Contact us anytime to know more — Amit A., Founder & COO CISIN
This post will explain what content strategy is and why you should have a plan for your content marketing. We'll also discuss the steps to creating your content strategy.
We'll also explore some effective content marketing examples to inspire you with digital marketing SEO strategy.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content strategy is the plan you create to use audio, visual, and/or written content in order to reach your business goals.
A successful content plan will engage your audience at each stage of the funnel and even after they have made a purchase.
Let's say that your company has a goal of increasing brand recognition. You might implement a strategy focusing on SEO in order to improve your website's visibility and increase traffic.
A content strategy might be nice to have but is not essential for new business owners. Producing high-quality content is essential to building trust and achieving success in the long run.
A good content strategy will help you achieve the Attract and Delight phases of the buyer's journey, which follows the framework for inbound marketing.
A content strategy can be used to increase customer satisfaction and sales and attract prospects. A good content strategy is essential to help you compete in your field, especially with 70% of marketers investing in content marketing.
You need to address several questions when developing a content marketing strategy. Let's get started.
#1. Who Will Read Your Content?
What is the audience that you are targeting with your content? How many audiences do you have in mind when creating your content? Your content strategy can be tailored to cater to different types of users, just as your business may have multiple types of customers.
You can deliver tailored content to each persona by using a variety of content types and channels.
#2. What Is The Problem You Will Be Solving For Your Target Audience?
Ideally, your product or services should solve a problem that you know your target audience faces. Your content will also help your audience identify and solve this problem.
Content strategy is important for both your customers and your potential customers. It helps those who have yet to identify their biggest challenges and those who already use your product. Your content helps to reinforce the solutions you are offering and builds credibility with your audience.
#3. What Makes You Special?
You're likely to have competitors who sell similar products, so your customers will want to know why yours is better or at least different.
Your company's longevity could be your biggest asset. You may have a distinctive brand voice that makes you stand out from your competitors. You need to show that you are worth listening to convince people you're a brand worth purchasing.
After you've figured that out, make sure that your content reflects that message.
#4. What Formats Of Content Will You Be Focusing On?
You need to know your audience's location to determine what format to use. You may be tempted to start a podcast or create a YouTube channel because it has grown so much over the past few years.
But first, you need to find out where your audience is. You may waste time on content that doesn't engage your audience. After choosing the best forms, make a budget to establish how much money you can set aside for this method.
#5. What Channels Are You Planning To Publish?
You'll have a variety of channels to choose from, including your website and social media channels. Again, this will reflect the location of your audience.
You may publish content on YouTube if your audience is more interested in long-form videos. You can use TikTok or Instagram to reach a younger audience who likes short content. In the next section, we'll discuss social media strategy.
#6. How Will You Manage The Creation And Publication Of Content?
It can be difficult to figure out how to create and publish your content.
It's essential to set up the following:
- Who is creating what?
- Where is it being published?
- When will it go live?
This may be simple in a small group, as you are the only decision-maker. You may have to work with multiple content teams to find an efficient process as your business grows.
Content strategies of today are based on topics to prevent clutter. You can visualize your message by planning an editorial calendar around topics. This will help you establish yourself as a leader in your industry over time.
Five Elements Of An Effective Content Marketing Strategy
Five core elements are required for a successful content marketing strategy. We'll see why each element is important and how to start implementing them.
#1. Audience Personas
You can't tell your brand's story if you don’t know who is listening. The first step in identifying your audience is determining who you want to reach.
Here are some ways to achieve that:
- Customers are the best source of information.
- Trends in the industry.
- You can identify the people you don't want to target.
- Monitor your competitors' activities.
Formalized personas will help you communicate to your stakeholders your target audience clearly and concisely. Anyone involved in branding messaging.
#2. Brand Story And Positioning
A brand story summarizes your company's mission, purpose, and values. Determining your brand's story will help you determine the messages and topics that your content should address.
This helps you decide the direction of your content marketing strategy.
You should be focusing on the following:
- Your customer is the hero in your story. What are their goals and challenges?
- The personality of your brand.
- Your brand's purpose and core values.
- Your product and content can empower your hero by reinforcing the above.
When creating content, keep your brand's narrative in mind. This will help you create a consistent message for your audience across all your content marketing channels.
