If you’re like me, you’ve always wondered how companies like Coca-Cola and Procter & Gamble build their brands and sell billions of dollars worth of products.
To be honest, I never expected a company like Coca-Cola to have a content marketing strategy (it’s all about the product right?!), but when I started my own business I quickly realized that having a strong brand was just as important as making money.
Without one or both of those things, your business will struggle to compete in today’s marketplace which is why it’s essential for any entrepreneur or small business owner to know how they can create an effective content marketing strategy that drives traffic, builds brand awareness and ultimately increases sales.
| Takeaways |
|---|
| 1. Prioritize the essentials for a swift content strategy. |
| 2. Define goals to align your strategy with objectives. |
| 3. Identify your target audience to tailor content. |
| 4. Leverage existing resources for efficient execution. |
| 5. Plan and schedule content to maintain consistency. |
| 6. Use analytics to optimize and refine your strategy. |
Getting Started With Creating A Content Marketing Strategy
The first thing you need to do when building a content marketing strategy is to define your audience. Understanding who they are and what they want will help you create content that resonates with them.
Here’s how:
Find out where your audience hangs out online by looking at where they spend time on social media, checking out their favorite blogs, or doing some simple keyword research (if you’re not sure how to do this, check out this guide).
Create profiles on relevant sites so you can engage with people in real-time and gather intel on them as they’re interacting with each other in the comments section of a post or article (this is an effective way of finding influencers).
Read their comments and look for common themes, these topics should be the basis for creating new posts about those topics!
When creating your content strategy, consider the benefits of a content ladder to amplify your reach and engagement.
What Is Content Marketing?
Let’s start with the basics: content marketing is a way to build relationships with customers by providing them with valuable, relevant, and engaging information. It’s not a strategy for pushing sales to your audience.
Instead, it’s designed to attract and retain a clearly defined audience through the creation of useful, interesting, and thought-provoking pieces of content (blog posts, videos, and infographics) that relate directly to your business or industry.
In short: Content marketing helps you attract new customers by providing them with information about your products or services which will make them want to sign up for what you have to offer.
Define Your Audience
Once you’ve got your framework in place, the next step is to define your audience. This will help you determine the needs, wants, and behaviors of the people who will be reading your content.
Demographic information: Age range, gender, and location are important factors when defining an audience.
Psychographic information: Psychographics refers to consumer buying habits and lifestyles (e.g., family status). For example, a consumer that has children might be more likely to purchase organic food than one without kids.
This type of information is great for creating buyer personas that represent specific groups within a larger group of customers with similar characteristics – like “mom who likes wine” or “single male millennials who love hiking.”
So that you can create better content tailored specifically toward them as opposed than just vaguely guessing what they might want based on broad categories like “millennials” or “consumers.”
Behavioral data: Understanding how frequently someone engages with certain types of media allows you to see where gaps exist within their personal preferences and therefore where there might be opportunities for new types
of engagement with brands via social media platforms such as blogs where people tend not only to read but also comment on posts which could lead down two paths: either direct sales (if we were talking about eCommerce companies).
Or brand awareness/trust-building efforts thanks their willingness share how much they enjoy consuming content from that particular company – leading them back into stores whenever necessary!
Understand Your Competition
To understand the landscape of content marketing, you need to know your competition. Who’s doing it well? What are they doing that you can learn from? What are they not doing that you should be doing?
This is a crucial step in understanding how to build and execute a successful content marketing strategy.
To do this, you’ll want to start by taking a look at your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
You’ll also want to look at where their target audience is hanging out online (in forums, on social media platforms, etc.),
What their content strategy looks like (is it mostly written blog posts or do they have videos too?), and how they’re using social media as part of their overall marketing strategy (if at all).
Curious about the buzz around inbound marketing? Dive into our article on why inbound marketing matters and gain insights into its impact on your content marketing strategy.
Establish Your Goals
Before you start building your content marketing strategy, it’s important to establish your goals.
