Eight in ten marketers reported using content marketing this year, an increase of over 70% since 2020.
Clearly, content isn’t going anywhere.
If you want your brand to reach your target audience, a smart content strategy can help you get there. Read on as we explain how to develop a content strategy for your brand.
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What is a content strategy?
A content strategy is a business’s overall plan and strategic approach to using content (audio, visual, and text) to achieve their goals. Effective content strategies are designed to attract target audiences at each stage of the marketing funnel, from awareness to conversion, and keep them engaged and loyal afterwards.
To develop a successful content strategy for your business, follow these steps.
1. Decide on your goals.
What are your goals for content? Do you want to introduce your audience to your brand? Confront your audience with a problem you can help them solve? Help existing customers get more out of their purchase? Establish your brand as a thought leader in the space?
There are a variety of goals content can help you reach. If you’re having trouble defining your goals, think back to what made you start reading this article in the first place.
2. Do your research.
Once you know your goals, it’s time to figure out what kind of content will help you achieve them. You can answer this through two types of research: user research and competitor research.
Start by creating customer personas for your target audience. What needs and problems do they have that your content can help them solve?
Next, research how your competition approaches content? Observe how people react to their content in the comments sections and social media. Has any of their content been promoted in the press? What’s working, and what’s not?
3. Brainstorm content topics.
Here comes the fun part: dreaming up all the content you want to create. For help, you can use keyword research tools like SEMRush, Ahrefs, Buzzsumo, and even typing in key phrases into Google and seeing what comes up.
HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator is great for generating snazzy headlines for your content. I typed in a few keyword ideas for a hypothetical jewelry company. Here are some of the fun topic ideas they suggested:
Pro Tip: Focus on creating content for each stage of the marketing funnel:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
- Loyalty
4. Figure out the best type of content for each topic.
Next, you’ll want to consider the best type of content to use for each topic. You have tons of options to choose from, including:
- Blog posts
- Ebooks
- Whitepapers
- Industry reports
- Case studies
- Infographics
- Original graphics
- Social media images
- Podcasts
- Webinars
- Videos
Remember: you can repurpose the same topic into several different types of content. For example, a topic you cover in a blog post can also be the basis for a podcast episode or webinar.
5. Consider your promotion channels.
Once your content is published, how will you promote it? Will you be sharing your content on social media, or including it as part of an email newsletter?
It’s smart to include promotion as part of your overall content strategy, as it will help you better allocate resources and schedule enough time to produce and promote each piece of content.
6. Draft your editorial calendar.
Finally, it’s time to put your content strategy plan into action. You can use an editorial calendar to manage your content production and promotion. As you start laying out your calendar, you’ll answer questions like:
- What’s our budget for content? How much can you afford to spend on producing content? Do you need to increase your budget to achieve your goals?
- Who will write, publish, and promote your content? These tasks are often performed by different people, or outsourced to a digital marketing agency who can handle all of them.
- How frequently will you promote your content? In general, keeping a consistent publishing schedule is better for SEO. If you can’t commit to a large quantity of content, focus on quality instead.
7. Analyze your results.
Once you move into production, schedule regular check-ins to review your analytics and see how your content is performing. Analysis is key to long-term success. You’ll see what content resonates more or less with your audience, giving you insights into what to try next.
This is just one approach to creating a content strategy. How your content strategy shapes out will depend on your business’s goals, your audience, and your current resources and budget. For help crafting a content strategy that moves your business forward, contact Your Marketing People.
