Content marketing is the new golden child of marketing. A majority of marketers use content to cost-effectively promote their products and services.

What is content marketing?

By definition content marketing is “a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

There are many forms of content marketing. Fore example, the most common form is to write a helpful
 article and share it across your owned media channels (i.e., website, blog, etc.). If someone finds it valuable they’ll share it with others on social media. And the more your content is shared the more opportunities you have to drive leads and sales, engage customers and boost brand awareness.

Simply put, it is a highly effective form of online
 marketing.

How can I become a content marketer?

A great content marketer is both a writer and a marketer. A remarkable content marketer is able to size up a clients’ content needs, express ideas clearly, add value to the intended audience and be relevant while keeping business objectives top of mind.

While content marketing is a powerful tool, it still requires a workable approach. For example, B2B marketers report they have a tough time tackling the following content marketing challenges:

• Lack of time/bandwidth to create Content (51%);

• Producing enough content variety/volume (50%);

• Producing truly engaging content (42%);

• Measuring content effectiveness (38%);

• Developing consistent content strategy (34%)

If you face some of these same challenges, or simply want to become a content marketer, here’s a look at 11 tips that will make you a more productive content marketer.

1. Understand the business objectives

What does your client need? What can you offer them? What niche do you
 excel at? These questions that will help you understand how you can best deliver on specific content marketing goals. Each business requires different
 types of content to reach ideal clients.

2. Create and follow a schedule

Content marketers are not like other writers. They do not have the luxury
 of time, especially if they have a robust client roster. Clients
 want to acquire content quickly, but they also want it to be high
 quality. This calls for
 good schedule that will help you make the best use of your time.

3. Brush up on your writing skills

As a content marketer means you never stop learning. Although
 writing is an ancient art, it changes with time. For example,
 content marketers are often required to write using a specific style and
 tones. Utilize self-paced and free online writing courses to brush up on your technique.

4. 
 Set aside time for creative mindfulness

Writing – even when the topic is technical – requires a certain level of
 creativity. While the subject matter can be common place, content marketers must be able to add a fresh new twist on old ideas.  Discussing the same topic is perfectly fine, but it should stand
 out! This is why creative mindfulness is important. Take time to apply mindfulness to your creative process. “In fact, there are actually scientific ways to apply mindfulness to the creative process,” according to Mindful magazine.

5. 
 Get help from other writers

If you can’t take the heat, do not give up. There are more than enough
 people out there who can help you provide great content for your
 clients. The easiest way is to get help from skilled writers. You may have
 to adjust your pricing to offset the cost, but a good content marketer can negotiate a competitive value-based market rate for their services.

6. 
 Hire a freelance editor

Apart from getting help from other writers, you can also save time by
 hiring an editor to put the finishing touches on your content. This will also give you more time to
 focus on the creative and business aspects of your work. Editors are
 perfectionists, so you will not have to worry about sending out low-quality
 content to clients.

7. Learn the best times to publish content

Some content marketers are required to post their work for the client. This
 means that you will have to establish
 
an ideal time to post your content that is optimal for high engagement. Different channels require variable days, times and frequency.

8. 
 Study content trends

Discover what is
 trending using tools like Google Trends. Find trending topics on social media platforms and use relevant hashtags when sharing content. You may be able to ride a popular story (also referred to as newsjacking).

Essentially, you can injecting your ideas into breaking news stories and social conversations to generate media coverage and social media engagement. “Aligning yourself with trending topics can be extremely beneficial to your brand in building awareness and driving traffic through SEO, but only if you have your finger on the pulse.”

9. 
 Repurpose old content

If you run out of content ideas, compile the
 content you already and repurpose it for white papers, infographics, ebooks, etc. This extends the shelf life and reach of your content.

10. 
 Use content marketing tools

Automate your content marketing. If you do things manually, you will waste a lot of valuable time. Use apps like Hootsuite
 and Buffer to share your content across various social channels. Best of all, many tools offer analytics you can use to measure the success of your efforts.

11. 
 Never plagiarize content

Copying someone else’s work without proper attribution (i.e. credit) is never a good idea. These days Google is a powerful tool for tracking down infringement. These days there are even tools that spot RSS scraping by adding a digital fingerprint to your feed. If you did not create it, credit it. This simple rule of thumb will save you from the headache of lawsuits and DMCA takedowns of your work
.

Content marketing is in its prime. When you are a productive content marketer, you can build a
 great reputation, valuable connections and powerful brands.

This article has been edited.

Malia Keirsey is a freelance writer, independent blogger, and marketing
 expert for essay writing service getacademichelp.com. She has
 graduated from The University of Chicago with master’s degree in sociology 
and started to learn marketing in general. Connect with @MaliaKeirsey on Twitter.

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