You set goals in your business because you know you need benchmarks to help you move forward. Do you do the same and set goals for content?

Creating content for the sake of creating content is a big waste of time. You have to know why you’re creating it and what you hope to accomplish if it’s going to give you any traction. Use your business goals to help you decide what it is your content needs to do for you and then choose the right content for that task. Here’s how to get started:

Know what you need your content to accomplish

Your content is everywhere, from your website to social media to 1:1 emails you send to your clients. When you know exactly what you want your content to accomplish, you can create the right content for the right audience members. Take a look at my Content Journey map below and identify what you want your audience to take away from  your content. Then deliver on that.

Know where your audience is

How invested is your audience in your business? Different types of content works better for different audience members. You need to really woo them before they’re going to join your email list and provide tons of value before they’ll invest money in you. So you you need to build brand awareness, or are they ready to convert to a customer (or are they somewhere in between)? Not sure where your audience is hanging out or what they want to hear from you? Ask them!

Know where your expertise and resources are

I’m a small business owner like you and there are limits in what I can invest in on a regular basis. If you’re looking to create a ton of content so you can reach every audience member on every platform, stop and take a deep breath. You don’t need to be everywhere, especially if you’re relatively new to business.

Once you know what your content needs to do and where your audience is (and you’ve identified that you simply can’t do it all), set some goals around what you can accomplish. Use this Client Journey Map to decide what content you’ll focus on in the coming months and quarter.

Want more about the Client Journey? Grab my free ebook!

Now it’s time to set some goals

Once you know what your content needs to do, it’s time to put goals to it. If you’re like many business owners, you want to gain more visibility, grow your list and convert followers to customers. Using the Client Journey May, you can find out what kind of content you need to create. From there, you can set two kinds of content goals.

Output Goals

Your output goals are the number of blogs (emails, webinars, infographics, etc.) you plan to produce to meet your conversion goals. When you create these goals, be careful to take into account the resources you have on hand. Can you hire someone to create content for you? Can you hire someone to take on a portion of the content creation tasks (editing, loading, formatting, etc.)? Content is a huge part of your online marketing, but don’t reach too high right out of the gate.

Conversion Goals

These goals are really the ones that count. This is where you measure whether your content is actually doing what you want it to do. Some examples include:

• Improve website traffic. If sales are what you need, you need content that will help you grow your website following. A well-thought-out website strategy and user-friendly design helps to keep your audience on your website so they’ll click through to the sale. You’ll want to measure your website analytics to determine where your audience is landing and where they’re going once they’re on your site.
• Gain new followers on social media. Shareable social content is what will help you gain more followers. But be careful that you’re not just appealing to followers for the sake of better numbers. You need to also engage with your audience. And the more engagement you have, the more your social platforms will put your content in front of new eyes.
• Grow your email list. Your email list is your way to get in front of your audience in a much more personal way than you can do on your blog or social media. Opt-ins will help grow your list, but then you need to fully engage subscribers. Interesting subject lines and valuable content will keep them opening your emails and taking action, which is what really counts when it comes to your email list.

When you set your goals, be clear on where you’re creating the content, what it’s going to do for your business and by how much. Then take action to help you reach those goals.

I’ll improve my bounce rate by 15%, on average, by the end of the quarter. Make changes on your website to encourage visitors to stay on your website, like including more internal links and creating a logical sequence with your content so they’ll want to learn more.

I will grow my email list by 200 subscribers in the next month. You’ll want to create high-quality opt-ins and powerful calls to action that beg readers to opt in.

There’s so much that goes into creating the right content for the right people, helping you to meet both content and business goals. Need help determining what content to create for which audience members? Grab my Client Journey Map today to help.