As a marketer, it’s absolutely vital that you create a solid content marketing strategy in order to be successful. A good content plan states exactly why you are creating content, who you are targeting and what makes your business unique in comparison to your competitors. Here are our 6 top tips for developing a successful content marketing strategy:
Starting at the very beginning, you need to define the purpose of what you plan to achieve with a content marketing strategy. This may be to build a community, generate new leads or increase sales, but whatever it is, determining your purpose will set you on the right track from the start.
Once you’ve established what your purpose is, you can then set a list of priorities, which will help you to narrow in on what you specifically want to focus on. For example, is your priority to create engaging content, or simply to understand your audience better? Understanding your priorities gives you a clear structure of how to go about developing the rest of your content strategy.
One of the most important steps in developing your content marketing strategy is to know your audience inside out. This means being able to identify their age, their marital status, their occupation, location, and even their hobbies. By fully understanding whom your audience are, you can then make sure that your content is specifically directed to them. If it isn’t, you’ll miss out on securing precious customers, leads and sales.
The next step is to choose what type of content you are going to produce, such as blog posts, social posts, infographics or case studies. Whilst it’s important to produce the right type of content for your audience, you should also consider what works best for you as a business and play to your strengths. Creating evergreen content that never becomes outdated is a fantastic way to make sure your audience always returns.
Before you begin to brainstorm ideas for your content marketing strategy, it’s wise to set a budget so you know how much you have to play around with – and avoid getting carried away! You are then free to come up with different ideas, topics and quantity of content you want to produce. Keep who your audience are in mind, and what your business can offer them – these are the foundations of any content marketing strategy.
The fun begins when you are able to start creating the content you have been working hard to plan for. Depending on the type of content you are creating, take into consideration whether you’ll need copywriters, designers, photographers or filmmakers to achieve the best-finished result, as long as it’s within in your budget and you know how you are going to distribute it.
Creating a successful content marketing strategy is a process that requires frequent reviewing and consideration, but once you have established your strategy, you’ll be thankful you did – and so will your business.
Looking for more business advice to improve your marketing strategy? Why not call our team on 01462 262020, or email us at hello@focus7int.com