You can use these questions to brainstorm about your brand and its positioning in the market.
- What are their goals? What are their goals and objectives?
- What are the top competitors of mine? What marketing strategies do they use?
- What is the unique value of my brand?
- What problems does your product solve?
- What makes my product better than my competitors'?
Your answers will help you to create the main pillars for your brand's story. This is a great step for startups and small businesses that can benefit from their backgrounds and unique identities.
#3. Content Marketing Mission Statement & Owned Media Value Proposition
Owned media is any digital marketing channel that you control. Your website or social media platforms. Define your own media value proposition to establish your brand credibility as a content publisher.
What unique value does your brand's content provide? This should be different from the content of your competitors.
You can use this to create a strategy for content marketing that will set you apart from the competition. Your content marketing mission is another important element in your overall strategy. Your mission statement should explain why you create content and who will benefit.
Include the following in your mission statement for content marketing:
- Your audience: Who is your intended audience?
- Benefit: What information will you provide or what answers?
- The result: What will your content do to help your audience reach their goals?
You can use this example: Our content gives digital marketing managers multimedia resources on SEO and content marketing to aid in the organic growth of their businesses.
#4. Content Marketing Goals And Business Case
A successful content marketing strategy is built on providing value to your target audience. Content marketing is not just about attracting readers and followers.
It should also drive your business forward. A documented business case can help you and your team understand the costs, benefits, and risks of implementing content marketing in your organization.
Business cases are project management documents that explain why certain tasks should be performed and how the benefits of those tasks outweigh their cost.
Start by identifying the business goals that your company must achieve. Then, determine how content marketing can help you reach those goals with the help of a content marketing specialist.
What resources will you invest in your content marketing strategy? What results are you looking to achieve? You can then create a budget for marketing and content creation.
You can track tasks approved in a project-management software such as Asana.
#5. Plan Of Action
Add your major content marketing projects and campaigns to your plan. A formal content plan can help you to think about each step of your content marketing strategy.
When planning your content, make sure you include the following:
- Select content topics for every campaign.
- Decide what content formats you want to produce.
- Choose the right channels for distribution.
Add information to tasks, track progress, and keep the team on the same page.
The following are key elements that you should include in your calendar:
- Topics or target keywords.
- Target dates.
- Headlines.
- Clusters or categories.
- Content Formats.
- Target personas.
- Success metrics.
You'll also need to analyze your audience and your content's performance in the past. We'll go into more detail about this later.
After covering the basics, we will discuss how to develop a content strategy and create effective content.
Why Marketers Should Create a Content Strategy
Content marketing allows businesses to plan and prepare for a reliable and cost-effective source of new website traffic.
You can generate leads long after clicking " Publish" if you create a blog post or blog content with a steady flow of organic traffic by a digital marketer.
Read about blog strategy of content marketers with valuable content. Your evergreen content can be a reliable source of leads and traffic, allowing you to try other marketing techniques to generate revenue.
Your content will help you attract leads, educate your prospects, and create awareness for your brand.
How To Create A Content Strategy Framework
Let's get into the details of creating a content plan.
#1. Set Your Goals
What is your goal in developing a plan for content marketing? Why are you creating content and a plan for content marketing? Knowing your goals will help you determine what is best for your content marketing strategy.
#2. Conduct Persona Research
You need to define clearly the target audience of your content, also known as a buyer persona. It is important to do this for anyone new to marketing or starting out.
Knowing your audience will help you create more valuable and relevant content they'll be interested in reading and converting.
Your target market may have changed if you are an experienced marketer. Are you looking to expand your target market or target a different group? Are you looking to maintain the same audience? Reviewing your target audience by doing market research every year is important.
#3. Run A Content Audit
Most brands begin with blog posts. You can run a content audit if you want to try out new formats. Use this information to determine the next step.
You should evaluate your marketing efforts for content and last year's results if you have been in business for a long time. Set new goals and determine what you will do differently next year. It's a good time to align your team's goals with those of your organization.
A content audit can help you identify what resonates with your audience and highlight gaps in your topic groups. It will also inspire new content ideas.
#4. Choose A Content Management System
Content creation, publication, and analytics are all vital components of content management. You want to invest in a CMS that will allow you to easily create, track, and manage your content.
