The recent events that have befallen us have caused dramatic changes in the way business is conducted. More and more corporate entities and member-based associations are looking into alternate strategies to optimize their outreach. Since the crisis began, internet usage has seen an unprecedented surge. Nothing is having a more profound impact on online activity than this global crisis. People are spending more and more time online, which means that people are consuming online content more than before. For member-based organizations, this means that an increased focus on content marketing is in order.

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach that focuses on creating consistent content to attract an audience in order to drive customer action that is profitable. Content marketing helps your members see your organization as a credible resource. With content marketing, you are not simply selling your services, but you are also and mainly providing useful content to your members to help them gain knowledge and solve certain issues. This content can be shared via blog posts, workshops, webinars, podcasts, newsletters, etc.

Below are some general guidelines and best practices to follow when implementing a content marketing strategy to develop a loyal community that will trust your organization enough to not only become members, but also engage with your association.

Understand Your Audience

It would be erroneous to create content before understanding the types of people your organization wants to captivate. A lot of nonprofits and associations don’t have a clue why the open rate for their emails is decreasing. Not adapting to the interests of their audience is certainly one of the major reasons why certain organizations only see low levels of engagement both from members and prospective members. Correctly identifying the group of people you need to communicate to will help you come up with the kind of content that will genuinely interest that particular group of people. So before you create content that will attract your audience, you need to know what their interests are and what sort of things fascinate them.

Establish A Clear-Cut Strategy

Crucial to being successful with content marketing is the development of a good, sound strategy. Even more importantly the strategy you implement has to have an organizational goal. What is it that you need to accomplish with your content marketing? Do you want to acquire more members? Do you want to promote a particular service? Do you want to gain more donations? There needs to be a well-defined goal. The content you produce should be unique and ideally fulfill an unmet need that you can tie into your predetermined goal.

Identify Your Topics Well

As you choose a specific topic for your content, it is paramount that you take into account the point of view of your audience. Consider their initial impression on the topic. Is it something controversial? Is the audience generally misinformed about it? Is it a sensitive subject matter? Additionally, you should figure out how they usually go about finding information on the matter. Do a keyword research to find out the wording your audience uses to find information on these topics online. Not only will this help with your SEO, but it will also guarantee that your content is useful and engaging.

Organize Time To Publish

When doing content marketing, it’s essential that you organize your time to publish. For any successful content marketing, consistency is key. Think like a publisher and plan ahead in order to send out content regularly. Ideally, you should post your content at the same time on a regular basis. It’s important to stick to a regular schedule and release your content consistently throughout a certain period of time. Use a calendar if you have to.

Audit, Test, and Share Your Content

As you go about creating more and more content, you’ll get to a point where you can look at your past content and do a content audit. Look at your past blog posts, news articles, videos, etc. and determine if any of it can be repurposed as educational or entertaining content that can be used as marketing material. You can also look at content from other employees and staff members to derive content for your marketing as well. You can interview your colleagues and convert the information they’ve given you in their area of expertise into a blog post.

To get an advantageous edge that will help you refine your marketing, you can test how well your content is being received. You can ask your current members about the type of content they’d like to hear about by conducting a survey. Our Membership Management Software, MemberBoss has a tool to accomplish just that. Collecting feedback like this is invaluable to your content marketing strategy.

Last, but not least, share your content. If your organization has social media, post the content on your social media channels or share links to your content via all your social media channels every time you post new content. 

Implementing a successful content marketing strategy will benefit your organization by building credibility and expanding your community. It’s practically low-cost with long-term results, just like our Membership Management Software, MemberBoss. If you’d like to learn more about MemberBoss, feel free to Book a Demo and don’t forget to subscribe to The Boss Blog to get more helpful tips for you and your members.