Content marketing can help your business get noticed. Having a well defined content strategy can boost your business sales and have a positive influence on your overall brand.
Digital marketing is one of the best ways to market your business and a strong strategy is the backbone of all your marketing efforts.
In this post we’ll define what a content marketing strategy is, why your business needs one and how to create a successful one.
Let’s get into it!
What is a Content Marketing Strategy?
A content marketing strategy involves the creation and distribution of content across multiple platforms to grow your audience and business.
This blog you’re reading now is part of our content marketing strategy.
Any piece of content you create can be a part of your strategy, including:
- Podcasts.
- Video.
- Graphics.
- Images.
- Ebooks.
- Newsletters.
- Etc.
Why Have a Content Marketing Strategy?
Having a content strategy in place is a great way to see tangible results. With a well developed plan in place you can ensure your marketing efforts are all geared towards a common goal.
Imagine just posting random content and hoping your ideal customer will spot this and give you all of their money…that’s a sure fire way to waste tons of money and end up going out of business, yet so many businesses do this.
A content marketing strategy can give you the much needed direction to reach your intended audience.
How to Create a Successful Content Marketing Strategy
Creating a successful content marketing strategy isn’t complicated but you’ll need specific ingredients to make it a successful one.
Let’s take a look at these in more detail:
Create Specific Goals
How are you supposed to aim for something if you don’t even know what you’re aiming at?
Goals help you to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. The more detailed and specific your goals are the better.
If your goal is to increase web traffic then you might want to utilise low competition keywords in your blog posts.
Or if one of your goals is to increase your brand awareness then you might want to create short informative videos for TikTok.
When your goal is clearly defined it will allow you to create the appropriate content for your strategy.
‘If you don’t have goals defined in your strategy then that’s just a bit silly then isn’t it?’ – Blaze Media.
Research Competitors
Looking at what the competition is doing is a great way to get ideas and inspiration.
As long as you don’t steal or mimic their content…nobody likes a copycatter!
Besides, if you can use what your competition is doing and sprinkle some of your own magic dust and make it better then you’ll stand out.
Competition is healthy in the marketplace but imitating what is already there won’t get you anywhere fast.
You want to be the person that the competition is trying to copy!
Know Your Audience
If you know who your audience is then you’ll be able to understand exactly what type of content will resonate with them.
If you don’t understand your audience then you could be sharing meaningless content which isn’t going to attract the right audience to your brand.
Try defining a persona for your typical customer, so you have a better understanding of them.
Ask questions such as:
- How old are they?
- What’s their gender?
- Do they have kids?
- What is their annual salary?
And the list goes on!
The point is that you want to get as clear an image as possible of your ideal customer. When you create content don’t create it for the masses, tailor it to a specific person in mind.
Refer to your customer persona and imagine what content they would share!
Create Unique Content
Creating content that blends in with everyone else’s will leave you with a mediocre strategy that does nothing to push your business forward.
Attention is currency in the digital world and if you want people’s attention you need to stand out. Creating unique and engaging content can help you do this.
Short form video content is fast becoming the king of content these days. Utilise this trend to your advantage and create some attention grabbing content.
It doesn’t have to be perfect and it might not even be great in the beginning. But overtime you’ll be able to master creating unique content that attracts your ideal customer.
Push your creative boundaries to their limits, just don’t cross the line!
If you do you could end up becoming known for all the wrong reasons.
Analyse Data
This can be useful for businesses that have been established for a while already and have past data to look at.
Analysing this data could unlock some hidden insight you otherwise might not have been aware of. If you have ever had customer feedback this could also be analysed.
People tend to look past data when it comes to content. But data plays a huge role in marketing and therefore content marketing also.
If there is no past data then you can look at doing polls and surveys for your current customers. If it’s a brand new business then simply do as much market and customer research as you can.
Then start to post content and see what reaction you’re getting.
Who is interacting with it?
What type of people is it resonating with?
Become a mad scientist with your content. Test things out and see what works best!
How to Tell if a Content Marketing Strategy is Successful
Remember we talked about the importance of goal setting when it comes to your content strategy?
Well when it comes to measuring a strategy’s success you can refer back to your overall goals and see if you have achieved them.
If you did then the strategy was a success and you’re now a certified content marketing pro.
If you didn’t hit your goals then you’re a complete failure who shouldn’t be doing content marketing…(JOKE)
You can always learn from your failures and just because it didn’t work out this time doesn’t mean you can’t learn from it and get it right next time.
Marketing in general requires a lot of guesswork at times and you’re not going to always get it right.
The key is to have an open mind and don’t afraid to try things out!
Blaze Media – Successful Content Marketing Strategies
We hope you enjoyed this post on how to create a successful content marketing campaign. We wanted to highlight some key aspects that would give you an insight into what makes a successful campaign.
We understand you may not have all the available resources to complete a content marketing strategy. That’s why we specialise in creating content marketing strategies for businesses.
We have worked with businesses across multiple industries and helped them get their content in front of the right audience.
If you’re interested in setting up a content strategy for your business then please reach out to us!