Content Marketing Strategy Creation for Your Business: A Step-by-Step Guide

The digital age has brought numerous changes in the way we live our lives, and marketing is no exception. In the past, companies used to invest their money in promotional campaigns, which relied on the methods of outbound marketing, such as TV ads, billboards, or even simple flyers. Nowadays, though, business owners are mostly relying on the tools and methods of inbound marketing, which brings the customers to them, and not the other way around.  

Internet marketers use email and social media to get in touch with potential customers, and draw them in by offering high-quality content they might find useful. In their essence, contemporary promotional techniques are all about content marketing. However, there is a lot more to it than simply creating brilliant content. That is why we have a created a step-by-step guide on content marketing, which can help your business grow. Keep on reading.

Set Goals Right Away

One of the crucial steps towards achieving success with your content marketing strategy is identifying your goals early on in the game. Specific targets and goals create a frame around which you will build your campaign and create content. That’s always the right way to do it, as opposed to treating marketing like an afterthought when all the other pieces are already in place. Some of the most common goals set by content marketers are aimed toward boosting brand awareness, generating leads, and acquiring customers.

For instance, B2B companies will focus on generating leads, and the marketers will set out to achieve that goal through blog posts, emails, e-books, and social media messages that target the right audience. When the promotional practices are guided by specific goals, they can make the audience hungry for more.

Decide on How You Will Deliver Content Before Creating It

Although you will most likely rush to create content once you set your goals, you should first think of all the different ways for distributing content. Creating brilliant content goes hand in hand with delivering it. In fact, the delivery methods dictate the type of content you should create. There are plenty of delivery tactics you can choose from, such as social media messages, blog posts, newsletters, infographics, or even videos.

For B2C and B2B companies, the majority of your content delivery will take place on social networks, as well as on blogs and websites. In addition, getting to know your target audience before creating content can help you focus your efforts.

Make Sure You Have Enough Time

One of the key challenges of content marketing is finding enough time to produce high-quality content. Unfortunately, with all the other activities surrounding marketing practices and business maintenance, it is usually the quality of the content that suffers the most. Most content creators will attempt to rush through it in order to meet the deadline, which results in subpar pieces. You can attempt to solve this problem by creating a schedule, which will also help you identify ways of saving time. You can organize your workload into smaller deadlines or milestones, instead of a single large goal. Try to find gaps in your schedule, and synchronize the process of content production with important events in your niche.

There Should Be Only One Person in Charge

Team-oriented strategies and collaboration on both small and large project are definitely important for the progress of your business. However, there should only be one person who will call all the shots on a project and accept all responsibility. With several people making key decisions, the marketing practices will clash with one another very soon, and your project will be stuck. Having one person who takes charge and makes vital decisions after consulting with all team members should help everyone get on the same page.

Always Segment Your Content

It’s important to follow the trends in your niche, but not at all costs, since there is also the need to segment the content in one way or another. There are several different ways to do that. For instance, you can perform content segmentation based on industry trends, company characteristic, decision maker profiles, or steps inside the buying cycle. You can also figure out the most common pain points your target users have, and then set out to address those issues with your content.

Measure and Quantify Everything

If you are not using apps and tools to measure your success, you are simply tapping into a single spot, and it’s only a matter of time before your entire content marketing strategy goes downhill. With different options of measuring and analytics software available online, you should aim toward quantifying every single aspect of your campaign. Analytics are necessary for you to figure out what really works, and what doesn’t, so that you get your money’s worth when investing in a strategy.

These are the elements you should start measuring: traffic, lead quality, conversion rates, social media shares, and clicks, among other things.

As you can see, the task of developing a content marketing strategy is a complex problem with many variables. However, it is far from a riddle wrapped inside an enigma. If you decide to follow these steps and you start using the right tools, you will be on your way towards becoming a successful content marketer, and launching your business among the leaders in your industry.

Author’s bio:

Lorraine Johnson is a creative writer and experience expert in digital marketing sphere. Now she is working on essay writing project Assignment Masters. In the nearest future she is launching her blog dedicated to web-promotion sphere.