Maybe you’ve decided to start content marketing for your brand, and you’ve received the green light from top execs. Or you started content marketing a while ago, but you’re not sure if your approach is maximising impact. Every strategy must be reassessed and tweaked with time, and there is no substitute for a strong foundation. Content marketing is no different! How strong are your basics? Remember these 3 content basics that are often overlooked.

1. Begin Content Marketing with the end in mind.

Always guide your content strategy by objectives. This point bears repeating! Do not dive into creating and distributing content without a clear idea of what the brand is trying to achieve. Are you trying to build awareness of a brand or product? Drive clicks to the website? Convert your online audience into sales? Don’t enter into the cycle of posting “just because”. It is more valuable to delay a content campaign and launch with a clear strategy and objectives, than the other way round. Think of it this way: even if your campaign is successful, it could have been even more impactful.

1. Plan, plan, plan!

Planning is the difference between shifting from playing defence to playing offence. Just because you think you are in the early days of your brand’s content strategy, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think ahead. What would you like to achieve in the medium and long term? What customer problems do you want to solve with content? How will you ensure the sustainability of that problem solving? With all this in mind, plan you attack on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Plan your content themes. Think about the platforms you will use. Solidify the different strategic pillars. And don’t forget to plan for the incorporation of the content strategy into the overall organisational strategy too.

1. Pay attention to the details. Optimise, grammar check, editing

Attention to fine details translates to perceived quality. Once again, do not compromise quality for speed of putting content out into the public. Have you optimised your content for the platforms you are planning on using? For example, are your keywords double checked and in place? How is your grammar and are there any typos? How’s the editing of the visuals? Is the audio drowning out the voice of someone who’s speaking? When the details are consistently polished, your audience will also naturally respond more positively to your efforts.

Stephanie Taderera is a Content Executive at Magna Carta Reputation Management Consultants. To learn more about how we can help your brand’s reputation, contact us today.