Why do you create content? The purpose of creating content is multi-fold. First, you want your content to be consumed. Then, you want the material you create to be shared. Neither of those things will happen if people can’t find your content, however.
How can you ensure that people will find your content? While you may believe wishful thinking is the answer to that question, it isn’t. Developing and implementing a content marketing strategy is how you can increase the odds that people will find, consume and share your content.
What Is a Content Marketing Strategy?
According to the Content Marketing Institute, a content marketing strategy is the why behind what you do. It’s the reason you create content. It’s also the explanation for how you can help consumers in a manner like no one else can. A content marketing strategy is what enables you to use your content to build an audience and achieve a business goal such as increasing revenue, lowering your operating costs or attracting higher quality leads.
How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy
Now that you know what a content marketing strategy is, you may be curious about how you should go about creating one. While the thought of developing a content marketing strategy may seem intimidating, there’s no reason to feel overwhelmed. You just have to follow a few simple steps to create a highly-effective marketing strategy for your content.
Here is a list of what you have to do to create a content marketing strategy for your organization:
- Define Your Goals: There’s no reason to put together a strategy of any kind if it doesn’t have a purpose. You can give your content marketing strategy a purpose by clearly defining goals for it. Defining your quantifiable goals at the start of the planning process will make the steps that follow much easier.
- Identify Your Target Audience: Before you start drafting content, you have to know who you’re creating that content for. You need to identify your target audience and do some research about its members and their wants and needs. While it’s unlikely your target audience will fall neatly into just one category of consumers, you should create a primary buyer persona that best represents your overall target audience and ideal client.
- Develop Your Brand Voice: When you’re familiar with your target market, you’ll be able to create a brand voice. Your brand voice should be created in a way that makes your business relatable to the members of your target market, meaning it should make your target market eager to interact with and hear from your brand. The key is to be consistent with your brand voice in all your content across all of your digital marketing channels.
- Find Relevant Keywords: Once you know your target market and you’ve created your brand voice, you need to find keywords that are relevant to your target market, meaning the words consumers use to find your business and your goods or services. After you find the relevant keywords, you should incorporate them into your existing and future content.
- Identify the Right Formats for Your Content: The next step toward building a successful content marketing strategy is figuring out which formats you should use for your material. If the members of your target audience prefer videos over written material, you wouldn’t want to invest resources in creating written content exclusively, would you?
- Decide Where You’ll Put Your Content: When you research your target audience, you need to identify the websites people use to consume content. Based on your research, you’ll be able to make sound decisions about where you’ll place your content online.
- Analyze Your Results: It’s vital for you to analyze the results of your content marketing strategy. When you analyze your results, you’ll identify content that’s performing well and areas that could use some improvement. Doing this will help you fine-tune your content marketing strategy and make it even more effective as you move forward.
Work with a Content Marketing Expert
Whether you compete in the B2B or B2C realm, you can achieve a higher return on your investment with an effective content marketing strategy in place. If you need help developing and/or implementing a content marketing strategy, you should inquire about our services. We’ve been helping small and midsize businesses with their content marketing strategies for years and we’ll be happy to create a highly-effective content marketing strategy for your business. Contact DB Marcom to learn more now.
