15August 2023
Developing content is a great way to attract customers to your business. It also helps improve authority and establishes you as a thought leader in your industry.
The first step is to identify the problems your audience faces. Content at this stage should be informative and lightly lean toward your products.
Content Strategy
As the name implies, content strategy is a plan for your content marketing goals, processes and expectations. It helps to close the gap between your marketing KPIs and your actual results by ensuring that the content you produce is effective in meeting those goals.
This includes identifying which keywords your audience is searching for and creating content to target those words and phrases. It also involves determining how you want to distribute your content to ensure that it reaches your audience. For example, using a content distribution strategy such as SEO topic clusters can significantly increase your search engine visibility and provide a full-funnel approach to your content marketing.
Another element of your content strategy is identifying your ideal customer profile and buyer persona. This will help you understand what your audience is looking for and how your products can help them achieve their goals. For instance, Red Bull focuses on their audience’s love for high-adrenaline sports and creates content that showcases that passion.
Content Creation
The content marketing strategy begins with a clear idea of the type of information your target audience wants to consume. This includes understanding their buying journeys, needs, and problems. Performing keyword research can also help you understand what types of questions your audience is asking on search engines.
This information will help you create pieces that provide the answers to those questions and ultimately drive customers to your brand. It’s also important to keep track of trends so that you can quickly adjust your content creation process accordingly. For example, if a specific topic is trending, it’s a good idea to produce and distribute a piece that speaks to this audience before the opportunity passes.
Once you have a clear idea of the types of content you want to produce, it’s time to start creating it. There are many different formats for content, ranging from blogs and articles to infographics and video. It’s important to find the right format for your audience and then hire or outsource professionals who can produce these pieces.
Content Distribution
Content marketing requires more than just creating content. It also involves distributing that content to ensure it reaches your audience. This can be done through owned, earned and paid channels.
Before deciding on your distribution strategy, you should first define your goals and KPIs. These should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. For example, if you want to increase your number of subscribers, you can measure the number of blog posts that generate leads or use a gated eBook to capture email addresses.
Once you have established your goals and KPIs, you can start experimenting with different channels, content formats, and post times to find out what works best for you. Keep in mind that no distribution strategy is set in stone, so it’s important to analyze your data and make necessary adjustments. This will help you reach your target audience and achieve the results you’re looking for. You can use tools such as Grammarly to catch spelling, grammatical and scansion errors in your copy and Canva to create beautiful graphics for your blog or social media posts.
Measurement
If you want to measure the effectiveness of your content marketing, you have to be clear about the goals you’re setting. Then, you can establish and monitor the key metrics that help you get those goals accomplished.
Ideally, your goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Then, you can use a process like SMART goal-setting to ensure your goals are well thought-out and align with your business needs.
Some metrics are universally accepted, such as pages/sessions and social media engagement. Other metrics are more unique to your content strategy, such as brand awareness or lead generation. The important thing is to make sure you’re measuring what matters to you and your team, and that it’s a consistent process. This will help you learn over time and make adjustments to improve your results. Then, you can take your content marketing to the next level.