Staying focused in today’s busy digital landscape is tough.

With ‘weapons of mass distraction’ like smart phones and social media, it’s easy to get lost in the dizzying whirlwind of technology, influence marketing, and other medias.

As a result, we’ve found that small businesses in particularly tend to struggle staying the course with their content marketing strategy.

With the ever-changing trends throughout the aforementioned channels, like technological platforms and social media, simply devising a smart content strategy can be tricky, never mind keeping it up to date.

Luckily for us digital marketers, content marketing tools are evolving alongside these new medias. With the content marketing field becoming more targeted and data-centric, it’s now easier, and more crucial than ever, to create a strong online presence through your content.

These are four ways to keep your content strategy focused, and successful.

1. Stay organized with an editorial calendar.

Calendars are never out of date (okay, bad joke).

From simple-to-setup spreadsheets to plug-ins via your CMS, an editorial calendar can keep you focused and on track towards your goals.

Utilize the calendar to map out when you want to post content. But keep in mind, it’s not necessarily set in stone once you’ve made a rough timetable. Topics can be tailored as the trends in your industry shift, and formats can be changed for what works best with your content.

Speaking of which, remember that good content marketing strategies are diverse, exploiting various mediums to reach broader audiences. Be creative. Infographics, videos, social media, blogs, press releases – use everything to your advantage!

2. Trendy > steady.

The concept of creating content is to prove to your customers that you’re a guru in your relative industry. Posting dated, stale information will make your company seem…well, stale and dated.

You must be aware of what’s going on in your industry at all times, keeping up with the latest trends, to share them with your audience through a variety of formats. Try hosting a webinar or a live Facebook session. Create a quiz or contest. And don’t be afraid to try something different, to stand out from your competitors – you can learn a lot from campaigns that are unsuccessful, too.

So try to be a pioneer when it comes to your industry. As martial arts master Jackie Chan once said, ‘I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.’

3. Invest in content creation.

If you’re a lone wolf, we respect that – you do things your way, and want to be responsible for your company’s fate.

But going in alone isn’t always wise, especially when it comes to content creation. Creating trendy, engaging, and valuable content consistently is difficult – and it gets much, much more challenging without help. Even someone to bounce ideas off of is beneficial in creating a focused content strategy.

Investing in a strong team will keep the content work flow streaming steadily, even if a member of the team is battling severe creator’s block. Using a few, reliable content creators will create cohesion in your company’s voice, too – the more invested they are in your company through consistent work, the better the content becomes.

Seek out people who craft content that reflects your brand, resonate with your audience, and best showcases your company’s qualities. Be open to your team’s creative ideas!

4. Analyze this, analyze that.

Like we touched on earlier, content marketing has become more data-centric than ever before – so use it to your brand’s advantage.

Content marketers have virtually unlimited numbers and analytics to determine what’s working in their content strategy, and what isn’t. You can analyze different posting times, and compare which is better; use A/B testing on diverse newsletters, and see which has a better open rate; look at your social media posts and engagement rates, to determine a strategy for each platform and their respective audiences; and you can even measure time on mage, and bounce rate for blogs to get a sense of how engaging your content is.

With the power of knowledge and information, there’s no reason your content strategy should ever be stagnant. Adjust accordingly based on trends and engagement, and everything should run smoothly, keeping you focused and on track to meet your content marketing goals.

Remember in point #3, how we advised that investing in content creators would be wise for a successful content strategy? We may know someone that can help you with that (hint: it’s us).

Eden Advertising has experienced content creators that can set up an editorial schedule, create content, and engage customers, to meet the goals of your content marketing campaign.

To learn more about our content marketing services, contact us today!