You can use the CMS to plan, create, publish, and measure results in one location. WordPress is another popular CMS. The WordPress plugin can add free web forms, chat, CRM, email marketing, and analytics.
#5. Decide What Type Of Content To Create
You can create a wide range of content, from audio and written content such as podcasts to ebooks. We'll cover some of the most common content formats marketers create, along with templates and tools to help you get started.
Read More: See What The Future Holds: Content Marketing Trends
#6. Brainstorm Ideas For Content.
With your upcoming project, use your creativity. Here are some tools that will get your creative juices flowing.
#1.Feedly
Feedly's RSS feed allows you to keep up with the latest trends in your field and discover new content ideas. The software will ask you what topics are most important to you, and then its AI tool does the rest.
No longer will you need to search the web for new ideas. Instead, you can browse your curated list of news sites, social media accounts, and newsletters.
#2.BuzzSumo
Do you want to find out what content is popular and where the best ideas for content are? This company provides several market research tools.
One of them uses social media content shares in order to determine whether a piece is well-liked and popular. You can use this information to determine which content ideas will be successful if you create content around them.
#3. Blog About
IMPACT’s blog title creator will get your creative juices flowing. It's a little like Mad Libs, but it gives you a list of headlines with blanks to fill in your subject instead of funny sentences.
This technique allows you to put your general ideas into contexts that appeal to your audience. BlogAbout allows you to save the headlines you find appealing in your "Notebook."
#4.CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
With Blog Ideas Generator, you can generate blog post ideas that will last for an entire calendar year. This content generator will work once you enter a few general terms or topics.
This tool analyzes headlines and titles, providing feedback on word choice, grammar, and keyword search volume. You can run several title options through Headline Analyzer in order to improve your idea and move it forward in the brainstorming stage.
#5. HubSpot Website Grader
It's a useful tool for assessing your current SEO and website performance. The Website Grader gives you an overall score for your website's performance.
It also sends you detailed reports to help you improve. This tool will help you make your website SEO-friendly and identify areas for improvement.
#7. Manage And Publish Your Content
It's important that your marketing plan covers more than just the type of content you will create. It should also include how you will organize it.
You'll be on track to publish a diverse and well-balanced content library with the help of a calendar. Create a social media calendar to manage and promote your content across other websites.
Some of your ideas will remain relevant for many years to come. Many of the ideas you come up with will be relevant in months or even years.
Nevertheless, timely topics are also important. They may not make up most of your editorial schedule, but they can generate traffic spikes. Many people include popular holidays like New Year's in their marketing campaigns, but this is unnecessary.
It may be worthwhile to publish content on your social media or blog about niche holidays. This ultimate list of holidays for social media is a great resource to remember when planning your calendar.
Content Strategy Template
Do you feel ready to launch your content marketing plan? This guide includes readings and exercises to help you develop and refine your strategy.
You'll discover how to:
- Ideas for content creation.
- Create topic clusters, pillar pages, and page groups.
- Promote your content.
- Repurpose content to meet your needs.
Content Marketing Strategy Examples
Let's look at some real-life examples of content strategies developed to achieve a specific business goal. We'll start with Evernote.
This note-taking application developed an SEO-driven strategy for their content to attract new visitors to their website. Evernote's blog is a great resource for productivity tips. The blog post How to Stay Disciplined in Tough Times made me laugh and inspired me to grab my pen and write some of the best tips.
But Why would a company selling a note-taking application write about discipline? It's because we found them when we searched for "How to remain disciplined" on Google.
Those who are interested in productivity content will likely be the ones who download Evernote's product. If Evernote's team created content to increase traffic, such as publishing "Our 10 Favorite Beyonce Songs", it wouldn't even be considered content.
It would be just content. Content and business goals must be aligned in a Digital marketing strategy.
Evernote integrates its content (productivity blogs) with its commercial objective to draw leads (note-taking enthusiasts). Look at a second example to understand how a content strategy can assist businesses in enabling sales.
Consider the following example: A prospective customer calls a Wistia sales representative and asks about Wistia's service for video hosting.
The Wistia rep learns that her company uses Intercom to convert leads. After the call, the sales rep will email the prospect with a link to a blog about Wistia’s integration with Intercom.
This allows Intercom users to personalize their messages to prospects using the video-watching information they collect via Wistia.
