Think of a content strategy as your roadmap to success. When done well, it’ll help you to achieve everything that you set out to do with marketing your business. And fortunately, it isn’t that hard to create one that works for you.
Before we jump right into how you can craft an effective content strategy for your business, let’s learn a little more about what it actually is.
What is a content strategy?
Consider a content strategy like an action plan that’s outlined by your business goals for content marketing. Instead of going at it haphazardly, a content strategy gives you a more structured approach to creating, distributing, and managing content while staying true to your brand identity.
Steps to formulating a content strategy
Define your goals
When creating content, think of its purpose. This can mean increasing brand awareness, generating leads, converting visitors into customers, retaining existing customers, optimizing search ranking results, or something entirely different.
Depending on what you’d like to achieve, consider the different content types you can produce for every visitor and customer touch point. You definitely want to be having the right conversations with the right people at the suitable stage of the customer journey.
Audience research
Your content strategy will only work if you have a deep understanding of your target audience. Look into the types of sites they’re visiting, the kind of content that they engage with the most, and which social media platforms they use the most.
Something else you can do is create buyer personas with the demographics, pain points, interests, and behaviors of your ideal customers. This gives you more clarity for your content creation process and helps you make sure you’re providing them the value they’re after.
Content research and ideation
Effective content that produces real results doesn’t happen by chance. We’d like to think of it as an ideal mix of in-depth research and creativity, and a great place to begin is by looking into what the industry and your competitors have already done.
Dig into industry trends, competitor content, and suitable keywords to identify gaps and opportunities you can use to your advantage. Then, brainstorm content ideas based on this data you’ve collected that address your audience’s needs and interests.
Content development and distribution
Quality is key when it comes to creating content. It goes without saying that your content should be accurate, well-researched, and well-written. Your brand tone of voice should also be easily recognisable. This ultimately helps to strengthen your brand identity and build credibility.
Now, it’s time to distribute this content. Once you find out which platforms your audience are mainly on, build up a content calendar that states when and which platform your content will be published and promoted.
Measuring success
A content strategy that is successful is a continuous process of measuring your results, doing your analysis, and strengthening your strategy. There’s no need to track every possible metric, but it’s best to narrow down a few KPIs that work for your business.
These metrics can include website traffic, social media engagement rates, email open rates, and conversion rates. This way, you’ll know what’s working and what’s not so that you’re able to use these insights and improve your content strategy as you go along.
Staying adaptable and agile
Building a content strategy isn’t a passive, one-and-done thing. Instead, it’s a dynamic task that requires consistent and careful planning for your content to stay relevant and resonate with your target audience. Working with experts to build your strategy can sometimes be the best choice – or even have a consultant take a look at what you’ve come up with.
By setting clear goals, crafting valuable content, and distributing it properly so the right eyes are on it, you’ll be well on your way to building meaningful connections with your audience, which is exactly what you’ll need to stand out in today’s competitive world.