How to Develop a Content Marketing Strategy
Most businesses today don't have a documented content marketing strategy, which makes them lag behind their competitors. There is an immense need of the content marketing strategy. Whenever it comes to the growth of the business, this strategy is significant because even your competitors are doing the same.
Around 60 percent of B2C marketers follow content marketing strategies. Without a content marketing strategy, there is no point in getting success when compared to other market players.
Content marketing has been gaining pace over the years. You must be up to date and innovative to take full advantage of this strategy. So here is a highlight regarding how you can develop the content marketing strategy and tactics.
Step 1 - Set the mission and the goals.
The starting point for a content strategy plan is setting up the mission statement and goals to achieve. Ensure that the brief statement focuses on what is vital as a part of the strategy. In addition to that, the content marketing mission statement must have an idea regarding the target audience, the content that will be reaching them, and the benefits they will be getting from it.
Also, there is a need for analyzing the audience. As a business Technology executive, there is a need to figure out the examples of what the content will cover, including digital transformation, certifications, skills development, and hiring practices.
Ensure that the mission covers what the audience will get from the digital content strategy. So, the goals should include the improvement of the revenue, making more sales, chances of getting more traffic to the site, reducing marketing costs, and boosting social media engagement.
Step 2 - Establish KPIs
Around 76 percent of marketers are focusing on the use of organic traffic for measuring content success. The key performance indicators play the role of letting you know regarding the time when you have achieved the goals by providing certain milestones. It also includes what you plan for the achievement in terms of the sales, revenue, traffic, SEO, and different aspects of digital marketing.
Include the social media metrics and the email marketing and ensure that the specific numbers are attached to them, including revenue generation, target, getting more signup, improving the search ranking, and increasing the site traffic. In addition to that, ensure a certain number of mentions, shares, and comments for the pillar content.
Step 3 - Understand your audience.
Without understanding your audience, you cannot succeed with your branding strategies. So, whenever you are on the verge of starting with the content marketing strategy, ensure that you are collecting the demographic data: that includes age, gender, income, and education. In addition to that, also make sure that you have customer feedback.
With the digital marketing plan, you can analyze how capable your content marketing strategy reaches its objectives. Also, give priority to having understanding regarding their readers and subscribers. Make the decisions based on the best places for reaching the customers. This step also includes the creation of the buyer personas. The best customer personas must include:
- The information on the customer's pain points.
- Sources of information.
- Challenges as well as a behavioral motivator.
Also, make sure that you understand the kind of content that the audience is going to respond to and the way it is going to help them more. More than you care about yourself and your business, make sure that you show your care about the customer's needs.
Step 4 - Assess the current position.
The best thing about content marketing is that Content marketing is 60 percent cheaper than other types of marketing. The businesses already have their content out there, including social media content, videos, podcast, and more than that. For carrying out the content audit, you will have to log in to all the pieces of the content, including the blog post, guest post, and more. Then assess the usefulness and then identify these gaps.
Analyze the page titles, the descriptions and create the sitemap that will give you a better idea. Make sure that you understand the way the content is working. Check out whether there are a lot of inbound links to the content or not.
The report that you get will give you the identification regarding the content gaps and the keywords related to the niche that you failed to target. You will get the right idea regarding how you will have to frame the content distribution strategy for getting enough recognition. You can also figure out the competitor's keywords that you have to.
Step 5 - Figure out the best content channels.
You cannot continue with the content marketing strategy when you have the perfect idea regarding the best content channels. Make sure that you have an idea regarding the successful online presence. Always make sure that you are analyzing the web Analytics. There you will get the idea regarding the significant networks where the content must get shared.
Step 6 - Draw ideas regarding the types of content that need to be created
Consideration of the content types is a perfect content marketing strategy. Include a successful creative content marketing strategy regarding the content that will be published on the site. The blog post turns out to be an essential part of the content marketing strategy and will deliver strong results.
Also, ensure that you have the right idea regarding the other type of content you must consider. When it comes to the video marketing mix, you will have to improve engagement. The consideration of creating infographics with certain tools, user-generated content, and customized graphics for social sharing is very important. You should include lead magnets, worksheets, checklists, and more in the strategy.
Step 7 - Identify and allocate the resources.
When you have already got the idea regarding what kind of content you will have to choose for publishing, you will also have to know the identification and allocation of resources. Question yourself that who is in charge of the production and the maintenance of the content.
Key Takeaways
Consideration of the perfect SEO and content strategy will ensure that you are getting a competitive advantage. By implementing the above-mentioned marketing strategies will offer you a better and enhanced ROI.
Also, you need to consider the human resources, physical and digital tools that will be needed for shaping the content marketing strategy.