Having a content marketing strategy is essential for attracting and engaging your audience as well as improving your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). After all, content is what Google, Bing, and other search engines use to crawl, index, and rank pages in search results. Given the benefits of content marketing, there’s A LOT of content being produced which is making it harder for your target audience to find you.
So, how can your content stand out from the clutter? Check out our content marketing strategy guide to see what you can do to increase site traffic, entice your target audience, and drive the desired action like a purchase, download, or form submission.
What is a Content Marketing Strategy?
According to the Content Marketing Institute, a content marketing strategy explains your “why.” It should detail several important elements like why you’re creating content, who you’re helping, and how you’ll help them in your own unique way. Since these are some pretty high-level ideas, here are some brainstorming questions to give your strategy more focus.
Strategy Brainstorming Questions
Before you rush to create, publish, and distribute content, it’s crucial that you brainstorm first. Answer these questions in the beginning stages of your strategy to ensure you’re on the right path.
Who will be consuming your content?
Figure out who your target audience is and how many audiences you’re creating content for. However, make sure not to have too many audiences because if you target everyone, then you end up targeting no one because your content marketing will be too broad.
What problem are you solving?
Your target audience(s) has a problem, otherwise, they wouldn’t be searching for a solution or trying to understand their challenges. Determining what their problem is will help you create content that educates and guides your audience through the challenges to arrive at a solution, like your product or service.
How is your product or service unique?
You probably have competitors with similar products or services which is why your audience needs to know what makes your offerings better or different. Prove to potential customers why they should listen to you.
The brainstorming phase is the best time to answer the six W’s: who, what, why, where, when, and how. Also, talk to different departments to get their input and gain new perspectives.
Creating a Content Marketing Strategy
Content marketing strategies look different for every business because no two businesses are exactly the same. Your strategy could end up being a dozen pages long or just a couple. There isn’t a set length that your strategy should be, however, here are some key elements to ensure your strategy provides value.
1. Research
Perform research into your audience, keywords, competitors, and market to paint a comprehensive picture. Additionally, refer back to your customer journey map to make sure you don’t forget any touchpoints.
2. Define Goals
Set ‘SMART’ (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based) goals to clarify ideas and improve productivity. Clearly defined goals will help everyone on your team be on the same page.
3. Conduct a Content Audit
Take a close look at your past and current content marketing to figure out what has and hasn’t worked for your business. Incorporate what works into your new or updated strategy and ditch the stuff that doesn’t.
4. Set a Budget
A content marketing budget will keep you from spending too much and cutting into your ROI. Remember to factor in all costs for creation, publication, distribution, and analytics.
5. Generate Content Ideas
With the insights gleaned from your brainstorming, you’ll be able to generate content ideas like topics and formats (e.g. blog post, video, infographic). Also, create a content calendar to stay on track with your 3-month, 6-month, or one-year strategy.
6. Measure Performance
Include how you’ll measure performance and review the results of your strategy. Leverage analytics to get real data for research/planning as well as post-implementation analysis.
Your content marketing strategy doesn’t have to look fancy to be effective. The most important thing is that it gives you insights into your audience, defines your objectives, and outlines actionable steps to execute your strategy.
Disrupt Your Industry with Great Content Marketing
At its core, content marketing is about building and engaging target audiences. Your strategy should provide you with a framework to achieve your goals and generate a higher ROI for your business. Regardless of the strategy’s design or length, make sure it has everything you’ll need to be successful.
Connect with Mavericks Marketing today to see how a content marketing strategy can help your business disrupt your industry!
