How to build a successful content strategy for your business
Tue | August 2022
You might fall behind if your business is not investing in content creation. According to a recent study by the Content Marketing Institute, 79% of B2B marketers used content marketing to enhance the results of their goals.
If you’re starting from scratch or want to upgrade your current content plan, you’ve come to the right place. Use this guide to grasp a content strategy and how to implement a reasonable step-by-step action plan to meet your goals and outshine the rest!
What is a content strategy?
A content strategy is a plan for using content (audio, visual, and written) to achieve business objectives. A successful content strategy will attract your target audience at each sale funnel stage and keep them engaged long after purchasing.
Your content strategy framework will be the blueprint you can always return to every time you generate new content and strategies. It should include valuable information to create, manage and publish content. It sets the foundations to scale your growth and clear, measurable goals that let you know if you’re going in the right direction.
When you develop a content strategy, you'll have to answer a few questions such as the following:
Whom will you be writing your content for?
What solutions will your content provide for your target audience?
What makes you different from the competition?
What content formats best work to capture your audience’s attention?
In what channels will you distribute your content?
What’s your plan to manage content creation and publication?
With that said, let’s dig into a step-by-step guide on creating a content management strategy to help you answer the questions above.
Six steps to creating your content strategy framework
Results can't just magically appear from one day to another. It's all about a well-throughout strategy and consistency! Now, let's get into creating a content marketing plan by following these six easy steps:
1. Define specific goals and objectives
Your content marketing strategy is a means to reach your goals and objectives. Focus on what, why, and how you want to achieve your goals. Use realistic key performance indicators like engagement rates, traffic visits, or leads to and understand what you’re aiming for. Stick to deadlines to generate accountability and consistency. The following are some content management strategy goals to get you inspired:
The goal will be to increase website traffic by 15% by the end of this quarter to generate more sign-ups for our online cooking classes. We will generate short 2-minute recipe videos on our blog webpage.
The goal will be to increase the YouTube views by 20% to help drive traffic to the website and a particular landing page. We will do this by creating helpful management guides for business owners.
2. Clearly define your target audience or audiences
You’ll only meet your goals if you cater to the right target audience. This doesn’t mean you only have to stick to one target audience. Just like a business has a variety of customers, your content can be directed to specific users. Get a clear depiction of your target audience by outlining the following:
Demographic traits
User behaviour
Spending power and patterns
Interests
Challenges or problems they want to solve
Where they are in the stage funnel
To gather this information, you can use helpful free or paid tools such as Hootsuite Insights, Google Analytics, or Keyhole.co . Once you’ve collected valuable data, start segmenting your audience by similar traits and place them in a specific funnel stage. This will help you define particular content for the right person and at the right time.
3. Evaluate previous content performance
Maybe you’ve already been generating content but need to shake things up or haven’t clearly defined a content strategy around them. If this is your case, you need to go back and figure out what kind of content performed the best and which one is best to leave behind. Look at last year and quarter KPIs to detect areas of improvement or what direction to take next. This audit will help you understand your target audience better and allow you to brainstorm practical content ideas in the future.
4. Plan your content distribution strategy
Before you execute, it’s essential to set a solid plan to grasp the topics you’ll be generating content about. Start broad and then get to the Knitty gritty. Make a list of more general subjects, categorize them into smaller subtopics, and plan specific content. You can also use your target audience research to understand what content format is the most attractive. These are the most popular types of content formats out there:
Blog posts
Ebooks
Case studies
Templates
Infographics
Videos
Podcasts
Social media
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5. Find topics that matter to your audience
The competition is fierce; that’s why you should give your content differentiation and value to stand out from the best. To ensure your content marketing strategy doesn’t stay stuck in time, go back to it now and then to keep attracting your target audience's changing needs and preferences. If you’re still not convinced and know where to start, below are a couple of websites to brainstorm content ideas:
Feedly: for trending industry topics.
BuzzSumo: for popular content ideas.
CoSchedule Headline Analyzer: gives feedback on title and headline word choice and keyword search volume.
Answer the public: Comes up with a list of user questions based on a topic and region.
6. Keep track of your action plan
All your great content ideas and goals will get lost if you don’t accompany them with a detailed content editorial calendar. We’re talking about specific content topics, briefs, deadlines, and a team to back you up on it. You can generate your template or download a free content planning sheet to share with your team.
A content management system (CMS) investment could also help you when it’s time to publish your content. Some of the most popular ones for small and medium-sized businesses are the following:
WordPress
Squarespace
Adobe Commerce
Wix
BigCommerce
Optimize your content plan with new funds
A strong content plan can help you reach your goals and increase profitability. But it takes a lot of work and consistency to keep up with it. So if you’re looking for additional resources or professionals to help you turn your content plan into a reality, there’s no need to sacrifice your other operations. All you need is an extra set of funds!
At One Park Financial, we provide quick and easy access to working capital to help them expand their operations. If you’ve been in business for at least three months and are already generating more than $7,500, you can check if you prequalify for working capital in only minutes.
Disclaimer: The content of this post has been prepared for informational purposes only. It is not intended to provide and should not be relied on for tax, legal, or accounting advice. Consult with your tax, legal, and accounting advisor before engaging in any transaction.