Many of the actions we take on a daily basis are done with muscle memory. You don?t think about the specific steps you take when you brush your teeth or start your car to go to work. You do these daily actions without much thought because they are part of your routine and must be done. Because marketing is a necessary act of a successful business it can be easy to let your marketing practices become routine. When this happens we begin marketing to complete a task or what we call ?Check The Box Marketing?.

Rather than create and publish content meant for a specific goal, we do so because we have a reminder on our calendar that something needs to be done. If you are looking for successful marketing campaign or overall strategy, Check The Box Marketing is not good enough. To be successful you must promote your business with intent. In other words don?t publish content for the sake of publishing content. Do so because you have developed a marketing strategy, set goals, and are executing a plan of action.

Keeping Your Content Fresh

Creating and publishing content with no larger plan or set goals often results in content which does not have a defined audience. Do this long enough and you may find your business slipping into irrelevancy.

Keep your content fresh and your audience engaged by answering the following questions:

• What am I selling? – Focus on new products/services, season/promotional items, or your primary revenue driver(s).
• Who am I selling it to? – Keep in mind your best customers or potential new customers you are attempting to attract. Better yet develop content which attracts both.
• What is my tone? – Consider how you would like you content to be received.
• Where do I stand? – What is your place in the market? How can you stand out from your competitors.
• Where do your potential customers/clients get their info? – ?This where you should promote your content. (Purchasing ads may be ?necessary to get your content seen.)
• When should I post? – Do your homework and find when is the best time to post.

Asking and answering all of these questions gets you on the road to developing a marketing strategy which should reflect the goals of your organization. If you do not have the time to go through every questions at least answer 2-3 of the questions. You won?t have a complete marketing strategy, but you will have some direction.

Intentional Marketing Means More Efficient Marketing

When the content you develop and publish has a stated goal you are able to better evaluate how each individual piece of content is being received. After some time you will get a better understanding of the types of info your audience is looking for, when they want, and how they want it develop. Overall your efforts will be much more effective and efficient.