Do you have a content marketing mission statement? If not, here is how you create one.

Content marketing deals with the creation, publication and distribution of content to a target audience. It is great for generating leads, expanding your customer base and increasing online sales. A mission statement is a short statement outlining the reasons why a business exists, its goals, product/service, niche market and area of operation. For your content marketing work, a mission statement is a litmus test of whether you are staying true to your mission or not.

Don’t miss your destination by flying blind without a mission statement. You can easily define your content marketing strategy by following these steps:

1.Identify your core audience
Your core audience is the group of people that is likely to buy and promote the products or services that you offer. In content marketing, it is those that you hope to sell to and who can benefit from your expert advice. Your secondary audience is those who happen to be interested in your content whether they are visitors, influencers, subscribers or simply social media followers.

It is likely that you have existing content and from it, you can analyze the topics that get the most attention or provoke interest, emails with the best open rates and web pages with the most visitors. But even without this information, you can try to visualize the mind of your potential customer and try to simulate it to see what they would consider best for them.

2. Describe the purpose of your content
What do you want your audience to find on your website, blog, newsletter, social media accounts, events, videos and podcasts? For a content marketing firm, it will definitely not be recipes but content strategies, research, opinions and recommended tools among others. The main purpose of your content should be to deliver value or provide answers to customers’ questions. Strive to meet expectations in the information, resources, inspiration, and insights that you share.

3. Mention specific benefits to the audience
Of what benefit is your content to your audience? Is it to educate, entertain, inspire or empower in a different way? Knowing how your content will help to meet a need creates a reason to care, hence attract attention, time and money. Do not be general but specific with your benefits so that you attract quality traffic that will generate conversions. Provide a summary of the value that you intend to provide to your audience.

Coming up with a content marketing mission statement is as easy as identifying your target audience, describing the type of content that they should expect and how they will benefit from it. When you are done and satisfied with your statement, don’t just write it down but publish it for all to see. A mission statement correlates with marketing success since those companies that have it documented are three times as likely to say they are effective at marketing than those that have not documented it. It is a worst case scenario for those without one.