Every business owner with a tendency of growing knows how content marketing is becoming a great way to introduce products they offer to potential buyers. It is one of the most effective techniques of online marketing.

Content marketing comes with its own sets of the best practices with which owners of the business can make a go of their businesses. A part of it is choosing the right format in which content is packaged.

I picked 4 basic things you should do before you choose a content format.

1. Knowing Your Audience

It is very bad if you create content that doesn’t fit your targeted audience. Knowing your audience will allow you to create an amazing content with the remarkable experience for your users.

For knowing better your audience you can use some of the techniques I described in “5 Ways to Get Feedback from Customers”.

2. Respect the Buyer’s Journey

What is the buyer’s journey? It is the path your visitors go thru to become a buyer. It basically contains three phases.

As a person whose business exists on conversion visitors to buyers, it is most important to know what your potential customer expects at each step on this way.

The first step we call the awareness stage. The visitors can’t separate their needs or the challenges salting them. On this step, your content format should be good at introducing.

After awareness stage comes to the consideration stage. Here you should lead your visitors to consider the options you offer them and to lead them to action. This content must be full of details and with comparisons. You should use samples, case studies, product webinars, demo videos and data sheets.

The final step is the decision stage. It is the step that will trigger purchasing of your product. After all nurturing of your audience it will be bad to lose them now. The best format of your content at this stage should be that are sure to trigger sales.

3. Spy Your Competition

Basically, you should make some competitive analysis. It is not illegal until you stay within ethical frames.

Competitive analysis can help you discover the types of contents disrupting an industry. Also, it can improve your content strategy. You must be aware of the environment you operate and then make stuff that is on the same wave with your audience.

4. Follow your Objectives

You must have your marketing objectives because they give you a direction where your campaign should go. It is like you use a compass and guides you towards choosing the right form of content.

Different formats of content serve different purposes.

This is a wide topic and I tried to make it simple. If you are up for a furher discussion, please let me know in the comments below. 

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