How To Make This Your Best Year of Content Marketing

Iwork with a lot of authors who hit the ground running in January and by February have lost steam. Content Marketing can be overwhelming, especially if you’re tackling it by yourself. The best way to counter this overwhelm is putting a strategy in place.

This is non-negotiable. Seth Godin once said authors should begin building their author platform three years before they launch their book. The most successful authors know that good, consistent content, that serves your purpose, is key to a strong author platform and ultimately book sales. So let’s talk strategy.

A successful content marketing strategy targets and draws in your audience and keeps them engaged, even after they’ve made a purchase from you.

Strategizing In A Few Easy Steps

• Who? Understanding your audience is the most important factor in your strategy - and even with your book. If you don’t know who your reader is, how do you know what they need or want to hear from you? Many books miss their mark for this reason so do not slack on this step. A detailed avatar of your reader is necessary.

• What? You’re most likely solving a problem for your reader. If so, what is the problem? Now simplify it. The better you can break this piece down and get really specific, the more of a niche solution you can provide. Use your content to share this solution over and over, until the reader feels a sense of urgency, they need your book. If you can, break it into topics that are relevant keywords to your book and author platform. Then, once you get to the scheduling part, you can easily drop topics into their proper days and creating content around a predetermined topic is so much easier than starting each day or piece from scratch.

• Why? What makes you unique and how can you integrate that angle into the content you want to deliver? If you want readers to buy your book, you have to earn their trust and prove that you are the one they should be listening to.

• Where? Now it’s time to outline where your audience is already hanging out. Once you have this information, tailor your content to those specific platforms. This is much easier than showing up somewhere new and trying to bring your readers to you.

• How? Now it’s time for the most daunting task. How will you create content and how will it get posted? There are plenty of schedulers like Hootsuite, that allows you to create content in batches and ahead of time. Before you commit to something like this, sit down with a calendar, pick your topics or posts for each day, put them on paper, and then move into your planning. Do not skip this step. On the days you lose steam, the content won’t happen, and then you’re back to square one.

You’ve likely completed this practice or something similar for your book but it never hurts to revisit and tighten the bolts even more. Focus on these simple steps and dig deep for the answers. This foundation will help you create content that has a purpose and speaks directly to the audience you are trying to capture.

Don’t rule out delegating. My last piece of advice is this: there are professionals who do this every day. If you are not able to dedicate time to creating meaningful and effective content to market yourself as an author, let someone else do it for you. These services often cost less than you would expect.

International Content Expert Sara Burke is the Founder of HLCC, a content creation firm dedicated to boosting small businesses around the world. Sara has authored three books, and ghostwritten over 100 books, ebooks and workbooks. Sara recently launched The New American Dream, a podcast dedicated to helping business owners understand how our changing business ecosystem can support their success.