If engaging traffic through social media or implementing a successful SEO is your concern, then you must have a strong content marketing team. They can formulate a content marketing strategy that would initiate business development.
To achieve a high-level business, it is always said that you need to follow the GOST tactics – Goal, Objective, Strategy, and Tactics. Implementation of this approach will help create a potent content marketing strategy. Further, it will have a profound effect on the people associated with your business.
Why is Content marketing strategy crucial?
Content marketing is an investment, and you are not only investing resources but also time. So, it is highly expected to get fruitful results by the end. This is where Content marketing strategy has a crucial role to play – where you plan and attract customers as part of your business building and growth.
Along with that, content has the capability to educate your customers and also generate awareness about the brand. If you go by the statistics, about 70% of marketers invest in content marketing to compete in the industry.
However, gaining an audience does not mean you are gaining buyers. Rather, they are potential buyers who are attracted to the brand. In other words, content helps you to gain recognition. It is not a costly venture, and almost everybody can rely on content.
Content is a power pack tool that can help you to outsmart the competition. However, you cannot just put in any content on the website as it might leave your brand with a damaging effect.
Thus, it is time to research and formulate a content marketing strategy that would act as an asset for your company over time. Here is a 7 step content marketing setup process.
1. Set your goals
Every Content marketing strategy is based on a “goal”, which acts as fuel for content marketing. You need to establish why you are preparing this content. It is discernible that content has the potential to grant brand recognition, generate leads, and bring in website traffic.
It is the key ingredient for an organization, but you need to understand how you are willing to allow this content to support you in achieving your goals. Getting successful indeed takes time. So, list out the obstacles that you might face on the path.
You need to get a clear picture of the objective. Suppose you are looking for a customer base, then your objective should specify that. Otherwise, if you are willing to gain revenue from the existing customers, then your goal should be well established to meet that.
2. Know your audience
You must have a clear view of your audience or for whom you are crafting the content. Only then will the content be more relatable to help them take any kind of action. It’s time to research and collect data.
Try to collect demographic data through email subscribers or social media followers. You can also put into use customer feedback. And, it is very important to understand where the gaps are that you need to fill for your present content.
But, if you haven’t yet set up a content marketing base, then you must be in dire need to do it at the earliest. Decide the places through which your customer might come across the content, and set subscribers at high priority.
Try to create a buyer’s persona. This will act as a motivator, and further, it will help you justify your ideal readers. Thus, you can help the audience relate and respond easily. This is the most workable strategy if your brand deals with service and product sales.
3. Identify your Key Performance Indicators
Every goal has a measurable ingredient, and the Key Performance Indicator (KPI) will help you understand your standpoint in the industry. At present, you must find elements based on what you want to achieve your goals – whether you want to try digital marketing, revenue generation, sales, traffic, social marketing, etc.
If high-quality lead generation is your priority, then you need to get more signups. In the case of revenue generation, don’t keep the target at the end of the year. Rather, it should be either quarter or half-yearly. And, for site traffic, you have to make your content engaging, and for ranking, you need to work on the keywords.
4. Assessment of your current business position
You might have already started with blogs or podcasts, or videos, but they are yet to meet your goals. Thus, you must identify what your content is lacking. It will help if you conduct a proper assessment of your current position.
To understand the market, you must identify your competition. Go through the metrics to check whether the audience will be acceptable to new content or new content format. Always compare your content with your competitor.
Further, you must understand their reviews and check the website to get a clear picture. It is like peeking into the gaining strategies of your competitor. This will help you to modify your pages and implement the keywords accordingly. Don’t get disappointed if your company is listed way below in the competitive list because well-drafted content can help you to contest in the industry.
5. Understand your previous content
You need to log all your blog content or site content with a proper tool that can help you list URLs, analyze the page title, find duplicate pages, and create a sitemap. This will help you assist your content, and you can also use tools that have a content audit. This will provide you with a complete analysis of backlinks, social shares, and content length.
Simply export this data to a spreadsheet and perform a thorough analysis. Find the gaps and, based on the metrics, understand how you can associate the keywords or what are the aspects that you need to improve.
All your implementations should meet your goal. A keyword is very much important so that your content can start ranking well. You can also refer to tools such as Ahref, SemRush, and Screaming Frog to find the content gap.
Verify whether your content is targeting the audience or on the list of competition. You can always use the skyscraper technique to monitor how you are improving for better research ranking or how to incorporate keywords.
