July 2024

Developing a Content Marketing Strategy: Our Comprehensive Guide to Success

As an innovator, you likely already recognize the role marketing plays in your business. However, you may overlook the significance of background work and building the foundation for your content strategy.

Planning your approach to audience outreach fosters productivity and efficiency while also yielding opportunities to enhance brand awareness. Your content managing team can run like a well-oiled machine–ready to spread awesome, genuine, and memorable content like pros!

So, how can you devise a successful content marketing strategy? Read on for our tips and tricks to get started!

What Is a Content Strategy?

A content marketing strategy is essentially a manual for forming an online persona that aligns with your goals, quality standards, and customer demographics. This standardized document provides detailed steps for each aspect of creation, including writing, publishing, distributing, and updating media.

Here are some essential elements of a content marketing strategy:

Branding

Building an online presence is nearly impossible without a governing brand Bible. This guidebook should contain everything about your business, from tone of voice to color palette to font. Generating this document ensures everyone on your team creates uniform, consistent content that aligns with your goals.

These are brand elements to outline when developing a content strategy:

Color palette
Logos
Graphics
Fonts
Tone of voice
Brand personality

Content Calendar

A content calendar can keep you focused and afloat when feeling overwhelmed in the development stage. Staying organized ensures a smooth workflow as you can visually keep track of progress and where you currently sit in the pipeline.

Make a spreadsheet or use a CRM system to track content from start to finish. For example, include the content creator, due dates, link to drafts, and production status (e.g., in progress, submitted, published). Share this calendar with team members so everyone is on the same page and understands their specific responsibilities.

Competitive Analysis

Crafting a compelling content strategy means understanding your competitors. Review their most current and past work to identify patterns or company-wide shifts. Use analytic tools like Ahrefs to see what content performs best and what typically flops. You can also gain some valuable insights into keywords to target in your upcoming campaigns.

End Goals & Aspirations

What do you hope to accomplish with your digital content marketing strategy? How will these objectives shape the media you produce? How can you enhance your brand with these efforts?

Goals steer your direction when cultivating authority, expertise, or authenticity online. Ask for employee input, conduct independent research, and delve into current trends to outline your roadmap to a thriving plan.

Check out these goals to consider when content planning:

Increase social media following by X%
Boost email engagement
Post X blogs in X days
Generate X leads by X date
Expand your professional network on LinkedIn
Make your website more SEO friendly

Audience

Audience research is the most important factor in fruitful content planning. These people drive your success. Realistically, your business wouldn’t even exist without them!

Acquire a thorough understanding of your customers. Establish commonalities and identify shared problem areas you can address with content. Analyze their online behavior, values, and most active social media platforms. You can also dish out surveys to gauge interest in particular topics if you already have an audience.

Types of Content

Not every form of content will resonate with your specific audience. Younger groups may gravitate toward social platforms, while older generations may still rely on printed media or email. Take information accumulated from research to produce curated and thoughtful content that honors these customer preferences.

Common types of content include:

Ebooks
Blog posts
Newsletters (printed or digital)
Case studies
Podcasts
Social media posts
YouTube videos

Do I Really Need a Content Strategy?

The simple answer is absolutely.

Without a sound plan, mismatched elements can muddle your brand identity and impede your chances of becoming a credible source of industry information. Content strategies also simplify the entire design process, as each person knows their role in crafting, promotion, and/or distribution.

Below are examples of why content marketing strategies are important:

Consistency: As we explained above, a well-designed system provides everything you need to construct a homogenous brand across every platform. Uniformity is pivotal in building trust and relevancy.
Improved productivity: Don’t waste valuable time and resources with constant back-and-forth communication about topics, due dates, or other basic issues. Instead, use content planning to lay the groundwork for your entire online operation.
Boosted your online presence: Search engines value quality content, meaning you can significantly improve Google rankings and website traffic with a strong game plan.
Establishing relevancy: Continuously providing reputable and well-written content demonstrates your value in the industry. Customers learn to trust you for solutions, thus encouraging further interactions and engagement.

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy

Now that we’ve nurtured a mutual appreciation for content strategies, you can begin drafting your own! Utilize any available resources to enhance your plan, such as analytic tools, customer surveys, or local networking possibilities to ensure content reaches your audiences. Be slow and deliberate–dedicate ample time to brainstorming with team members and conducting relevant research. Pretty soon, you’ll be tracking your success, looking back at your efforts with delight!

1. Choose Your Online Platforms

Assess social media platforms where your audience is most likely to engage. With what content do they generally interact? Are your customers largely present on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn? Do they express interest in long-form blog posts or newsletters?

Use whatever consumer data you’ve gathered as a guiding star moving forward. Keep your audience at the forefront of your strategy, ensuring each publication caters to and reaches your unique niche.

2. Research Relevant Topics

Keyword research tools can help you choose which themes will prove most successful and applicable to your content marketing strategy. Prioritize higher volume topics and commonly asked questions that will undoubtedly attract customer attention and intrigue.

3. Write It Out!

With your objectives and audience in mind, start writing your content marketing strategy. Populate your editorial calendar with ideas for the entire quarter (or year if possible!) to keep production running smoothly and efficiently. Moreover, having a narrative of upcoming projects means you can easily adjust things as needed.

4. Promote Your Work

Find ways to promote content, whether through collaboration with fellow industry professionals, paid advertising, or local marketing. Take every opportunity to boost brand awareness by requesting feedback on campaigns and responding to social media comments.

Better yet, consider distributing printed copies of ebooks or newsletters to nearby businesses that share your passion (when possible). Remember, both inbound and outbound marketing techniques serve a purpose–don’t overlook the benefits of tried-and-true methods.

5. Update Older Content

Cycle through previously posted content to correct any outdated information or incorporate new details. This simple practice helps maintain your reputation while simultaneously boosting your online visibility.

6. Go Green & Repurpose!

Stop allowing top-performing content to slowly deteriorate in your archive. Stretch the life of blog posts, ebooks, other other long-form media by recycling specific elements into new adaptations. Repurposing also allows you to allocate efforts to other business operations while still maintaining regular content production.

Check out our tips for repurposing content:

Use quotes from a blog post in an Instagram infographic
Turn chapters from an ebook into a newsletter
Create a written how-to guide from a YouTube video
Take clips from a webinar to produce a promotional video ad

7. Monitor Your Results

Never stop improving! In the words of Will Durant, “Excellence is not an act but a habit.”

Make growth a priority in your content marketing strategy. Regularly revisit your approach to pinpoint areas where you fall short of expectations. Use customer experience analytics to finetune editorial calendars, talking points, and outreach avenues. Always seek ways to better meet audience needs and enhance your online image.

In Conclusion

Content marketing strategies can be fun! Get cracking with your team and turn the creation process into an exciting, interactive experience. Leverage your strengths and shared knowledge to equip customers with the most pertinent facts and answers possible. You’ll find a well-curated plan supplies endless benefits!