Step 1 - Identify Your Business Goals

The first task before you is to identify the purpose of your business. Some refer to this as the vision of the business, the main objective or business goal.

The business goal is a clearly-articulated picture of what you want your business to become in one, five, and ten years. If you are farsighted enough, you can articulate a vision for upwards of 20 years.

The most important thing is being able to write this down in clear terms, so your team members can read and understand. Business goals can be further broken down into financial and marketing goals. However, our focus is on marketing goals since we are talking about marketing strategies.

For marketing goals, we look at brand awareness, brand visibility, lead generation, sales conversions, and many others. You should be able to identify the specific goal that you expect to achieve with each marketing campaign.

A helpful tip is to look at your sales funnel and find out the points where your business needs the most push.

Let's say your marketing team is struggling with acquiring new business customers. You can choose lead nurturing as the marketing goal of your campaign. This will provide clarity for team members and give them a means of measuring the campaign’s success.

Another way to identify your marketing goal is to consider the needs of your target market.

If you have a great product but have no one buying them, then you need to reach out to your target audience with a detailed product description. The goal would be to educate them on the benefits of your products and let them know why it is their best interest to purchase.

Once you are satisfied with the marketing goal that you have identified, you can now focus on positioning your content marketing program.