If you are the owner of a small or medium-sized enterprise then you’re no doubt already sold on the virtues of content marketing. In terms of engaging meaningfully with your customer base, expanding your business’ reach and establishing your brand in a virtual sea of competitors it really is second to none.

Perhaps you are solely responsible for your digital content, perhaps you delegate it to a dedicated individual or team. Perhaps you deal with it in-house, or perhaps you outsource it to a company like Digital Logic. However you handle it, there’s no doubt that a focused content marketing strategy is essential in today’s business climate.

While establishing and enacting a strategy for content marketing is important, many entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that the battle is won there. The reality is, you need to keep a constant eye on your content and monitor your engagement metrics regularly (we recommend doing so on a weekly basis or at the very least a monthly basis).

Here are some questions that you need to ask yourself on a regular basis to ensure that the time, resources and capital you invest in your content is being well invested.

Is my content unique and indicative of my branding?

How would you describe your brand in three words? How are those adjectives embodied in the content? Your own unique voice is an important facet in engaging with and retaining customers and you should underestimate it at your peril. It allows you to stand out amidst competitors, even those offering a product or service that’s identical to your own.

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Is this what my customers need (or is it what I want)?

We tend to approach our content selfishly, writing about things that we either enjoy writing about, consider important or believe will drive growth for our businesses. If, for example, we create a new product then our first instinct is to base our content strategy around the product, its benefits and features.

While it’s absolutely fine to create a product guide or a promotional piece, we must be sure to approach the content from a point of view of addressing the customer's’ potential needs. By tailoring the content to their interests, needs or problems this will drive engagement, interest and eventually sales organically and meaningfully.

Does the content match my goals?

Different pieces will have different intended purposes. It might be to increase awareness of your brand, promote a product, build relationships with your client base or facilitate a transaction.

When composing this content it is important to tailor your use of language, layout and UX principles to match these goals.

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You need to ask if your content is:

• Transitional- enables a transition along the sales funnel from the awareness phase to the interest phase.

• Transactional- Persuades an interested buyer and facilitates the transaction safely and securely.

• Relationship-building- This is arguably the most important of all. Here you will need to draw on your unique knowledge and experience to establish trust and loyalty to ensure that your customers keep coming back again and again.