6. Elements that you need to add to a content
Marketing has a lot of impacts based on whether you are publishing the content on your own site or if it is part of any shared site (outsource). Statistics state that contents published on its own website get leverage when compared with other options.
However, a mixture of these two types of publications can bring you outstanding results. However, your blog post should have valuable information, it should be shareable, and it must direct the audience to take action.
There are many tools available on the internet, such as BuzzSumo, that can help you to understand the content. It is a very popular opinion that most shared content also gains the most audience.
As part of your Content marketing strategy, you also need to track backlinks, questions people ask, and what content is trending. Try to include video contents that reduce abandonment. You can also create infographics or customize memes for lead generation.
Further, you can also work on magnets, such as checklists, webinars, etc. The current buzz is about creating podcasts. And, interestingly, it delivers high content results. If you love experimenting, then create an engaging podcast with enriched content.
7. It’s time to create a content calendar
Along with this, you will also need a social calendar for publishing the content on a systematic basis. This is also known as an editorial calendar. For a proper content workflow, you need to create an outline, get approval, write the content, set up images, make the requisite changes based on the trends, and finally, upload and then publish it.
A content calendar will help you to eliminate marketing mistakes. It will keep a proper workflow. You can maintain steady communication with your content management and publishing team. It is always advised to keep it flexible so that you can make changes according to the demand in the near future.
Spreadsheets are the best assistant for creating a proper editorial calendar. You can assign the task based on rows and columns. And, also keep a count on the number of contents you ought to publish in a week.
You can also target email marketing or use social media influences to spread the word about your content. Many applications offer target features such as geo-location targeting and page-level targeting. And, this can provide the lead magnet for content.
8. Craft a perfect content
Now that you are all sorted with content assessment and management is time to build one. Content can be of various types, starting from blog posts, service pages, ebooks, podcasts, video content, case studies, etc. Each content has a distinct format and different approach. You need to keep in mind that your focus should be on quality over quantity.
Further, you must spend time on the editing process and provide clear and compelling information that can convince your target audience. The content should reflect the goals that you want to achieve. You can appoint a creative team so that the content should have genuine images and videos.
Keep it original, without any plagiarism. The content should be fresh, standing out of the league. Use more of your imagination to create a winning piece. Stay away from controversy and always try to learn new ideas. Keep researching concepts that you can use to promote the content.
If you want to promote your products, then do not forget to put in a “call-to-action” section, and overall the content should be educational. Hire professional content writers who can balance marketing and inspiring the audience.
9. Distributing the content
You have to decide on the best channel for content distribution. Locate the site where you can gain an online presence and where you can get the scope to expand.
So, you have to list the sites first. Go through the content analysis tool and understand how the contents are being shared. It can be either by length, type, or network, and also note what contents are at the top.
You need to identify and allocate the resources properly, such as who will create the content, how will you publish it, and what would be the charge for producing and maintaining the content. Thus, you need a supportive team to assist you in the Content marketing strategy.
10. Finally, it’s time to measure the results
This is the most important and the last step in the content marketing strategy is to analyze the results. It is like preparing an annual mark sheet for your content team. Use the metrics to track your content and check how much traffic each blog brings to your website.
Along with that, you also need to verify whether the traffic is generated through organic search, clickable links, or social media. Understand how the keywords are ranking on the search results. Further, you also have to confirm the number of clicks versus impressions.
If you are trying to sell products, then check what happens after the consumer goes through your content. Do they? Or they opt to add items to the cart. Always insist the audience sign up for newsletters or read the next content. It is important to make certain tweets in the content marketing strategy to harness the best results
Conclusion
Content marketing strategy works like a loop, and as soon as you reach the 10th step, you need to start again from the first. For every business plan to take off, it is important to redraft the new content marketing strategy every six months.
The last two years have been tough for retail shops, and thus, they had to shift to gain an online presence. This had a direct impact on the competition, audience behavior, and sales report. Understand that the audience is evolving, and along with the tech, progress is accelerating too.
Thus, there has been a frequent change in the likes and dislikes of the audience/consumers. So, content marketing is the only concept that can build trust and retain an audience for a long time. Thus, you have to reinforce content that works as a solution. This has a record of staying for a long time on any website.
Now that you have a proper checklist, it is time to implement the strategy that would be the best bet for you.
SK Sahin is an SEO Associate at Meraqi Digital, the best Digital Marketing agency in kolkata. He enjoys writing different topics about search engine optimization and digital marketing..