While many may be under the mistaken impression that it all comes down to posting content on your business website, it is actually much more.
So let's start with a definition.
Content marketing strategy is - that involves both creating and promoting unique and valuable content for a target audience.
The key here is "unique and valuable". With so much content being produced every day, it's critical that you go the extra mile to stand out from the crowd.
It all starts with a mindset. Content marketing ideas shouldn't start with the service or product you want to promote. They should start with an idea of how you can be helpful and useful to prospects and prospects.
The campaign aimed to solve the fast food giant's growing image problem and position itself as a brand committed to sustainability.
The forum somehow forced the company to be more transparent with its customers.
They answered questions about how they source their ingredients, why they label their products in a certain way, or how they prepare their products.
While the focus of this content marketing strategy was consumer education, McDonald's was able to enhance its brand image by embracing transparency. Pretty good, right?
Why is content marketing important?
Content marketing is unique in a way. Unlike other forms of advertising, content primarily provides information, but focuses on the way that information is delivered.
Therefore, articles are not the only vehicle through which brands can leverage content to their advantage. Social media posts, videos, photos, podcasts, e-books, case studies, infographics, tutorials, and reviews also count as content.
Of course, you've probably heard that content is the gift that keeps giving. And it's true. Especially if you take the time to invest in timeless content.
Timeless content (also known as cornerstone or anchor content) is everything you plan to continually update and develop, keeping it perpetually relevant to audiences and standing the test of time.
Remember: content marketing specialist deals with informative and entertaining material. As such, it is considered by most readers to be much less intrusive than typical screen or print advertising.
While most people will not be happy to find a brochure under their windshield wipers, they may be happy to dedicate some time to sponsored media to help improve their business or their lives.
Another advantage of content marketing in the digital age is that its effects can be easily tracked and measured.
Using Google Analytics reports or any other analytics software that produces SEO reports will give you deep insight into the effectiveness of your marketing strategy and its effects on total conversions.
How to Build Your Content Marketing Strategy
Determine your target audience
Before creating any content, you will need to identify who wants to find it and read or view it.
You can start this process by looking at your product, your competitors, and your current customers. See what they all have in common and what problems they are trying to solve.
To do this using Google Analytics, click on "Audience" to display the drop-down menu. You will then see options for different visitor filters.
For example, if you want to see the age groups of your site visitors, click Demographic> Age. It will show you a line chart of visitors according to age group.
Or if you want to compare the number of new visitors compared to your recurring audience, select Behavior> New vs. recurring.
Using these audience filters allows you to break down your visitors into categories and help you understand the type of traffic your site receives.
Create a content program
Creating a content marketing expert strategy is all about consistency, especially when you're new to writing your own blog. Start by creating a content calendar and hold yourself and your team accountable for sticking to it.
With a good content calendar, you should be able to map your posts in advance. Consider quarterly, monthly, or yearly goals, product launches, holidays, current content marketing trends, and other important information. After that, you can spend the rest of your time concentrating on writing.
This is only becoming more and more important if you plan to invest in content beyond blog articles. If other stakeholders are involved, organizing everyone's responsibilities and due dates in a central place becomes a force multiplier.
We use Trello for our own content calendar, but there are many options available, including dedicated services and apps like CoSchedule.
Take advantage of the right tools
Speaking of apps, you will need to find marketing tools that speed up the content creation process.
While there are endless recommendations that we could include here, we details will focus on a few key areas.
- SEO - You will need an SEO tool of some kind to help you with keyword research, copywriting optimization, etc. We recommend Ahrefs or SEMrush.
- Topic Discovery - You'll also want to do a little research to find out which topics are of particular relevance. Google Trends and BuzzSumo are good options with different pros and cons.
- Promotion - Once your content is published, you still have a lot of work to do. Promotion generally means regular social updates, forwarding, and email broadcasting. For the social side of things, consider checking out MeetEdgar, SocialPilot, or HootSuite.
- "Uniqueness" - Plagiarism is a problem both online and in the classroom. While you can and should cite other helpful sources (as long as you include proper attribution), most of your content should be original. It's best to run your writing through a plagiarism checker like DupliChecker or Grammarly just to be safe.
Be consistent with the quality of your content
As we mentioned, consistency is key. But you want to think about quality consistency and not just publishing cadence.
The best way to ensure that you only publish high-quality content is by hiring an editor or using a content editing tool.
By having someone proofread your articles, you will be able to avoid grammatical errors, factual inaccuracies, and inappropriate markings. Remember, you'll want to make sure your site is performing optimally before publishing your content.
But beyond that, here are some avenues you can take to help take the bull by the horns.
Always invest in the research phase
Creating quality content involves keyword research.
By consistently publishing well-researched articles, you can improve the quality of your content and make it a trusted resource for your target audience.
After a while, it might seem like taking shortcuts in the research phase wouldn't be a big deal, since you already know the space, your market, and your audience all too well. But trust me, things change. And you won't know unless you're working from scratch.
Embrace variety
Just because you maintain a tone doesn't mean you should put aside the idea of experimenting with content ideas. If your articles are poorly written, out of date, or simply lacking in character, your audience is likely to leave. Maybe not all at once, but in time you will feel it.
So try to spice things up from time to time and present the information in different formats. Add some humor if that's what your content or audience needs.
Most importantly, don't be afraid to get creative.
Many business owners will want to take advantage of surveys to drive engagement with their website visitors. Surveys and questionnaire evaluations can be added to product or service pages, helping brands share their expertise while collecting valuable data from potential customers. Survey Anyplace is a tool that we recommend trying if you are new to implementing surveys on your site, as it is particularly easy to use.
Conclusion
Like it or not, content marketing is here to stay. For most brands, it will be a beneficial and potentially revolutionary avenue when used carefully.
Equipped with the information above, you should be well on your way to having a successful content marketing strategy.