Is your content aligned to your business goals? Don’t worry if it’s not, because in this post I’m going to help you make sure you line up your content so that is works hard for you in your business.

Now, this is not the only time you’ll hear me say this… Content isn’t just about making noise and having a presence.

Oh no… The purpose of content marketing is to help you grow your business and achieve your bigger business goals.

Outline your goals

First up you have to know what your goals are in business. This might seem obvious, but it’s one that is regularly overlooked. You dive in with the sole focus of making money and then 5 yrs later you wonder why you’ve made the same turnover 5 yrs on the trot and not actually grown, but just existed.

I like to start off with goals for the year and then break these down into quarterly objectives.

So lets say one of your business goals for the year is to increase profit by 20%, so you can afford to hire another member of staff. (It’s always key to give yourself quantifiable goals that you can measure. So don’t just say ‘hire someone’, think what it takes to make that happen)

Then you would start to look at the ways you could ensure you make that 20% extra profit happen.

Get even more specific

Now there’s the obvious ‘increase sales in general’. So, work out how many additional clients you’d need to win, or products you’d need to sell each quarter to make this possible.

But think beyond that… So maybe in quarter 1 you may want to launch a new passive income service offering, such as an ebook or online course.

Or, if you’re product based, bring in a new product line that compliments what you already sell. Say you sell candle sticks and you’re going to start selling candles in quarter 1.

It’s really important you do this. Otherwise you’re just coming to work everyday with no direction or target and it just becomes groundhog day.

Where the magic happens

So now you have a list of business goals and some really specific measurable quarterly objectives to help us along the way. How can you start to align this to content marketing?

First up part of your bigger goal is to hire someone in a year’s time, so part of your content marketing strategy in 2020, is to make the company look AMAZING to work for.

Even as early on as Q1 you can start to pepper ‘behind the scenes’ on Stories. If you have other staff, you can perhaps start to show their pride for working there. Maybe a monthly piece of content dedicated to that employee’s story… That would make a great blog post or what about a video ‘day in the life’. Over the year you can really showcase the benefits of working for your company, so that when you get to the end of the year and you advertise that position… People are fighting over it.

Ok, so now we have the profit goal and the increase in sales, potential launches and quarterly pushes.

If you’re a service based retainer business, then you’re going to want to draw new eyes to your business. We want more reach, traffic to the website… enquiries and sales, right.

So here’s where the magic happens and you start to work out exactly what type of content you need to help increase sales and generate that extra 20% profit…

Now this will be different for every business. Some businesses have a short buying process and some have longer. You might impulse buy a candle, but take 3 months to buy a car, for example. The longer the buying or nurturing process the more content we will need to support it.

So let’s say you’re an accountant and you want to attract new clients. You know that your existing clients tell you how much time you’ve saved them.

• You could film a video about the ‘3 reasons why you should hire a book keeper’
• Do Insta Stories to show people how to integrate Quick books with their bank statements.
• Write a blog post about how a client has managed to grow their business, thanks to the time they’ve saved and they recommend outsourcing admin based tasks, because that freedom is what allowed them to grow their business.

I can almost hear the penny dropping at your end now.

You see this is why content marketing is super powerful and not just noise.

And the best bit… That time investment to film that video, write that blog post and do those stories (assuming you save them to highlights after the 24hrs). Well it’s out there warming up and nurturing your audience through the buying process, whilst you sleep… Your own personal sales army, right!

Got a taste for getting your content marketing strategy in place, then check out my 1:1 Content Mentorship. A 12 week long journey, where together we get your content strategy into place and that all important content rolling out.