Developing A Strategy for Content Marketing

There’s no denying content’s importance in business- especially when it comes to your online presence and digital marketing strategy.  When online, content stands in place of that in-person connection consumers can feel when interacting with your business in real life. 

But, there are many other reasons content marketing is crucial for your marketing strategy. While it does not stand in the place of good PPC, or Web Design, it can be considered equally, if not more important when considering its role in your SEO.

What Good Content Marketing Means for Your Business.

Because so many businesses utilize content marketing, not developing your content marketing can make it hard to keep up with your competitors. This also means that without a good content marketing strategy, you cannot stand out from the crowd. That is why we’ve decided to create this guide to developing your own content marketing strategy.

The methods we’ll outline in this blog include the research and approach necessary before mapping content, an approach to brainstorming that will yield numerous ideas that cover all basis equally, and an then how to multiply that content across platforms. We’ll also provide organization tips and discuss the benefits to some of the strategies mentioned.

Content Marketing strategy should start with establishing brand identity through audience research, following OUR guide to brainstorming/planning and then you can use

 Establish Brand Identity

Before you design your content marketing plan, it’s important that you understand who you’re designing that plan for.  

If you have not already, establish your brand identity.  Brand identity is the image you want to broadcast to your audience. Your brand identity should stem from what product or service you offer, what is unique about what you offer (or the way you offer it), and what your business priorities are.

Some of this can also come from your own vision for your business and what you set out to address when creating it. 

Identify Your Intended Audience 

Some of the priorities for your business should also reflect the main concerns of your consumers. If that has not yet been established through interactions, you can project the probable concerns and priorities of consumers based on what your product or service aims to accomplish. 

This is known as buyer persona and it’s crucial to creating a good marketing strategy. Establish common threads across your audiences and cater your content to those themes. Keeping the buyer persona in your mind while writing will allow you to cater your content to them. Once you’ve established your target demographic, you’ll want to do some research.

Research Target Demographic

While establishing who the buyer is will already give you some of the tools you need to address them in your writing, research helps.

If possible, look into what social media platforms your audience is on, what times they’re online and how to make conversions within the group.

Carve out a specific goal

In the end, the goal of most businesses is to amass a sizable number of devoted customers, but this is frequently achieved in multiple steps. Ask yourself instead, ‘What is preventing me from amassing those customers?’ and ‘What layer of the sales funnel am I trying to target?’

Highlight any consumers apprehension as the problem that your Content needs to solve.

For example If you have a unique product or service that most people are unfamiliar with, your content can serve to explain. Readers can gain insight into what problem you solve and how.

Conduct An Organized Brainstorm

Generally speaking, you want the content you post to have something to do with your products or services. This serves to establish your authority in your area of expertise, attract an audience that is potentially interested in your product, makes it easier to target your keywords and allows any self promotion to be pertinent to readers.

One way you can go about brainstorming topics is through the use of categorization as a framework. These categories will serve to produce more ideas by prompting your brain to create within the parameters you’ve set. 

For example, you might create one set of categories based on the different products or services you offer. This could help to ensure an even distribution of attention within your areas of expertise. You may also create categories for the content structure itself: how-to’s, listicles, FAQs,  etc. 

From here you can cross reference these categories to create an expansive list of ideas for your content. The amount of time you’d like to plan in advance will determine the number of ideas sufficient for the next step.

Milk Your Ideas

While it may sound bad, don’t be afraid to milk your ideas while brainstorming. Frequently, informational blogs can rest upon one another to ensure you’ve fully addressed the topic. For example, IntoClicks wrote a blog outlining the ABC’s of SEO. In the blog we addressed keyword research as a foundational SEO strategy. Then we created blogs detailing how to keyword research.

Map Out Your Content Schedule

Once you’ve accumulated enough ideas, you’ll want to establish an assigned topic for each week you’re planning in advance.  Organization of the topics can come down to personal preference or it can rely on your goals.

The possibilities are endless but here is a list of some organization techniques you can use to determine order:

• Grouping like-content together, with more specific content following a broad overview
• Alternating between all content categories to ensure even coverage
• Scheduling topics based on the the time of year they’re most relevant
• Prioritizing content based on the keyword it will help you rank for

There are also a multitude of free and paid tools to help lay out your schedule for this.

Multiply Content

Establishing a topic for the week serves as an easy framework to produce various pieces of content across platforms. 

An easy formula for content creation is to make one long piece of content such a blog first. Then the writing can serve as a rough script or blueprint for a longer video.

From that same blog, you can also extract smaller pieces of content such as listicles, interesting facts, etc. These smaller pieces of content can be posted as text posts, as captions to relevant photos or used as scripts for short form videos. Structuring content creation in this way multiplies the value of one piece of content while optimizing time allotted to content creation.

The Benefits You See From Multiplying Content

The main benefit of a content breakdown like this is the reduction in time you’ll spend conceptualizing. That time can be redistributed, allowing more content creation across platforms, broader reach, consistency and room for improvement in other areas.

One piece of content being translated into various forms will also prove helpful for audiences. Consuming the content in various formats allows members of your audience to further digest and understand the content in mediums that make sense for them.

Decide What Formats and Platforms To Use For Your Content Marketing

Now that you have mapped out your topics for content, it’s time to decide what forms they should take. Multiplying your content should free enough time to allow for more content creation. 

However, when faced with limited time constraints, it is wise to create a prioritized list of platforms and formats.

Consumer habits within your target population should have been discovered during your research. In conjunction with this data, researching conversion rates on the platform and time mapping the development process may be utilized to identify the platforms and formats that will produce the highest return on investment.

Celebrate!

Congratulations, you’ve developed your content marketing strategy! We couldn’t be more proud! Hopefully this guide has served as a good stepping-off point for you to get started on your content marketing journey.

Remember, if you ever need any help with your digital marketing , that what we’re here for! Call or Contact us at (520)333-3374.