Creating a powerful content marketing strategy is a brilliant tool. Even better, once you’ve implemented it, you can use it as a basis for your plans in the future. This means you can fine-tune it depending on what’s worked and what’s fallen short.
First things first, what is a content marketing strategy?
A content marketing strategy is a plan that guides the type of content you will use to communicate your brand messages, engage your audience and ultimately achieve your business goals. Content marketing tools include:
- Blog posts
- Email newsletters
- Social media posts
- Videos
- Ebooks
- Brochures
Why do you need a content marketing strategy?
A content strategy is essentially a blueprint for all your content marketing. It guides your direction, sets targets and KPIs, tracks progress and helps you reach your ultimate goals. An essential point to consider in a content marketing strategy is your audience – who will be reading or viewing the content you publish? With every type of content you create, ask yourself why you’re creating it and whether it’s relevant to your audience.
5 steps to create your content marketing strategy
1. Review your previous efforts and your existing marketing content
If it’s your first content marketing strategy, that’s great – you can start completely afresh! If you’ve implemented a strategy previously, take some time to review your results and adjust your goals based on its performance. There might be potential obstacles to overcome with your next strategy, or you could be presented with a clear list of priorities based on what worked well in your previous results. If your website content is a crucial part of your content marketing strategy, you’ll want to use an analytics platform like Google Analytics to check factors such as organic traffic, direct traffic and paid search.
2. Define your content marketing strategy goals
What do you want to achieve from your content marketing plan? Your goals will guide the direction of your strategy, and it’s best to know your goals before you implement your plan. For example, social media goals might include driving engagement on Instagram, increasing followers on TikTok, or starting a newsletter on LinkedIn.
3. Map out content ideas and develop a content calendar
At every step of the planning process, keep your audience in mind and consider the formats and platforms they use. You don’t want to waste time creating great content that won’t reach your target audience. For example, if they’re not engaged with video content or aren’t likely to listen to a podcast or read an eBook. A content calendar outlining themes and goals each month is a great way to prioritise ideas and different pieces of content.
4. Create, publish and promote your content
Make sure you’re creating content that’s unique, engaging and relevant to your target audience. Content marketing isn’t a tool for sales. It’s a way to communicate valuable and interesting information to prospects and customers. It also presents you as a thought leader and an expert within your industry. Get your money’s worth by promoting the content as widely as possible, and make a note if there’s any way you could revisit or repurpose it later.
5. Analyse the performance
Ideally, you’ll be tracking your metrics regularly (daily, weekly or monthly). This is useful because you can see which content is most effective and clearly resonates with your audience. By analysing its performance regularly, you’ll also find opportunities for improvement and can adjust your plan accordingly.
Hopefully, these five tips have offered some help and advice about creating a content marketing strategy. However, if you need a hand, I’m here to help! Take a look at the different content writing services at Bloomin’ Creative and book a consultation with me to chat about how an experienced content writer can add value to your business.
