When you start thinking about content marketing for your business it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer choice of what you can do.

Should you guest post? Should you focus on social media? Should you create some free resources? Or have a weekly podcast?

If you’ve found your head spinning with options, watch this episode of Content Marketing… Stripped! For a simple 3 point assessment guide you can use to figure out where to start:

So, let’s recap, when picking your content marketing tasks, think about:

1: Compete

When you’re deciding what content you want to create, play to your strengths and make sure that you’re using these skills to be competitive. If you’ve got a flair for design you might find that graphical illustration, or an infographic is the best way for you to communicate your services and the benefits you offer.

Or if you love talking but hate writing, consider a regular podcast that you can then have transcribed into written content.[signup-form id=”12713″]

What you want to avoid is choosing a medium you personally hate, but think is the ‘right’ thing to do unless you have:

• Resources you can assign to the project
• Time to learn

Ultimately, try to pick something you enjoy and are good at, because that’s the only way you’ll use that channel creatively and with the best use of your time and talents.

2: Complete

You have to be able to ship your content marketing projects, that is you need to complete them and get them out the door.

A “100 guest posts in a year” strategy might sound like a great plan, but if it takes you 3 weeks to complete one post it’s going to drive you into the ground.

Some of the best advice I heard was from small business consultant Karyn Greenstreet who said:

“Concentrate first on just six marketing techniques until you master them, until they are producing consistent, excellent results for you. Then add one new one, master it, and then add another new one. When I ask people in my Compass Master program to do this exercise, they have a list of 25 different marketing techniques. I say, “Where are you finding the time to do all this and do all of it well? Are all 25 techniques producing extraordinary results?” And they’re reply, “Oh, I’m not really doing it well.” I said, “What’s the point of doing them at all?”  Karyn Greenstreet, extracted from: Discover The Missing Link: Solve the Mystery of Why Small Business Owners Aren’t Buying Your Services

So, even if it means taking a smaller step than you had planned, if it’s a step that you can finish, it’s much better than waiting forever to make a leap. (Small steps can take you a very long way in the content marketing world)

3: Repeat

Finally, make sure your content marketing is repeatable. By consistently producing marketing you get to:

• Build a strong relationship with your audience
• Get the word out over time about what you’re doing
• Improve your skills within that channel
• Test best-practice methods
• Build consistent results

Quite often business owners hop from marketing method to marketing method only to burn themselves out without giving that particular project time enough to see results. If you have something that’s working a little, repeat it and improve it until you really master it and turn ‘a little’ into ‘a lot’.

How do you choose your content marketing methods? Have you found something that works well and plays to your strengths? Let me know in the comments.