If you don’t know what you want out of this process, how can you measure success? There are countless reasons why businesses want to use social media and blogging for their marketing efforts.
But if those goals aren’t defined beforehand, it’s easy for marketers to lose focus on the “why” behind their efforts.
As an example:
A business may decide that they’re going to create a blog because they think it will help them improve SEO rankings or increase brand awareness.
But if that’s not part of the business owner’s end goal (which could be increasing sales), then there might be other routes worth exploring instead of starting a blog and investing time into writing posts that they don’t care about promoting.
Create A Blogging Schedule And Stick To It
The first, most critical step in the content marketing process is to create a blogging schedule. This will help you ensure that your blog posts are published on time, while also keeping things consistent and organized.
When creating your blog posting schedule, it’s important to remember that consistency is key.
A lot of people start by trying to publish new content every day but this can often lead you down a rabbit hole as you try and keep up with all of the writing, editing, proofreading, and publishing required just for one post.
Instead of setting unrealistic goals (like trying to post at least once per day) consider starting with something more achievable like 3-5 times per week or even once every other week whatever works best for your personal life!
Once you’ve decided on a regular posting frequency it’s time to create an editorial calendar (or “Blogging Schedule”).
You can use Google Calendar or Trello for this just make sure it includes all of the relevant dates such as birthdays or holidays so there aren’t any surprises come publication time!
Outsource the Work
If you’re not a content creator, consider hiring one. It doesn’t have to be someone on your team it could be a freelancer or an agency that specializes in content marketing and management.
You can also outsource the work yourself by putting out calls for writers on specialized job boards like Upwork or Freelancer.com.
Find someone who will create high-quality content at scale. Your goal is to get enough relevant, unique, and engaging content going so you don’t have to spend time creating it yourself (or worse yet doing it poorly).
Learn from an expert’s journey in the world of inbound marketing. Read about the inbound marketing expert’s personal journey to find inspiration and practical advice.
Find Influencers In Your Industry And Engage Them In Conversation
Influencers are people with large followings on social media. They have a lot of influence over their followers and can help you get your content in front of your target audience.
For example, if you’re selling a product for weight loss, an influencer is someone who has thousands of followers who would benefit from that product.
For example, let’s say you’re selling chairs. The chair industry is pretty big and competitive, so it pays to know what the leaders are doing in the space because they probably know more about it than most people do!
A good place to start looking for these leaders is by searching for keywords related to your niche (like “chair” or “office”) on Twitter or Instagram and seeing who shows up at the top of the search results:
Guest Post On High Authority Blogs In Your Niche
To build authority and credibility, you’ll want to find high-quality blogs that are relevant to your industry.
These should be blogs with a large following and high domain authority so that when you publish an article on that blog, it will help bring in traffic from Google search results. Once you’ve found some good candidates, write a guest post for one of them! Here’s how:
You should always make sure the content is well-researched, well-written, and well-cited before publishing. (We’ll get into citations later.)
This is especially important when writing for an authoritative site because if there are any errors in your research or writing style even just one the editors may reject your article outright or ask that it be rewritten entirely.
In addition to this criterion being more objective than others, we’ve discussed thus far (like whether or not someone cares about what happens next).
It’s also just good practice since readers will be able to tell right away whether or not they feel like reading through the whole thing.
And if they don’t like what they see at first glance then there’s no point giving them anything else after that initial impression has been made!
So while this step might seem tedious at first glance (and sometimes even second), remember: The sooner we can get our work out there into circulation we can start seeing results faster.
Connect Your Content To Industry Trends, Events, And Holidays
If you’re going to create interesting, valuable content that attracts and keeps readers coming back, you need to look outside of your industry. Where do people in other businesses struggle? What can you teach them about solving their problems?
Not only will this give you a fresh perspective on your industry, but it will also help you identify opportunities to connect with new audiences and they may be more likely than your existing customers or subscribers to stick around when they see how helpful the advice is!
