those buyer personas.

If you need help writing content that relates hits these three notes, or if you think your content just isn’t working, give us a call, we’d love to chat with you.