We’re all for spontaneity, but you’d probably get pretty frustrated very soon without the right directions or essentials. It might be fun here and there with some luck along the way, but let’s admit it – you’re facing far greater risks of encountering problems, getting lost, having inconveniences and wasting resources.
It’s exactly the same with content marketing. Without an organised strategy, it’s a pretty frustrating journey.
A lack of clear plans, tactics and goals can lead you farther away from accomplishing high returns, optimising your content and achieving long-term consistent growth for your business.
Let’s discuss how to put the right foundations in place for your content marketing plan.
Prefer to listen, rather than read? Here’s the Podcast summary!
First things first: what is content marketing strategy?
Content marketing strategy defines your purpose for creating content, your intended audience and the value you wish to provide through these content pieces.
It also outlines both your business’ goals and customers’ pain points, including the ways in which you’ll use content to address such concerns.
Through comprehensive and well-researched plans, content marketing strategy ensures your team has direction and is empowered with the right marketing tools to deliver various content while being cost-effective, efficient and productive.A business without a content marketing strategy is doomed to fail at content marketing. It’s as simple as that.
What are the benefits of a content marketing strategy?
A solid content marketing strategy allows you to properly manage your written, visual and downloadable content, so that they’ll bring excellent results to your business.
With a proactive content marketing strategy, you will also see the following benefits:
- Earn your audience’s trust through relevant and valuable content
- Become more flexible with emerging content marketing trends
- Optimise content marketing tactics and different social media channels
- Get more leads and conversions by producing and distributing the right types of content for your audience
- Allocate budget and resources properly to maximise return on investment (ROI)
But to get the most out of your content marketing, you must prepare all the necessary aspects that come with it.
For more, read: 10 Steps: How To Develop Marketing Strategies
What to include in your content marketing strategy
There are no set templates for building an effective content marketing strategy, as they need to be tailored for your own business’ needs.
Nevertheless, we’ve compiled a list of necessary items to address in your content marketing plan. They will help lead you in the right direction of creating content pieces that will connect you better with your audience.
1. Mission and Goals
Establishing a mission statement is a great way to remind your team of the reasons why you’re creating content in the first place. Think of it as the guiding principles that keep you on track.
Your mission must talk about your target audience, the content you’ll offer them and the value they’ll gain through each and every piece.
On the other hand, having goals allows you to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve for your business using content marketing.
2. Content Inventory
Getting an overview of the types of content your business is currently using will help you narrow down what’s currently working and what’s not. You can then make better informed decisions going forward.
Performing a content inventory audit also allows you to determine what other content formats you can try to expand your reach.
Setting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) allows you to determine if your content is delivering the results you intend.
From the amount of traffic, social media metrics and email marketing to revenue and sales – setting KPIs can help you track goals and measure performance.
Check: Are You “SELLING” Withing Your Content?
4. Define your target audience
Your customers should always be at the very centre of your content marketing strategy. To obtain great results, you must create content pieces that will educate and entertain them.
As such, it’s essential to thoroughly know your target audience. Understanding their demographics, interests, needs and even their feedback can help you provide better content they’ll love and enjoy.
For more, read: How To Learn About Your Customers: 8 Ways To Gain The Most Insight About Your Audience
Incorporating your overarching brand story can help you draw the right marketing message to utilise in your content. It also helps in differentiating your content from your competitors. Moreover, it guides you to become more consistent across all of your marketing.
See: Why Your Brand Needs Core Messaging Guidelines
6. The type of content channels to utilise
In your content marketing strategy, it’s also necessary to evaluate the platforms you intend to utilise. Examine if these channels are preferred by your audience and then determine what kinds of content you can effectively produce for each one of them.
This is where a good omnichannel Content Marketing approach can help.
7. The right allocation of resources
What kind of tools and materials do you need to produce content? Who is the overall person-in-charge tasked to monitor all of the content being published? How about the content workflows and calendar schedules?
As you build your content marketing strategy, make sure to address these points.
A content marketing strategy doesn’t just include content creation. Your content marketing strategy must also encompass the appropriate methods of distribution too.
Take the time to plan out where to upload your content, the approaches you’ll utilise to reach a wide range of customers and how you can promote each piece of content best.
Check: Introduction To Marketing – Part 8: Distribution
9. Consider using marketing software
Content marketing today is a very smart but very involved marketing practise. Sometimes, having too many manual systems can slow you down or make the process inefficient.
Consider upgrading to marketing software, likeIntelligenceBank’s Digital Asset Management system, HubSpot’s Content Platform for creation and distribution and Heropost to help manage your social media management.
These are content software tools that we use at Melotti Media, and they really help get the results we’re after.
Points to remember!
Content marketing strategy is not a one-time task for your business. It’s something you must continuously develop and improve to guarantee that your content will add value to your business and customers alike.
In order to achieve that, here’s a quick list of points to keep in mind:
- Don’t forget to measure results. Assess your strategy based on the KPIs you’ve set.
- Make necessary revisions and updates based on your evaluations and the current state of the market.
- Try to create evergreen content as much as possible – they allow you to build a library of longer-term marketing materials that attract audiences over time with little maintenance.
- For best results, get the help of a professional marketing copywriter who has skills, experience and expertise to create the right content marketing strategy for your business.
There are professional marketers and freelance copywriters who can help you with content marketing and strategy planning so you’re prepared and have a strong content marketing direction.
How can Melotti Media help you with your content marketing?
We understand you want to be fully equipped and prepared with a strong content marketing strategy. We also know that you aim is to get better results through quality content.
However, you may find that you’re time-poor and spread thin or you still have a lot of unanswered questions.
You don’t need to worry!
At Melotti Media, we can assist with all your message marketing and copywriting needs while you focus on what matters most to you – growing your business.
Let’s start earning the results your business deserves!
To speak to your trusted message marketing copywriters, email us at enquire@melottimedia.com.au
We can sharpen your words to achieve your goals today!
