Content Marketing has become the go-to strategy for many marketers. Organizations are adopting a content strategy to engage their audience with relevant and valuable content. It is not only used to get more traffic to the website but also to build strong relationships with customers and increase ROI.
According to an online survey conducted by Statista among global marketers in 2019, 91 % of marketers said they were using content marketing as part of their promotional efforts. In addition, 77% said they already had a content marketing strategy in place for their organization. The study also revealed that 50% of organizations estimated spending less than 10,000 USD on content marketing, making it an inexpensive form of advertising.
Whether its B2B or B2C marketing, both are seeing a rise in the use of content marketing. Statista reported that 30 % to 40% B2B and B2C marketers in North America planned to increase their content marketing budget in 2020.
Image from Statista
Consumers are now getting smarter and believe in doing their own research before investing in a product or service. They do not need sales reps calling them and giving them information about products. Today’s consumers are researching their needs or problems on Google and relying on this information for solutions. Content can enable you to help your target audience find solutions through the products or services you offer. You can promote your product with useful and relevant content.
First, let’s understand what content marketing strategy is all about.
What is a content marketing strategy?
Content marketing strategy involves creating and distributing relevant and valuable online content for a particular target audience. Unlike traditional forms of marketing, content marketing focuses on tailoring content that is relevant to the interest of the target consumers. It is used to attract customers, create brand awareness, drive conversions, and ultimately build long-term relationships with customers.
Content marketing can help businesses get more website traffic and leads. It is inexpensive compared to paid advertisements. This is a great way to educate your leads and build credibility for your brand.
Now, let’s take a look at how you can create a strong content marketing strategy.
Set your goals
In any marketing strategy setting goals is the first step. Defining goals is important as it helps in determining where your marketing efforts are headed. Based on these goals you can create your content marketing plan. You can also track metrics to see if you are achieving these goals. They are a good way to see the success or failure of your marketing campaigns.
While developing your goals analyze the aim of your content marketing plan. Why are you creating a content marketing plan? What will you achieve by implementing this strategy? How can this strategy help your business succeed? These are some questions you can attempt to answer while creating your goals.
Create Buyer Persona
Content marketing focuses on creating content that is relevant to the target customer. Without knowing your customers, you cannot hope to make your content marketing strategy successful. You need to know who your customers are. This includes knowing their hobbies, interests, pain-points, buying habits, preferences, etc. Buyer personas will help you find out your target customers and understand them. Build your personas based on what your ideal customer looks like. With the help of these personas, you can target the consumers that fit this profile and create content relevant for them.
Buyer personas can give you in-depth knowledge about your customers. You can create a content plan that is valuable for these customers.
Use a Content Management System
A Content Management System or CMS is an application that can help you create, publish, and manage your content. CMS can store your content in a database, and you can also use it for content analytics. It is important to have a CMS in place that will enable you to manage your content.
One of the perks of having a CMS is that it allows you to collaborate with your team. This makes it easier for multiple team members to create, edit, schedule the content that is to be published. It also makes it easy for users who do not know a technical programming language to post content or make changes to the website. There are many CMS platforms available that can fit your business requirements. Analyze your business requirements and problems before you pick a CMS platform.
Type of Content
Determining which type of content you want to create is a crucial part of content marketing. There are many forms of content that you can use like blogs, infographics, videos, podcasts, eBooks, social posts, etc. The number of content types can easily overwhelm or confuse you. To select a content type, take a look at what your customers prefer and what information they are looking for.
Analyze customer queries and problems that can help you figure out which content would better address their needs. You also need to figure out on which stage they are at in their buying journey. If they are in the awareness stage, then the content relevant to them will be different from those in the consideration or decision stage. You can segment these customers according to their buying stages and create content respectively. There is no definite way of knowing which content will work. Experimenting with different content types will help you figure out the preferences of your customers.
Planning your Inbound Marketing strategy? These are the types of content your customers might find engaging: 10 Types Of Content For A Successful Inbound Marketing Strategy.
Brainstorm ideas
Brainstorming sessions should be held on a regular basis so that your team can come up with interesting content ideas. It is a good practice that can help your team have open discussions and allow them to get creative to create the best content. The marketing team can also take help from the sales team to get their perspective on what kind of content to post.
Tools and Channels for Content Creation
When you plan your content you also need to consider the channels you will post your content on and various tools you might require. For example, you might want to create social media posts for Facebook or Twitter. You will need to know which channel has the majority of your audience that you can engage with. For B2B marketers LinkedIn is an ideal platform to connect with industry professionals.
Plan the tools that can help you implement your content strategy. If you are going to have regular blog posting or social media posting, make sure to create a content calendar where you plan the topics and make a schedule. For social media posting, you can use tools like HubSpot or Hootsuite to schedule posts on various channels.
Other tools can include any SEO platforms to help you analyze the performance of your keywords. Also, you can decide on the platforms from where you can source images or other graphic elements for your content posting. You can also plan this in your budget as most of these platforms will charge a monthly subscription fee. All this planning depends on your business requirement. It is a good practice to plan all of these resources in advance to make your implementation process smoother.
Planning a successful content marketing strategy requires time and organization. It is important that your team works together from planning goals, content, tools, and channels to publishing it. Make sure to use the tools that will make publishing your content easier. Experiment with content strategy to find out what resonates with your customers. This can help you build meaningful relationships with them.
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