“I need lots of high-quality content.” That’s what many businesses think, and it’s true to an extent. Yet, it’s perhaps not as true as many would like to believe.

Content Marketing Institute—the thought leader on everything content—has outlined strategies based on what effective content marketing looks like. Yes, even though everyone’s hyped “content” for years, many businesses are just now figuring out how to do it.

1. Define Your Goals and What Success Looks Like

One key CMI point is that companies with a clear definition of success report a higher rate of content marketing effectiveness. “Success” can be as simple as checking your overall search rankings or scouring site analytics data for any bumps in traffic.

Businesses that get more sophisticated with their content marketing zero in on items such as brand perception, leads generated, and additional sales closed. These are all difficult metrics to track.

2. Have a Documented Content Marketing Strategy

This is CMI’s second point with respect to businesses that engage in effective content marketing practices. They have an overarching mission statement, hold regular meetings, and use a calendar.

At the small business level, this doesn’t need to be elaborate or sophisticated. A “mission statement” perhaps only requires 1-3 sentences, and a “regular meeting” might be a monthly meetup with your agency or writer—who might take care of the calendar for you.

You know how when you write something down, you’re more likely to do it? In this sense, that’s all you need to get a leg up and become more effective than other businesses at content marketing.

3. Remember That Engaging Ideas Are All Around You

CMI hasn’t touched on this one, but it’s a huge problem for businesses of all sizes. You can create just any topic, and that’ll be enough to help you hold your search rankings. Yet, you can get even more out of your content by finding engaging ideas for your customers. Most businesses have a difficult time with this, but it’s in fact quite simple.

Ask your employees who most often interact with customers what their top problems and concerns are. These all represent particularly effective blog post ideas. Head to Forbes and Entrepreneur to view some of the big headlines. You can also visit Buzzsumo.com, enter any given keyword, and write on the same ideas as leading results.

Wrapping Up

This is more than enough for most businesses to start. Here’s to a vast improvement in your content marketing campaign success!