Identify your Target Audience

[subornaakter20]

There are a few ways you can identify your audience and what they want/need/desire:

Ask for feedback on your blog posts/comments and through social media platforms.
Send out surveys (it's old school, but still effective).
Meet your target audience by going to networking events or conferences where they are likely to be.
Review case study reports that your competitors publish about their audiences.
When you identify your audience, be sure to fast food email list ask:

What are the general demographics?
What/who influences them?
What does the audience want/need? (basic information vs. detailed tutorials, etc.)
What problems is your audience facing? How can you help solve them?
What questions are your readers asking and what topics would they like to see covered?
You should also create buyer personas , and if you have the skill, using big data in combination with your personas will give you a well-rounded, holistic picture of who your audience is and how they behave online, which will help you create hyper-targeted content.


Create a People Funnel Chart

This step in the process will help your Content Marketing Team form an editorial calendar later down the road, and allow you to target a specific persona with each piece of content, with the goal of moving them forward through the funnel.

Here’s what you need to do to get started: Create a table with your buyer personas along the X axis and the stages of the funnel along the Y axis. Then, in each table, answer the following questions to guide your content:

Discuss with your content marketing team: What are the main issues and concerns your persona is facing at this stage?
What questions does your person have?
What types of topics can you cover to answer those questions or address those concerns?
What are some examples of headings or titles for that content?
All together, your table should look something like this (click on the image for a larger view):

content marketing team



Create a Structured Content Marketing Team
Now that you have your goals and strategies in place, you’ve essentially created a framework and structure for your Content Marketing team to work from and build upon. So, now you actually have to put together a team.

There are plenty of resources out there that have multiple suggested structures for a Content Marketing team . Keep in mind that there may not be a perfect formula for your business, and you'll probably have to tinker with your structure and job responsibilities to find the perfect fit. Here's the model we've seen with the most success:

graphic2


Content Marketing Team Leader
You may also see job descriptions like Senior Content Consultant, Director of Content, and so on. This person is basically the head of the team or department and is responsible for overall strategy, budget, goals and their execution, communication with the executive team, and so on. This person will most likely not be heavily involved with the actual creation or editing, but will be heavily involved in brainstorming and feedback from clients.

Content Manager
Other job titles may include Content Coordinator, Editor-in-Chief, among others. This person will play a crucial role in ensuring quality and will ultimately be responsible for maintaining your brand voice and content creation process .

It is absolutely vital that this person has a good foundation in English, journalism, or writing , as the responsibility for brand storytelling will fall on this person’s shoulders. It is also incredibly important that this person is organized (obsessively so, even), as the Content Manager will be responsible for the editorial calendar, scheduling, assigning work to content creators, consistency, and style/voice.

[Tweet “It is vital that the #ContentManager has a good foundation in English, journalism or writing”]

Content Creators
Other titles might include Content Producers, Writers, Photographers , and so on. These are the people who actually create the content that the editor reviews. Many times, companies will outsource this work to freelancers (independent workers) especially for more specialized areas like video animation. Since you have already identified the types of content you need to produce, you should look for content creators who specialize in that field and make them the backbone of your content production. That being said, it is very helpful to have a diverse team of content producers who are capable of tackling any specific area you want to cover.