In the digital age, content marketing is absolutely vital to keeping your business on top of the competition. As customers can search from countless sites to find the products they want, you have to stand out above the rest. You need to be the first thing they see, and have all the information they want. Content marketing allows you to do this with little effort. So what does a content marketer do? If you can master several content marketing skills, you can keep any business at the top of its game.

What Does a Content Marketer Do?

Becoming a master content marketer takes time, research and work. Don’t expect it to come overnight, but let your strategy develop organically and naturally. We have a few tips to help you become a master content marketer, and a few skills you need to have in your arsenal to keep your business at the top. With a finely tuned, expert set of skills, you’ll stand out as one of the greatest in content marketing.

1. Writes Strong Content

It’s more than just getting the consumer to your site; it’s how they feel once they are there. Do they trust what you are saying because it’s professionally written, accurate and typo-free? Or do you lose credibility when your sites don’t offer what they say they will? Content marketing is about more than just buying content. As the focus trends away from keywords and more toward engaging, informative content, you (as a content marketing manager) have to be able to keep up with the changes.

Writing is about more than just grammar and spelling. Your content should provide useful information to the reader, engage and interest the reader from the beginning, and be packed full of high-value stuff they can’t find anywhere else.

2. Tells Stories

While there’s no magical way to do storytelling right, this is one of the most successful ways you have in content marketing to connect your audience to your company or brand. Stories allow your customers to connect with your business on an emotional level, and to see what they have in common with you. Use storytelling to explain why your company was started, what you do to make the world better and how your products and services have helped customers increase their quality of life.

Statistics show that while 57% of marketers believe that storytelling is an essential part of content marketing, most struggle to find effective ways to tell a story. There is no right or wrong way to do it.  Your storytelling as a content marketer should be based around the facets of your company that are most engaging and exciting to your customers. How do you determine what that is? That brings us to our next point.

3. Research, Research, Research

Content marketing involves countless hours of research. Every piece of content you create as a content marketing manager and put on your site should have several points of research behind it. Those who want to be effective at content marketing go the extra mile by looking at the following things:

• The pain points and interests of the target market
• The channels that are most effective to distribute to that target audience
• The terminology or keywords that consumers use when looking for your product
• The search questions consumers use to find solutions and answers
• The discussion threads and social groups where your audience is discussing their interests and concerns
• The applicable demographics, audience segments and psychographics
• The trends in your industry and in marketing in general
• The content formats that offer the most reach and engagement to your audience

Research isn’t a one-time thing, and those who want to be an effective content marketer will stay on top of current research and trends at all times.

4. Correctly Reads and Analyzes Marketing Data

Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to learn how to apply those numbers to make a blog more successful. Now that you know how to tell a story and what your readers want to know, you have to determine what to do with that story as a content marketer. It’s impossible to cover every single metric, so you must determine which metrics are important for your business to ensure that your content is performing well and you are meeting your goals.

Reading data gives you insight into which topics aren’t performing well and which you want to use to re-purpose and recycle to bring more traffic to your site.

5. Has Exceptional Organization and Strategy

Research shows that while companies with a solid, documented content strategy are 36% more likely to be successful during a particular campaign, over two-thirds lack in an organized, strategic plan for content marketing. If you want to run a successful content marketing campaign, you must have a strategic plan involving the following things:

• Defined goals
• Tracking of all research
• Content plan
• Recorded progress of each step of your plan
• Effective, consistent deployment through organization

Successful content marketers often use a content strategy combined with a detailed editorial calendar to plan the year in advance and know exactly what they want to do and the best time to do it.

6. Isn’t Afraid to Shake it up

Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket. While you can produce SEO articles all day long, successful content marketers provide a more versatile approach for their clients. Use more than one form of content to attract your target customers. Successful marketers recognize that every member of the audience is unique and prefers a different type of content to digest. Customers want podcasts, videos, infographics, case studies, articles and whitepapers to get their information.

They rely on you for new insight, and they want you to give it to them in the ways they best understand it. This means creating a versatile content marketing strategy that includes a little bit of everything to ensure that you hit every member of your audience.

7. Has Developed Design Skills

You always have the option to hire out your design projects, but these cost money and you want to save cash wherever you can. If you want to be a successful content marketer, work on your own design skills to give you more independence when it comes to creating your strategy. If your content goes live quickly with compelling stories and pictures to make it popular, then you’ve done your job. If you have to wait on your designer to get back to you, you may miss the boat on a trending topic.

Even a basic skillset of design tools like inline graphics or attention-grabbing images can make a huge difference in your ability as a content marketing manager to quickly and effectively use content for marketing purposes.

8. Distributes and Promotes Content Effectively

It’s not enough to post content and promote it in one area and leave the rest to organic traffic. Great content marketers use every outlet available to promote new content. Always promote your content through multiple channels including YouTube, audio and video podcasts and social media outlets. Give your target base more opportunities to find your content.

Your content can also be shared to your subscribers through emails or through influencers and contacts that you know. There is also the option to share it through some social media channels, ensuring that it will reach as many customers as possible.

9. Watches Trending Topics

Industry trends are constantly changing, and it’s important that you stay on top of those and focus your content around the things your audience is currently interested in. Perhaps as important as that is reaching out through other trending topics to catch your audience’s attention. Good content marketers focus on all trending topics and are constantly looking for ways to apply them to their own strategy and business.

Using trending topics ensures that you are in front of a specific audience discussing a topic they want to talk about. Some trends will remain completely irrelevant, while others are correlated enough to your business that you can reach a much larger market and audience than you are currently hitting with your strategy. Pay attention to what people care about, as shown in trending topics, and see how many people you can reach quickly.

10. Collaborates and Listens

Even the best content marketer in the business can’t do it on their own. You create a more versatile, engaging campaign when you seek the input and advice of others. One of the best things you can do as a content marketer is to seek assistance and collaborate with an influencer in your industry, and you’ve found a way to quickly expand your audience.

Even if you don’t have the connections or network yet, it’s never too early to start tossing out ideas. Mutually beneficial collaborations can benefit both parties, and they all start with one content marketer asking for help. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your network to collaborate on ideas or projects.

On Your Way to Becoming a Content Marketer

So what does a content marketer do? A whole lot, actually. This is just the beginning of the list of skills and habits a master content marketer has, and it’s a great place to start honing and developing your skills, knowledge and talents. These content marketing tips can put you well on your way to becoming a master content marketer whose services are sought after. Provide engaging content in strategic ways and watch your content marketing campaigns take off.