Content is the foundation of marketing.
Whether it's a blog post with keywords designed to boost your search engine rankings or a radio ad designed to generate new leads, content is the point of contact between your audience and your business.
To build your brand, build trust, and ultimately increase conversions, you need quality assurance that allows you to achieve a specific goal.
However, this is easier said than done, especially given overall branding and the need to maintain consistency across all marketing materials.
To maximize your impact, you need detailed content design that works to meet your short-term and long-term goals.
In other words, you need a content strategy.
What is a content strategy?
A content strategy is a realistic plan that describes how you will use content to achieve your business goals. It should include tactics to engage your audience at every stage of the marketing funnel, from awareness to loyalty.
By making sure you're not creating useless content for the sake of it, you can do more effective work that drives action.
To learn more about analyzing existing content and building a solid content strategy, watch this Copypress Content Strategy webinar.
Now that you've learned the elements of a successful content strategy, it's time to create your own.
You can make it from scratch, but you don't have to.
To save you time, we have created a downloadable template that you can use . Available as both a spreadsheet and a Word document , it includes everything you need to create your own unique content plan.
Download it now in the format convenient for you and fill it.
How to set up this content strategy
1. Define your main strategy
Your marketing should tell the story of your brand.
Your content strategy is a roadmap for stories. Before creating new marketing elements, it's important to identify some key characteristics so that everyone, both internal and external, has the same understanding of your brand.
Start by listing your brand's reputation and unique value proposition.
You should also research your competitors and study the type of content they are using. If they have success with white papers, there's a good chance that will be part of your strategy as well.
After doing all this, you should outline the main topics that will be discussed in your content. This may include:
- inspiration
- Tips, tricks and guides.
- thought leadership.
- Technology.
You use this information to build the framework around which your strategy will be formed.
2. Define your target audience
Your content should not only promote your products and services, but also meet the needs of your audience. Address their concerns and explain why you offer the right solution.
But before you do that, you need to know who you're talking to. Change your content strategy by adding information about your primary and secondary audiences.
They should contain:
- Demographics . Age range, location, preferred platforms, etc.
- Psychology . interests, hobbies, values, etc.
- Challenges . weaknesses, fears and anything else you can do to help them.
It can be helpful to develop customer personas that reflect the archetypes of different segments of your audience.
3. Set specific goals
The next step in creating this content strategy model is to clearly define your goals and how your content will help you achieve them.
These can be SMART goals and stretch goals. both should be as detailed as possible.
SMART goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
This may include publishing certain content in other publications, generating a certain number of leads in a certain period of time, or generating a certain amount of new lead content.
Ambitious goals, on the other hand, are more ambitious. These are often quarterly or annual goals designed to push your team toward more ambitious goals.
Overall, your SMART goals contribute to your ambitious goals.
For example, if your broader goal is to increase your web traffic by 150% over the next year, you should create a set of SMART goals to break them down into manageable tasks. You can create specific goals to identify new keyword opportunities, update existing pages, create specific amounts of new content, and create A/B tests for social media and ad copy using the SMART format.
Track your marketing funnel and set goals for each stage.
4. Determine the topics to be covered
Any content you create and share should be valuable to your audience. At this point, you should list everything you want to cover.
Each job should correspond to one of the topics you specified in step one.
This list of topics can be as long or as detailed as you like, but remember that doing the work upfront can often save you money later.
5. Describe your content mix
And just as no two companies are the same, no two organizations will use the same content. Depending on your individual needs, you can use formats such as:
- blog posts.
- case studies.
- video.
- podcasts.
- infographic.
- social media.
- User Content (UGC).
- Traditional media.
- direct mail.
This is a non-exhaustive list of the different types of content you can use to achieve your marketing goals.
You can use many different formats or just a few. It's up to you to decide what works best for you and your needs.
6. Define sales channels
Now that you've decided what type of content you're going to use, it's time to figure out where they're going.
Since you don't want the best content in the world if no one sees it, your content strategy will help you avoid this problem by deciding which marketing channels to use and what type of content to use.
It helps you target the right audience and by finding the best places for your audience to interact with your brand, you can find new opportunities.
The content you publish on each channel should fulfill one of the goals listed in the previous section.
7. Define the posting cycle
To keep your brand top of mind and maximize your position in search results, you need to publish new content regularly.
Again, there is no right answer to this.
Depending on your industry and its competition, publishing one blog post per week may be sufficient. On the other hand, you may find that you get better results by posting three times a day on social media.
Depending on the needs and wants of your audience, you may have one channel that posts regularly and another that posts less frequently.
It's important to walk the line between remembering your existence and being bored with too many posts.
If they are sent, your audience will forget about you. If you post content too often, you run the risk of being unsubscribed from social networks and mailing lists.
8. Collect feedback and make adjustments as needed
Everyone has blind spots and biases, so it's incredibly important to get other people's input on your strategy.
After completing this template, send it to key stakeholders for feedback. If you work with a sales team, be sure to get their input.
Ask them if there are any key areas you've missed or initiatives from other departments that you can link to.
Even if you run a one-person business, your content doesn't exist in a vacuum. Seek advice from a trusted friend who knows your industry.
Of course, you don't want to reveal it too widely, which will allow your competitors to beat you to the punch, but it never hurts to get a second opinion.
9. Share and measure your content
Okay, so this step isn't really part of fine-tuning your content strategy, but it's the most important part of content marketing.
Once your content is distributed across different channels, you can start looking at different key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to see how they're performing.
There are four main types of content marketing metrics: acquisition, shares, leads, and sales.
The metrics you use depend on the channel and call to action (CTA) used by the specific content.
For example, the success of phone street ads can be tracked through call tracking, and display ads can be tracked through clicks.
Here are some of the most common KPIs used in content marketing:
- organic traffic.
- Return on advertising investment (ROAS).
- Qualified Drivers (QL).
- Cost per lead (CPL).
- Cost per acquisition (CPA).
- Return on investment (ROI) for social networks.
Use the information gleaned from these metrics to determine where your content strategy is succeeding and where it isn't.
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By now, you should have a good and consistent content strategy.
But there are a few other things to consider before you set off, namely:
Don't forget about search engine optimization
Digital will likely make up the majority of your marketing efforts, which means it's important to have SEO at the core of your content plan.
Of course, this doesn't apply to pure offline content, but if the content appears online, it should work with your SEO strategy.
Find content and keyword gaps and plan your content around them. Follow best practices for linking, tagging, and page structure.
Reuse your winners
If you have content that has done particularly well, you should make the most of it.
Look for ways to change the article format and redirect to another channel.
For example, you can add some graphics and post your most popular podcast on YouTube or share your most viewed blog post on your social platforms. This will help you increase your reach.
Remember, your content strategy is a work in progress.
A content marketer's job is never done, but that's okay.
What you learn today will benefit you tomorrow.
Don't be afraid to deviate from the script if the situation calls for it.
However, you should stick to your content strategy as much as possible.
Using what you've created here will benefit you in the long run.
Other resources:
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