What is content strategy?

Content strategy refers to the management of almost all tangible media that you create and own: written, visual, and downloadable-just name it. Content strategy is part of your marketing plan and can constantly show who you are and the expertise you bring to you.

You may have heard about the importance of content creation for business development, but as you will see in this article, it needs to have a carefully planned purpose.

When formulating a content strategy, some questions that you need to take care of.

1. Who will be reading your content?

Who’s the target audience for your content? For how many audiences are you creating content? Just as your business might have more than one type of customer, your content strategy can cater to more than one type of reader or viewer.

Using a variety of content types and channels will help you deliver different content to each type of audience you have in mind and engage everyone your company does business with.

Who is the target audience for your content? How many viewers are you creating content for? Just as your business may have more than one type of customer, your content strategy can cater to more than one type of reader or viewer.

Using various content types and channels will help you provide different content to each type of audience you care about, and interact with everyone in the company who conducts business.

2. What problem will you be solving for your audience(s)?

Ideally, your product or service can solve the problems encountered by your audience. Similarly, your content will guide and educate your audience when this problem begins to be identified and resolved.

Reasonable content strategies can support people on both sides of the product: those who are still figuring out what the main challenges are, and those who are already using your product to overcome these challenges. Your content strengthens the solutions you provide and makes customers more qualified users of the product.

3. What makes you unique?

Your competitors likely have a similar product as yours, which means that your potential customers need to know what makes your products better (at least differently). This is the source of the content.

In order to prove the reason why you are worth buying, you need to prove the reason why you are worth listening.

4. What content formats will you focus on?

What forms will your content take? Infographics? Videos? Blog posts? Having identified the topics you want to take a position on, you’ll need to determine which formats to budget for so you can best express that position.

5. What channels will you publish on?

Just as you can create content in different formats, you will also have different channels that you can post to. Channels can include owned property, such as your website and blog; and social media resources, such as Facebook and Twitter. 

6. How will you manage content creation and publication?

Figuring out how you’ll create and publish all your content can be a daunting task. It’s important for a content strategy to know who’s creating 

Why Marketers Need to Create a Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing helps businesses prepare and plan for reliable and cost-effective sources of website traffic and new leads. If you can create just one blog post that gets a steady amount of organic traffic, an embedded link to an e-book or free tool will continue generating leads for you as time goes on — long after you click Publish.

The reliable traffic and potential customer sources of Evergreen content will give you the flexibility to try other marketing strategies to generate revenue, such as sponsored content, social media advertising, and distributed content. In addition, your content will not only help attract potential customers, but will also help educate your target potential customers and increase your brand awareness.

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy

Now, let’s learn the specifics of how to create a content marketing plan.

1. Define your goal.

What is the purpose of your content marketing plan? Why do you want to create content and develop a content marketing plan? Before you start planning, understand your goals so you can more easily determine when the strategy is best for you.

2. Conduct personal research.

To make a successful plan, you need to clearly define the target audience for the content.

This is especially important for those who have just started or are new to marketing. By understanding your target audience, you can produce more relevant and valuable content that they want to read and convert.

If you are an experienced marketer, your goals may have changed. Do you want to target new people or expand your current target market? Do you want to maintain the same target audience? Re-defining the parameters of the audience by conducting market surveys every year is essential for expanding the audience.

3. Run a content audit.

Most people start with blog posts, but if you want to take risks and try to make other content, consider what you want to make.

For instance, if you’ve been doing weekly blog posts for the past year, creating an ebook that distills all your blog posts into one ultimate guide would be one way to offer information in a different format. 

If you’ve been in business for a while, review your content marketing efforts and the results from it in the last year by running a content audit. Figure out what you can do differently in the upcoming year and set new goals to reach. Now is a good time to align team goals with other organizational goals.

4. Choose a content management system.

Have a system that can create, manage, and track content, otherwise known as a content management system (CMS). Some important parts of content management include content creation, content publishing, and content analysis.

5. Brainstorm content ideas.

Now it’s time to start thinking about the next content item. Here are some tools that can turn the wheels: HubSpot’s Website Grader, BlogAbout, HubSpot’s Blog Ideas Generator, BuzzSumo, Blog Post Headline Analyzer.

6. Determine which types of content you want to create.

You can create various options for the content. In the following sections, we will discuss some of the most popular content formats that marketers are creating, including some tools and templates to get you started.

7. Publish and manage your content.

Your marketing plan should go beyond the type of content you will create, and it should also cover the content you will organize. With the help of the editing calendar, you will be on the right track to publish a balanced and diverse content library on your website. Then, create a social media content calendar so that you can promote and manage your content on other sites.

Many of the ideas you think of will be evergreen — they’re just as relevant months from now as they are today. That being said, you shouldn’t ignore timely topics either. While they may not be the bulk of your editorial calendar, they can help you generate spikes of traffic.

Most people want to include popular holidays (such as New Year and Thanksgiving) in their marketing activities, but you don’t have to limit yourself to these important marketing dates. If there is a niche holiday that is likely to appeal to the audience, it’s worth posting on a blog or social media.