For example: If you’re a marketing agency specializing in food manufacturing, what are some ways that this sector could improve its operations or reach new customers?
Or maybe there’s an issue related to sustainability that both industries face so share what others in similar fields are doing along those lines!
Build Relationships With Journalists And PR People
When it comes to building relationships with journalists, you need to understand what a journalist is.
A journalist is someone who writes about something for an audience (like me). They have a platform where they talk about topics that interest them and their readers.
Then there are PR people. They do the same thing as journalists but on behalf of companies or brands looking for something covered or promoted by a journalist. This can be anything from product launches to interviews with celebrities who work at that brand.
These two types of people make up your target audience: those who want information in exchange for money or promotion/exposure of their company’s products/services. If you want them to promote something on their platforms, you have to offer value first!
Uncover the secrets behind the effectiveness of inbound marketing. Discover the strategies in the marketing behind why inbound marketing works and enhance your content marketing insights.
Leverage Successful Brand Campaigns For Inspiration
After you’ve identified your target audience and the pain points that your content will solve, it’s time to get creative.
Search for content on similar topics from other brands. These should be relevant companies in your industry who are producing quality content that resonates with their audience.
Use their top posts as inspiration for ideas for your campaign and don’t hesitate to pop over to their Facebook page or Twitter feed and see what they’re up to!
If you’re not sure where to start, try looking at high-performing ads from competitors. Pick out one or two of these ads (or entire campaigns) that stand out as particularly successful in terms of engagement or effectiveness.
Then consider why this might be so: What makes them different from other ads? How do they resonate with consumers? Which elements work best?
Take Advantage Of Traditional Advertisements To Spread Brand Awareness And Drive Traffic To Your Site
If you’re not already doing so, it’s time to start taking advantage of traditional advertisements to promote your content.
There are many benefits to using this strategy: you can use your advertising budget to promote your content, and vice versa. Your content can also help promote the advertising you have placed on other sites, boosting traffic back home.
Here are some tips for getting started:
Engagement is key to success in the digital landscape. Explore ways to optimize your marketing strategy for optimal engagement and elevate your content marketing game.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to build a content marketing strategy for your business or brand, it’s best to start by defining your goals.
You should also consider what type of content works best for your target audience and how frequently you need to publish new material for people to keep coming back for more. Finally, make sure that everything you write is as engaging as possible!
Further Reading
HubSpot’s Guide to Crafting a Winning Content Marketing Plan Short Description: Learn from HubSpot about creating a comprehensive content marketing plan that drives engagement and conversions.
Creating Effective Content Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide Short Description: Explore Momentum’s guide for actionable steps to develop effective content marketing strategies that resonate with your audience.
Crafting a Successful Content Marketing Strategy Short Description: Dive into Rock Content’s insights on building a successful content marketing strategy to captivate and retain your target audience.
And here’s the “FAQs” section:
FAQs
What are the key elements of a content marketing plan?
A successful content marketing plan typically includes defining target audiences, setting clear goals, creating valuable content, distributing content through various channels, and analyzing performance metrics.
How can I ensure my content marketing efforts generate results?
Consistency, relevance, and understanding your audience’s needs are vital. Regularly producing high-quality content aligned with your audience’s interests and pain points will help drive engagement and results.
What are some effective content marketing formats?
Effective content marketing can take various forms, including blog posts, infographics, videos, eBooks, webinars, podcasts, and social media posts. The choice of format should match your audience’s preferences and your content goals.
How do I measure the success of my content marketing strategy?
Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments), conversion rates, and lead generation can help gauge the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy.
How can I adapt my content marketing strategy over time?
Regularly assess your content performance, gather feedback from your audience, stay updated on industry trends, and be open to experimenting with new formats and approaches to ensure your content strategy remains relevant and effective.
Costantine Edward is a digital marketing expert, freelance writer, and entrepreneur who helps people attain financial freedom. I’ve been working in marketing since I was 18 years old and have managed to build a successful career doing what I love.