Today I attended a local NAMA (Nashville AMA) Marketing program, and here’s what I learned about Content Marketing from Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing Institute. Content Marketing is where digital marketing lives and has long term success. I'm hoping some of this can help you in your long-term marketing strategies! 

First things first. Some CEOs and CFOs may ask, "What's the point of content marketing?" Per Joe Pulizzi, [it's] "building an audience in order to change a behavior"- AKA conversion.

How to Build a Content Strategy:

STEP 1: Find the Sweet Spot

• What is your customer's sweet spot? What do they want to know?
• What knowledge do you have that is valuable to them?
• What topic are you the leading expert on?

STEP 2: Content Tilt

• Don’t just put out the same kind of content everyone else does on the same channels. Get crafty with resources.
• Where is there an area of differentiation that you can distribute your content to break through?
• What is your differentiator amongst your competitors? You must break through!

STEP 3: Craft a Mission Statement

• What is your "why" for publishing content?
• Who are you targeting? What are you trying to do? What is the audience outcome you are looking for?
• You need to have multiple mission statements for multiple audiences.
• TIP: Target 1 persona at a time on one channel. Do that well, then grow from there.

STEP 4: Create a Base

• Pick one content type (image, video, text and image), 1 main platform type (blog, email) – and then consistently deliver on one platform (same day, same time, same type of content) over a long period of time. (12+ months minimum!)
• Set the expectation of your content frequency and stick with it to build the audience relationship.
• Deliver content on time and on strategy. Consistency is the key. 
• Don’t give up! Must be over a LONG period of time - at least a year to see impactful results.

STEP 5: Harvest the Audience

• Use owned properties to host your content and social media to promote it/ reach your audience.
• Don't focus on building audiences on social media channels. Focus on building (email, blog, app, etc.) subscribers.
• Create loyalty amongst the audience via email by delivering consistent, relevant content.
• Use a popup subscription form on your website to get subscribers.
• Must haves: amazing e-newsletter, something of value.
• Rule of 3: magic number is 3- if they subscribe to 3 pieces of content from you they will be loyal.

STEP 6: Monetization

• Track it back to sales and customer relationship growth over time.
• Look at the differences in your database between subscribers and non subscribers.
• Follow them in the buyer's journey to see what content is driving sales.
• Think build vs buy- focus on long term acquisitions.

About Joe Pulizzi:  Joe Pulizzi is founder of  Content Marketing Insititute, a UBM company, the leading education and training organization for content marketing, which includes the largest in-person content marketing event in the world, Content Marketing World. Follow @JoePulizzi on Twitter and #nashvilleama for more.