For new businesses, attracting potential customers can be a challenging task. This is where content marketing comes into play. By developing and sharing valuable content that educates your target audience, you can enhance your lead generation and guide potential customers through your sales funnel.
However, to succeed at content marketing, it is crucial to have a well-defined content marketing strategy. This provides you with a clear plan to generate content ideas and distribute them to your audience.
12 Steps to a Successful Content Marketing Strategy
Despite the significance of a content marketing strategy, a survey by the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) revealed that only 40% of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy.
If you are part of the remaining 60%, it may be time to take your content marketing strategy seriously. Here are essential steps to include in your strategy:
1. Establish Goals
Every content marketing strategy should commence with setting clear goals. Without defined goals, it becomes challenging to evaluate the success of your strategy. Therefore, determine what you aim to achieve, whether it is increasing website traffic, boosting engagement on social media, or driving more revenue. Create a mission statement outlining the specific objectives of your content marketing.
2. Align KPIs with Your Goals
After defining your content marketing strategy goals, make them more specific and measurable by attaching key performance indicators (KPIs). These metrics will allow you to evaluate the performance of your strategy, such as online views, clicks, and conversions. Set KPI targets based on your goals to ensure they are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). You may also consider additional KPI metrics like the number of email subscribers, SEO rankings, and social media shares.
3. Identify Your Target Audience
It is crucial to have a clear understanding of your target audience to create content that resonates with them. Collect demographic data on your current contacts, such as age, gender, location, income, and education, to segment your audience into different groups. Create buyer personas for each group to better address their interests and pain points, making it easier to devise content with the right audience in mind.
4. Conduct a Content Audit
Review the content your business has previously published to assess its performance against your KPI goals and identify areas for improvement. A content audit tool can assist in identifying gaps in relevant keywords, unanswered questions, and other enhancements.
5. Select the Best Content Channels
Analyze the channels where your content is most widely shared, such as social media, forums, or other websites, and focus on the most effective ones. Pay attention to trends and concentrate on the channels that yield the best results.
6. Choose Content Types
Based on your findings, decide on the most suitable content types to reach your target audience effectively, whether it is long-form content like blog articles and email newsletters, or short-form content like social media posts or TikTok videos. Other potential content types include YouTube videos, infographics, webinars, ebooks, and podcasts.
7. Generate Content Ideas
Brainstorm content ideas by identifying questions your target audience commonly asks, using tools like Google’s autocomplete feature to find industry-specific questions, and organizing new content ideas around topic clusters or pillars.
8. Establish a Content Creation Process
Define a content creation process, including the management and creation of content by staff, along with the use of a content management system (CMS) to keep content organized at all stages of creation.
9. Develop a Content Calendar
Create a content calendar to plan, track, and set deadlines for different content milestones. Utilize project management software to establish and manage your content calendar.
10. Create Content
With a solid plan in place, begin creating content that directly addresses your target audience in your brand’s voice, ensuring that it is original and valuable. Verify content for accuracy and quality using both employees and software tools.
11. Distribute and Market Your Content
After completing a piece of content, share it through various channels, including email marketing and user-generated content platforms, and consider repurposing content into different forms to reach a wider audience and create a positive brand image.
12. Measure Results and Adapt
Continuously measure results and make necessary adjustments based on your content marketing KPIs. Regularly track website views, social media shares, email subscriptions, and consider running A/B tests to compare different versions of a single piece of content to improve your content marketing strategy.
By refining your content marketing strategy, you can expect to see gradual growth in your business as your content attracts more leads and customers. Embrace the process and witness your company reach new heights!
