How To Create A Content Marketing Strategy

Step 1: Define Your Objectives

Defining your objectives basically means determining what you want to achieve with your content marketing efforts.

Common objectives include:

• Brand Awareness: To increase your visibility and recognition within your industry or target audience
• Lead Generation: To attract potential customers who might be interested in your products or services
• Customer Retention: To engage with existing customers and keep them interested in your offerings
• Expertise and Credibility Through Though Leadership: To establish yourself/your business as an expert in your industry

The chosen objectives will shape the rest of your strategy, so you need to be clear about what you want to achieve.

Step 2: Identify Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience is essential to creating content that’s relevant and engaging.

To identify your audience, consider the following:

• Demographics – such as age, gender, location, occupation, income, education, etc
• Pain Points – the problems or challenges that your audience face and that your products or services can address

You could develop buyer/client personas or audience profiles to represent different segments of your target market. This will help you create tailored content that resonates with those you mainly want to reach.

Step 3: Conduct an Audit of your Content

Conducting a content audit is the perfect way to assess your existing content and can help to evaluate the following:

• Quality – Does the content meet your brand standards? Is it accurate and engaging?
• Performance – Which pieces of content are driving the most traffic, engagement, or conversions?
• Gaps – Are there topics that should be covered which have been missed?

An audit like this will help you understand what’s working, what’s not, and where you can improve your content.

Step 4: Determine Content Types

Once you’ve started to see a plan forming, you’ll want to decide on which content marketing forms you need and want to include. Content types can include:

• Blogs – Articles on topics relevant to your audience and industry
• Videos – Informative or entertaining video content
• Podcasts – Audio that explores industry-related topics or interviews.
• Infographics: Visuals to showcase information or data
• Social Media Content – Posts on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn
• Whitepapers – Long-form content that dives deeper into specific topics
• Webinars and Events – Interactive sessions (either online or in person) with your audience

Consider your objectives and audience preferences when selecting the types of content that will be most effective. A mix of content can help you reach a broader audience and keep your content fresh.

Step 5: Create a Content Calendar

A content calendar is essential for planning your content. It helps you schedule content creation, publication and activities. To create a content calendar, you’ll need to:

• Set a timescale – Decide how often you will publish content (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly)
• Plan Topics and Post Ideas—Outline the topics you’ll cover in each calendar month. Many calendars are created month-by-month
• Assign Workloads – Determine who will do what for each piece of content/ each post

A content calendar keeps you on track and ensures consistent content delivery.

Step 6: Develop a Content Distribution Strategy

Creating great content is only part of it; you also need a strategy for distributing the content. This can be sectioned as part of your content calendar, but consider these channels for distribution:

• Social Media – Share content on platforms where your audience is active
• Email Marketing & CRM – Send newsletters or targeted emails to your database
• Optimising SEO – Make sure your content is optimised for search engines to increase organic traffic
• Influencer Marketing – Collaborate with influencers to get your content in front of a wider audience
• Paid Ads – Use paid ads to promote specific pieces of content (such as boosted or sponsored posts on social media or adverts on other websites)

Having a varied distribution strategy helps you maximise your content’s reach and impact.

Step 7: Measure, Evaluate and Adjust

When making a lot of effort in creating your strategy, you’ll want to ensure it’s hitting margins and benefiting your business. To do this, you’ll want to measure the performance of your content marketing efforts and make adjustments as needed. Use key performance indicators (KPIs) such as:

• The number of visitors to your content
• The engagement (likes, shares, comments, and other interactions) made by your audience
• The number of leads, sales, or other desired actions
• The return on investment for your content marketing activities

Analyse these metrics regularly to determine what’s working and what needs improvement. Then, you can use this information to refine your content marketing strategy and continue delivering value to your audience.

Overall, creating a content marketing strategy requires careful planning and execution. By defining clear objectives, understanding your target audience, conducting a content audit, and following the other steps outlined above, you’ll be well-equipped to create a successful content marketing strategy that drives results for your business or personal brand.