People always wonder what is the key ingredient to creating a content strategy that actually works. However, there’s no such content strategy secret sauce that will magically enhance the recipe. The truth is that there’s no hidden ingredient to Create a Winning Content strategy. But, with the right framework and dedicated time & effort and a guide to follow you can design a content strategy to achieve the desired results.
It is important to note that creating a content strategy isn’t about “it’s better if you have one”. A content strategy is a necessity for your success online. In fact, as per the research by the Content Marketing Institute they mentioned in their trend report1 that 57% of the content marketers do not have a designed content strategy. However, those who have a documented content strategy can see the immense progress as compared to those who don’t have any content strategy in hand.
Content plays a vital role for your business growth. Let it be to establish your expertise in your niche, or to build trust with your audience, or to generate leads. The content goes beyond measure to represent you as a brand online. And believe it or not, in order to create a quality content, you do need a winning content strategy. A content strategy is important is because you don’t want to keep on creating a content just for the sake of creating it. Creating a content that doesn’t even align with any of your long or short term goals is useless. But, if you take this one step seriously, you are bound to receive your intended outcome. It is that effective?
Table of contents
- What Is a content strategy?
- Benefits of creating a good Content Strategy
- Step 1: Align the content with your business goals
- Step 2: The soul of your content
- Step 3: Who is your target audience?
- Step 4: Previous content analysis
- Step 5: Identify the keywords
- Step 6: Importance of creating schedule in your Social Media Strategy
- Step 7: How to measure the performance of your content strategy?
- Step 8: Hit the publish button
- Final takeaway
What Is a content strategy?
A content strategy is portion of your huge marketing strategy that is undeniable. Basically, a content strategy is about intentionally creating the content that align with your business goals. Wanna grow traffic or increase revenue? Content strategy can help you achieve that.
The purpose of creating a content strategy must be clear enough what you aim to achieve. However, the strategy must be flexible. Audience responses change and at times, so does your goals. You need to be open about making any changes after analyzing your content strategy performance. Be ready to shift and evolve this strategy as and when needed.
Benefits of creating a good Content Strategy
The good part is when you’ve developed a content strategy, you are open adapt any changes. It can be easily anticipated that the content strategy can identify what is or isn’t working (all aspects considered). The steps in this guide to your Content Strategy might help you identify them as well.
In addition to this, one must also understand about what creates a winning content strategy. Each company has its own goals and mindset while designing a content strategy. However, there are few common elements that are inevitable for anyone while they create a content strategy. For instance, identify the purpose behind creating the content, different ways to outshine as a brand, sharing your own personal story as a brand. Identifying these elements will help you develop a strategy that will naturally align with which goal you want to accomplish.
Now let’s dive deep into the 8 steps of this guide on creating a winning content strategy that will level up your content efforts.
Step 1: Align the content with your business goals
The key is to not get entangled in the how and where of the content strategy. Define the “why”. Why do you even want to create a content strategy in the first place? What are the goals that can be tied up with this strategy? Is it to build relationships? Improve customer service? Create leads? Or customer engagement. It is important to note that whatever goals you have, make sure that they are realistic. In other words your goals must be timely and measurable. For instance, your aim is to increase organic growth online by 20% in next 12 months. Well, that is timely as well as measurable.
Step 2: The soul of your content
Tons of content is published every day online. In this fierce competition, how can you stand out as a brand? What and how will you create a content that will truly leave a mark in the hearts of your users? What is the soul of your content? Do you want to show up as an inspiration, or you’d prefer providing educational and entertaining content? Maybe you wanna try them all. And why not? It is good to try creating new content just to see what clicks for you. As part of a great content strategy, creating new & inspiring content as well as publishing it in various types of formats are key..
Step 3: Who is your target audience?
Obviously you are creating this content strategy for a target group of people who can turn into potential buyers. In order to get deep insights about your target audience, we need to understand who we are targeting and talking to? Considering the demographics, interests, needs and aspirations of your target audience can help tremendously. Understand how can you catch their attention and appeal them to become your long term customers.
Step 4: Previous content analysis
If you’ve been active online for quite some time, chances are you’ve already created some content before. It’s time to have a look at what you’ve created back then. Consider whatever content you’ve created. For example the content on your social media pages, website texts and mails and so on. Analyze what went well there? Also, what did not go well. What are the areas of improvement that your previous content reflects. Gather as much as data you can to understand what worked and what failed to drive engagement.
Step 5: Identify the keywords
There are plenty of keyword tools available that will help you to get an idea about where you rank. Use Google keyword planner and various search engines to understand which keywords are missing. Using the right keywords does make a huge difference in the content performance. The right keywords are as important to the search engine as creating a meaningful content is to your audience when it comes to a defined strategy.
Step 6: Importance of creating schedule in your Social Media Strategy
Define your CMS (Content Management System). What CMS you’re gonna use? Would you prefer creating a spreadsheet or build a content calendar? Make a choice on the basis of understanding what feature can actually make your work easy and not add to it. The goal to create a schedule is to keep a track of all your posts in one place in an organized manner.
Step 7: How to measure the performance of your content strategy?
This can include many areas of analytics like retention rates, views, engagement, new sign-ups and a lot more. However, tracking the performance matters a lot on the goals you’re wanting to achieve with the content you will publish. You must be ready to determine the performance of your content strategy. You need to have a way to track the results and returns.
Step 8: Hit the publish button
The final step is to hit the publish button and distribute your content online. This is where your strategy will actually begin its execution. Your job is to look whether you’re getting what you’ve planned to achieve. If not, then make changes accordingly. Once you publish the content, you need to check which social media platform provides better results for your content. Study the analytics deeply to review the post performance. Measuring the results is where you will understand how well your strategy performed.
Final takeaway
Creating a content strategy is easy, but it takes a lot of time and dedication to create an effective one. It takes almost every aspect of your brand into consideration. From goals and target audience to keywords and content calendar. You need to pay deep attention to all these factors while you’re designing a content strategy. Find tools that will make your work easy in this process by streamlining your Content Creation Process. Also, consider to repurpose or reuse or content as and when needed. You don’t need to create a new content every now and then. Your goals will tend to repeat. With that, you can reuse your content. This will help you to maximize results from what you’ve already created. And you’ll also have some time in hand to create a brand new and unique content for your future posts. Remember, creating a content strategy is not an option. It is a fundamental need for your business growth online.
You can get the Content Marketing Institute report from here.
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