Every business needs customers, and the best way to get customers is to market to them. If you’re just starting out or looking to grow your customer base, content marketing can be a great way to make an impact on your target audience.
With the right strategy in place, you can create content that will engage your customers and drive qualified leads to your site, boosting traffic and sales as a result. In this step-by-step guide, we’ll walk you through the process of building a content marketing strategy from scratch.
What is content marketing?
It’s often regarded as a buzzword, but content marketing is one of today’s most effective forms of marketing. In simple terms, it means producing and distributing relevant and valuable content that your audience will be interested in.
If you can establish yourself as an expert or authority in your field, then create rich media content, such as blogs and videos. You can build relationships with your target market and drive traffic back to your website.
At its core, it’s about telling a story that educates while inspiring action from your target market. It can help you establish yourself as an industry leader while also promoting specific products or services within your business.
Best of all, content marketing works across many channels; it doesn’t have to take place only on your website. You can use social media (including Instagram), email newsletters, video distribution networks (YouTube), and more.
Why Should I Focus on Developing a Content Marketing Strategy?
When it comes to business, there are plenty of moving parts you need to worry about. To complicate matters, some of those parts, like content marketing strategy development, aren’t as simple as they may seem.
You can’t just wing it and expect things to magically fall into place. If your goal is strengthening your relationship with customers or simply building one from scratch, developing an effective content marketing strategy is essential for success. Not sure where to start? Don’t worry—we have you covered!
Content Marketing Strategy Template
Here’s a step-by-step guide for how you can develop an optimal content marketing strategy that will help grow your business. Let’s dive in.
What’s Important to Keep in Mind When Developing Your Content Marketing Strategy?
First, let’s go over some of the main points you should keep top of mind when developing your strategy. Make sure that everyone on your team is fully engaged and supportive of your efforts. Once everyone has aligned their efforts toward reaching one common goal, results will come fast!
Take time each day to assess data pertaining to what types of content perform best with your target audience. Also, take time at least once every week (or biweekly) to evaluate new opportunities for collaboration with other brands related to topics tied closely with yours so you can expand upon them together via joint ventures.
Lastly, get out there and talk to people. Find out what makes them tick by asking questions that dig deeper than surface-level discussions. This will allow you to glean valuable insights into consumer behavior that will shape future endeavors in ways you never thought possible.
With these four points in mind, read on for more insight into how to approach your content marketing strategy using three key strategies: segmentation, clusters/key influencers, and competition analysis segments!
Segmentation
Segmentation refers primarily to groups within your overall target market who share certain characteristics or demographic traits typically associated with easier targeting due to similarities among members of these groups. In terms of content marketing strategy development, identifying potential customer segments is crucial to understanding precisely who you’re talking to. And what kinds of messages they respond most favorably to.
In order to do that effectively, however, you must first define precisely what constitutes a customer segment from a macro perspective. In other words, define which demographics matter most based on specific details such as age ranges, income levels, etc. And base your definition on hard statistics instead of hearsay alone.
Once you’ve done that, determine whether there are any major holes in your current strategy, for example, if you only address consumers aged 45 to 54 but not 20 to 40. Using competitive analysis segments to fill in any blanks is highly recommended if you find yourself lacking.
Clusters/Key Influencers
Next up on our list of critical content marketing strategy components is Cluster Analysis, also known as Key Influencer Analysis. Though similar enough to segmentation that it often gets confused with it, Cluster Analysis goes further than traditional customer segmentation by allowing you to identify influential individuals within each of your segments.
These influencers play roles ranging from advocates and advisers to opinion leaders and trendsetters. Once you’ve identified them, you can then collaborate with them directly to create an impact that will radiate outward into your overall business strategy.
While it sounds simple on paper, Cluster Analysis takes time. And effort to execute properly, especially considering how important these influencers are to your overall plan of attack. But doing it right can make all the difference between failure and phenomenal success!
Competition Analysis
Finally, we arrive at what is arguably one of your most important tasks in developing a successful content marketing strategy: Competitor Analysis. By studying key details about your direct competitors in great detail—namely, things like pricing models. And advertising methods used—you’ll be able to craft unique strategies that set you apart from everyone else out there vying for attention.
How Should I Start Creating My Own Strategy?
Before you even get started with your content marketing strategy, you need to answer some very basic questions.
- What kind of content are you creating?
- What channels are you going to use?
- How long is each piece of content going to be?
- How often are you going to publish new content?
- When will each piece of content go live?
- And how will your target audience respond once they’ve visited your site or made contact with your business?
Although these seem like obvious questions, most businesses spend very little time discussing them before launching their content marketing efforts.
As a result, they end up ignoring important trends in their industry and using inaccurate data when publishing their own content.
To build an effective strategy that consistently engages customers, keep in mind that every great strategy starts with research.
What Type of Information Should Be Included In My Content Marketing Strategy?
At its core, your content marketing strategy will focus on quality content. Start with some research about trends in your industry and see what questions you can answer for your audience.
- What issues are they facing?
- How can you help them?
- How do they currently get their information on these topics?
- Are there any gaps or holes in their understanding of these issues or areas of interest?
These are all great places to start. Remember, though, that creating truly great content takes more than just sitting down and writing something. You’ll need some planning before you get started.
Be sure that your strategy includes things like audience research, competitor analysis, branding guidelines, and editorial calendars.
Conclusion
No business can survive without engaging customers. As marketers, we know that content strategy is vital for creating and delivering relevant. And useful information that meets our customer’s needs, but where do we start?
First, it’s important to remember what content marketing is: content marketing strategically delivers value across multiple channels with an emphasis on owned media. The goal of any marketer should be to drive traffic through your owned. And earned media channels and convert those visitors into leads and buyers—this can only be done through strategic planning.
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