Here's a great example of how a content marketing strategy can increase sales. Wistia's content about other business tools might appear odd at first glance.
This content is an excellent resource for Wistia’s sales team. After exploring a few content strategies, we can now dive into the types you can create.
Content Marketing Is Divided Into Different Types
You can use eight popular content marketing types to reach your customers and readers.
#1. Blog Posts
You're reading a blog right now if you haven’t noticed. Blog posts are published on a website and should be updated regularly to attract new visitors.
Your audience should find your posts valuable, so they will share them on social media or other websites. Blog posts should be between 1,000-2,000 words long. However, you can experiment with different lengths to determine what your audience likes.
#2. Ebooks
Visitors to a website can download Ebooks after filling out a form that asks for their contact details. Ebooks are typically longer and more detailed, with fewer updates than blog posts.
But ebooks don't just work at the top of a funnel. Expert Growth director, says, "Ebooks have different functions at different stages of the buyer's experience." They said, "Awareness ebooks educate prospects about a particular pain point and make for an excellent lead generation tool." The content should be introductory and informative.``
Experts continue, "Ebooks are a great way to convert leads into sales by providing useful tools while prospects examine their needs in greater detail.
Here, an ebook might delve deeper into a problem and its solution options. It may also include templates or calculators. Further down the funnel, ebooks should be more personalized and include more sales content.
At this stage, case study comparison guides or ebooks can benefit prospects.
The next step of the inbound process is to create ebooks. Visitors may want to learn more after reading a post like this.
Calls-to-action (CTAs), which direct people to a landing page where they can enter their contact details and download a valuable ebook, are a great way to get more information. The business that produces the ebook now has a lead to call.
#3. Case Studies
You can tell a client's story and gain credibility by doing so. Case studies are the most versatile form of content marketing, as they can be presented in many ways.
Some of these forms are listed below. Case studies can be in blog posts, ebooks, podcasts, and even infographics. It's important to show how your product has helped companies achieve success.
You should decide which business you want to improve before choosing a client for a case study.
#4. Templates
Content marketing templates are a great way to generate leads and provide value to your audience. Suppose you give your audience content strategy templates to help them save time and succeed.
In that case, they will likely engage in your future content.
#5. Infographics
Infographics are a great way to organize and visualize information in a more appealing manner than just words. Suppose you want to present much information in an easy-to-understand format.
In that case, these are the best content formats for you. Get our templates to create beautiful infographics within an hour.
#6. Video
Videos are an engaging medium of content that can be shared across websites and social media. Videos are more time-consuming and resource-intensive than written content.
However, they offer a higher return on investment.
#7. Podcasts
If you don't want to read content all day, a podcast can help your audience discover your brand. Podcast listeners are increasing -- the number of U.S.
podcast subscribers increased by 10% in the past year. Consider podcasting a new content format if you have people to interview or conversations about hosting.
#8. Social Media
After publishing regularly on your site for some time, think about a strategy that will allow you to share your content via social media.
You can also create new content for each platform and repurpose your content into different formats.
Social media posting is a great way to increase your brand's visibility and deliver your content where your customers spend their time.
Popular social networks include
- Facebook.
- Instagram.
- Twitter.
- You can find us on LinkedIn.
- The following are some examples of Pinterest.
- Snapchat.
- You can watch videos on YouTube.
If you are launching an account for your business on one of the social media networks listed above, adapt the content according to the platform.
Instagram users, for instance, want visually pleasing images. You have a lot to work with regarding feeds, IGTV, and Stories.
TikTok appeals to younger users who want short-form, creative, funny, and trendy videos. Market research will help you discover your customers' platforms and tailor your content accordingly.
To grow a successful strategy for content marketing, you need time, creativity, and organization. Follow the steps to create a content marketing strategy.
You can also add tools to manage your content.
CISIN Will Help You To Perfect Your Content Marketing Strategy
Although the methods of delivering content to prospects are constantly changing, the fundamental principles are the same: developing a high-quality content marketing strategy based on reliable data and customer personas.
Are you just starting out? Check out our guide to content marketing for startups. You can outperform your competition by automating parts of the content marketing workflow and using data for decision-making.
CISIN’s content marketing services can help you sustain and accelerate organic growth for your business growth.
