Determine your company's goals.
As a business owner or CEO, you have a business goal. It may sound like "I want to capture 30%
market share by 2022" or "I need to generate 100 leads for my business next month" or some other
goal. Whatever it is, write down all of your business objectives one by one.
However, when setting goals, keep them as realistic as possible. If you currently have 2% of the
market or generate only 10% of the leads, the above-mentioned targets are unrealistic. You
should aim for a 10% market share in 2020 and 30 leads next month.
You've now established realistic goals for your company, and it's time to move on to the next
stage of content strategy.
Specify your target audience
How difficult is it to address someone in a large crowd when you don't know their name? You will
attract the attention of random people, making it difficult to 'address' that one person.
Similarly, you should be aware of your targeted users. It does not mean saying all of my
customers are between the ages of 25 and 40, the customers are from Tamil Nadu or Kerala. You
should know who your exact customers are, how they behave, what they want from you, and all
other vital information necessary.
Create a buyer persona to get to know your customers. The buyer persona is a fictional
representation of your customers. You can create a buyer persona by including their age,
location, gender, education, income, challenges, pain points, and so on. The good news is that
you can create multiple buyer personas.
Creating buyer personas will provide you with a visual representation of your target audience
and will make them feel like real people, allowing you to create content specifically for them
in the future.
So now that we have a buyer persona, we can move on to the next step.
Analyse competitors website content strategy
Your competitors are not someone you should despise; rather, you should appreciate them.
You understand your industry, what your customers like, and the strategies to attract them, from
your competitors.
So, analyse your competitors' websites and social media to see what kinds of content they
create, which content is shared the most, and how your target customers interact with these
contents.
Note these insights separately and mention if there are any contents that are not fully updated
or if there is room for improvement. Knowing this will enable you to provide more valuable
content to your audience than your competition. As a result, your customers will automatically
seek you out.
Consider your available resources
The resources include both financial and human resources. If you intend to create bulk content
and have a large number of products or services to sell, content creation will be costly. So
decide how much you are going to spend.
Then, make sure you have enough human resources. For effective content, you will usually need
the following people.
1. An SEO or content strategist to recommend content ideas that are in high demand.
2. A writer who effectively researches and writes the content
3. An editor who proofreads the content and ensures it is consistent with your brand voice.
4. A designer who creates visual elements for content.
5. A promotional expert who specialises in promoting the contents.
You may have just one person managing all of these tasks at times, but in order to get the best
results from your content, you should either hire these professionals or outsource these tasks
to a reputable agency.
Now, you know your business's goal, have a buyer persona for the target audience, the best
performing contents of competitors and, the resources available. So, let's get into the meat of
this guide.
Brainstorm your content ideas
Consider your buyer persona for a few moments. What is their problem, how can you assist them,
and how will they trust you? Then, open a new document and begin writing down the content ideas
that come to mind. Don't try to refine your ideas; instead, write down whatever comes to mind.
After you've written down your content ideas, it's time to refine them by eliminating the less
relevant ones. Now, enter these ideas one by one into a keyword research tool to see what terms
your potential customers are using to access these contents.
Make a list of keywords that have a high search volume but a low keyword difficulty. You can
also enter your content ideas into Google and find related search phrases for these terms to
note down.
Remember that if you're just starting, concentrate on keywords with high search volume and low
search difficulty.
The strategy and tactics
Your research is almost complete, and you will now have a clear picture of what content you need
to create to achieve a specific goal. That is strategy, and the methods you will employ are
known as tactics.
To understand this, imagine you are a wedding videographer who wants to use social media to find
new clients for your wedding film service. The goal here is to find clients for your wedding
film service, and the strategy is to use social media.
Now, the tactic you want to use defines how you will use social media to attract those clients.
The answer is simple: you create content that highlights your wedding film service,
distinguishes it from typical wedding videos, and demonstrates how it creates long-lasting
memories. You primarily show wedding films that you have already created.
When your client discovers this, you will see results. This is how strategy and tactics work
Do a Content Audit
If you're just getting started with content marketing, you can skip this step. But if you
already have a large amount of content, this step is critical.
Because you may already have content that is relevant to your goal and the needs of your target
audience. You can find these contents by performing a content audit, and then repurpose them
with the most recent updates, new images, infographics, backlinks, and so on. It will save you a
lot of time over creating a new one.
Create a content calendar
A content calendar is a document that helps you track your entire content planning process. For
a small business, a simple spreadsheet with topic ideas, potential keywords, search volume,
author name, designer name, image status, publish date, and, so on would be enough.
The content calendar will help your team members stay organised and on the same page.
This is how a content calendar appears.
With a content calendar, we'll get to the heart of a content strategy, which is...
Content development and promotion
Content development is not an easy task, but with the right structure, you can make it a
painless process.
Begin with keyword research for your topic and analyse the topics that rank for the same
keyword. Analyze those contents and determine how you can add more value and a unique
perspective to them. While creating content, keep your buyer persona in mind.
Remember that each piece of content you create should be unique, easy to read, and contain
high-quality information that your readers will find useful. Make sure to use storytelling in
your content, and your headline should entice your audience.
Never, ever rush the process of creating content.
Now that you've created valuable content, it's time to promote it.
It doesn't matter how good your content is unless it reaches your target audience. To promote
the content wherever your potential buyer hangs out. It could be through social media, blog
posts, or form submissions.
Track the effectiveness of your content
Tracking your content will help you understand what your audience likes. If your content is
enticing your audience to buy, if it is getting enough shares, and so on. Understanding this
will assist you in tailoring your content to what your customers want.
You can track and analyse your content's performance using analytic tools like Google Analytics,
Ninja Analytics, and others to see how it performs concerning your goals.
This is how you create a content strategy for your company. Always keep this in a document and
share it with your content team so that everyone involved is on the same page.
Take the time to develop a content strategy, plan for your company and make updates as your
needs change. A good content strategy will benefit your business as long as it focuses on your
target audience.
Fact
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28-09-2021
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