First Step when structuring an online strategy
Answers
The first step to getting a leg up on the competition is to have a solid, smart content marketing plan in place. If you're having trouble planning for the upcoming year or need some fresh ideas to include in your plan, read on.
Using a variety of content types and channels will help you deliver different content to each type of audience you have in mind and engage everyone your company does business with.
The Problem it's Going to Solve for that Audience
Ideally, your product or service solves a problem you know your audience has. By the same token, your content coaches and educates your audience through this problem as they begin to identify and address it.
A sound content strategy supports people on both sides of your product: those who are still figuring out what their main challenges are, and those who are already using your product to overcome these challenges. Your content reinforces the solution(s) you're offering and makes your customers more qualified users of your product.
What Makes You Unique
Your competitors likely have a similar product as yours, which means your potential customers need to know what makes yours better -- or, at least, different. This is where content comes in. In order to prove why you're worth buying from, you need to prove why you're worth listening to.
The Content Formats You'll Focus On
What forms will your content take? Infographics? Videos? Blog posts? Having identified the topics you want to take a position on, you'll need to determine which formats to budget for so you can best express that position.
The Channels Where It'll Be Published
Just as you can create content in different formats, you'll also have different channels you can publish to. Channels can include owned properties, such as your website and blog; and social media properties, such as Facebook and Twitter. We'll talk more about social media content strategy in the step-by-step guide later in this article.
How You'll Manage Creation and Publication
Figuring out how you'll create and publish all your content can be a daunting task. It's important for a content strategy to know who's creating what, where it's being published, and when it's going live.
Today's content strategies prevent clutter by managing content from a topic standpoint. When planning a content calendar around topics, you can easily visualize your company's message and assert yourself as an authority in your market over time. Learn more about topics in content strategy in the video below.
Why Do Marketers Need to Create a Content Marketing Strategy?
Content marketing helps businesses prepare and plan for reliable and cost-effective sources of website traffic and new leads. Think about it -- if you can create just one blog post that gets a steady amount of organic traffic, an embedded link to an ebook or free tool will continue generating leads for you as time goes on.
HubSpot's Sales Blog Team found this to be key to their strategy to increasing traffic to the blog over time. Read about their blog strategy here.
The reliable source of traffic and leads from your evergreen content will give you the flexibility to experiment with other marketing tactics to generate revenue, such as sponsored content, social media advertising, and distributed content. Plus, your content will not only help attract leads -- it will also help educate your target prospects and generate awareness for your brand.
Now, let's dive in to learn the specifics of how to create a content marketing plan.
How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy
1. Define your goal.
What's your aim for developing a content marketing plan? Why do you want to produce content and create a content marketing plan? Know your goals before you begin planning, and you'll have an easier time determining what's best for your strategy. (Want help figuring out the right goals? Download this goal planning template.)
2. Conduct persona research.
To develop a successful plan, you need to clearly define your content's target audience -- also known as your buyer persona.
This is especially important for those who are starting out or are new to marketing. By knowing your target audience, you can produce more relevant and valuable content that they'll want to read and convert on.
If you're an experienced marketer, your target may have changed. Do you want to target a new group of people or expand your current target market? Do you want to keep the same target audience? Revisiting your audience parameters by conducting market research each year is crucial to growing your audience.
3. Run a content audit.
Most people start out with blog posts, but if you want to venture out and try producing other content pieces, consider which ones you want to make.
4. Choose a content management system.
Have a system in place where you can manage your content. A few vital parts of content management include content .