Today, we all have information at our fingertips and whatever information we require, we can search for it and obtain what we need within seconds. The world has become accustomed to instant communication and gratification and this makes it vital for businesses to be present online. But being present or visible isn't enough with the changing expectations of consumers in the digital age.
Today, a company's presence needs to be customer-first, it needs to be helpful, informative and answer the right questions that potential customers are asking. Think about it, if a potential client is looking for something related to your product, service or industry, don’t you want your business to help them, provide answers and ultimately turn them into clients? The risk of your business not answering the questions being asked is that your competitors may fill that void and in doing so, build trust and credibility at the same time - increasing the probability of them converting that prospect into a customer.
Content marketing is important as it provides a way for you to answer your audience’s questions, and through this marketing tactic you build trust with your target market, improve engagement, create personalised connections, and generate quality leads.
Companies that have a solid content marketing strategy in place reap the rewards and to put this into perspective, 64% of marketers believe that learning how to build a content strategy is one of the greatest educational needs in the digital marketing industry.
Below, we have put together 10 steps to help you develop and implement a content strategy. This will help you to establish a place as thought leader in your industry and ultimately gain more leads and make more sales.
When you begin your content strategy, build its foundation by understanding and unpacking your brand's mission statement. This will make it easier to focus your efforts on what really matters and what is unnecessary, thus keeping your strategy on the right path.
While your mission statement will outline your audience and what value they will get from your content, you need to consider what your business will get out of this too. And this is why you need to outline your business goals and objectives.
Examples of content marketing goals can include:
Once you have identified your goal and put together your mission statement, you can move on to establishing your KPIs.
The best way to achieve your objectives is to make them measurable and specific, and that is why you should always set KPIs into your content marketing strategy.
The KPIs will give you insight into whether you are achieving your goals by providing you with milestones you can tick off as you implement your strategy. These will include what you want to achieve in regards to sales, revenue, website traffic, SEO, social media etc.
Your KPIs need to be specific and have numbers attached to them, and they should always be measurable.
Examples of what you should tackle when putting together your KPIs:
We briefly touched on understanding your audience when it comes to creating your mission statement, but in order to achieve the most out of your content marketing strategy, you need to dig deeper and truly unpack your target audience, their likes, dislikes, online presence, income, location and more.
So, where do you begin?
By receiving this kind of feedback you are able to understand your audience's priorities, decide on the best channels to use for your content marketing efforts and flesh out your buyer persona. Learn more about creating a buyer persona, here.
Assess your position when it comes to your current content, this includes your social media, blog, and current website content, and discover whether or not you think your current content is in line with your objectives, audience and mission statement.
While doing this, it is important for you to take a look at your competitors content and learn how you can fit in with the market and what sets you apart.
What you should ask yourself:
Then it is time to identify the gaps in your current content:
Consider the type of content you want and need to create. Most marketing strategies rely on a central or primary content type that is usually published on a businesses main site and from here, it will be repurposed and shared across online platforms. This is why blog posts are important, you can copy your blog post link and share it on your social platforms, linking a user directly to your website.
There are a variety of content types other than blogging that you can include in your strategy such as:
Once you have established who you are creating content for and what kind of content you will be creating, you need to ensure that you have everything in place to implement your content strategy smoothly.
You need to ask yourself:
This comes down to allocating roles and deciding whether or not you want this done in-house or would prefer to hire freelancers or an agency. This will come down to your budget, company size and content team.
Will you be using an in-house team, specialised content creators and editors or freelancers?
Work out the channels that your content will go through up until publication.
You need to put together a content calendar that outlines exactly when you will be publishing your content to the relevant platforms. If you do not plan out your calendar a lot of your objectives can quickly fall through the cracks.
In order to establish a strong content calendar consider the following:
Now that you have established your goals, figured out your workflow and have your topics and calendar in place, you can begin creating content for distribution and publishing.
Begin by researching your content and ensure it is in line with your objectives, include keywords related to your brand and service offerings to ensure Search Engine Optimisation (but do not simply add these for this purpose) and begin writing your content. Make sure to write with your brand's identity, tone of voice and personality in mind.
Once you have published your content, make sure to effectively market it to your audience. i.e: share your blog posts or videos on your social media platforms so that your audience can click back to your site and engage with your brand.
Consider using email campaigns or social media advertising tools, such as Facebook ads or LinkedIn marketing. You are able to target these ads to your specific audience and this will encourage more engagement, result in more brand awareness, and ultimately lead to more sales - thus improving your bottom line and giving you a great return on investment.
Learn more about digital marketing and sales lead generation for content, here.
Now it is time to assess the success of your content marketing campaign and in order to do this you need to take a look at the KPIs you have set in place and find out if you are hitting your targets effectively or if there is anything you need to change and work on.
It is vital to monitor your progress throughout the process so that you can tweak your content strategy to ensure the best end results.
Content marketing is a timeous process, and it comes down to understanding your objectives, tailoring your strategy around your these, delivering helpful content and reaching your audience effectively. Successful strategies often produce incredible results for businesses and while short term results can be gained, it's more often the case that content marketing produces results many months and sometimes even years after the production and publishing of content.
Founded in 2005, Nexa has helped hundreds of organisations from small startups to large multinational businesses providing high-quality content marketing and digital marketing strategies.
Nexa has both the track record and in-house ability to support your business. We create wonderful digital experiences that drive business and more importantly, provide a trackable return on investment (ROI) for our clients.
Our in-house team of Digital Marketing experts use cutting edge technologies and proven tactics to create a winning formula for businesses across the globe.