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Content marketing may be one of the most affordable forms of marketing but for it to succeed companies should come up with a comprehensive content marketing strategy. Such a strategy should start by defining the customer and customer needs, the kind of content that can engage customers, and the platforms where it should be published. The strategy should also provide for data analytics to understand what is working and what needs to be worked upon.
# 1. Know who your customers are
Your first goal is to identify your customer. For this, you need to segment your customer base. Don’t go with the philosophy of one size fits all. Such a content marketing strategy is a non-starter. It is not possible to create content that appeals to all.
A better strategy is to build customer personas. You must narrow down your customers based on their specific needs. You need to decide what is your customer looking for? Is the customer looking for long-term financial security? Or is the customer focused on making quick money through smart investing?
Each of them has separate needs and challenges. What are their pain points? Where do they spend their time on the net? How does the product or service you offer meets their needs?
You also need to research your competitors, especially the kind of content or strategy they have adopted. Your challenge is to create content that answers the needs of your customers better as compared to competition.
# 2. Select your content platforms
You must know where to find your customer. There is no point in creating lifestyle content for the young and upwardly mobile and publish it on LinkedIn. Instagram will be a better bet. If, however, your customer personas show that your customers hang out on Facebook then that is the platform you need to target.
#3. Decide content type
Your content marketing strategy when it comes to creating content depends fully upon your customer persona and the platform your customer frequents. If your customer is searching for financial advice then a text article is the best format. It can be published on your company’s website or on a blog. If, however, your customer is a youngster you need to create fashion and lifestyle videos for Instagram. If your customer is looking for serious content then you can consider a thoughtful podcast on Spotify.
You can further define your content by type. It can be a do-it-yourself video, a text listicle, an infographic, a YouTube short video or long format video. text or video product review
You can decide what works best for your customer by going through analytics that the different platforms provide. Such a content audit will help you phase out content that is not working and focus on content that is working.
#4. Define Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) should get a pride of place in your content marketing strategy. They are the best indicators of the performance of your content, and should be chosen according to your goal.
For instance, if the aim of your content marketing strategy is to generate brand awareness, then mentions by customers, notching up of social media followers or rise in site traffic can be your KPIs.
If, however, customer engagement is your goal then your KPIs can be likes, shares, follows or comments.
# 5. Create quality content
Content is the heart and soul of any effective content management strategy. Therefore, there can be no compromise on content or its quality. The four points that must be kept in mind while creating content are:
a. Professional skill: The content must reflect a high degree of professionalism. There should be no spelling or grammatical errors if the content is an article; similarly there should be no editing glitches if it is a video story.
b. Accuracy: There should be no factual errors and no biases. The content should be straightforward, credible and trustworthy.
c. Relevance: The content must resonate with the customer. It must clear his doubts and help him decide. This can be through actionable tips, industry insights or social trends.
d. Subtle: The best content makes the point subtly. The customer should not treat it as a promotional message.
e. SEO: All content must be search engine optimised to boost organic traffic.
# 6. Set Content Publishing Schedule
The postings should not be random or far between. Careful thought should go in deciding how many articles, infographics, videos, podcasts etc will be made every week. Also, what will be their focus? A social media publishing schedule should also be created. The goal should be to keep the customer interest alive; provide him relevant information but avoid flooding him with content.
# 7. Decide the Budget
Content cannot be created for free. You have to decide how much budget you need to allocate for content marketing. Should you hire full time staffers to create content? Or should you use part-timers to create the required content? If you plan to create content in house then you will have to purchase equipment such as cameras, tripods, gimbal etc. You will also need to invest in production software such as Adobe or final Cut Pro. You will also have to take a call of running ads to promote your content in case your content is not generating the expected response. Your content marketing strategy will backfire if your investment is very high and returns are low.
# 8. Analyse Data
The last element of content marketing strategy is data analytics. You must, as a matter of policy, review the performance of each piece of content created by your content creation team. You can either use Google Analytics for this analysis or any other analytical tool available on the net. You should also check the data available on social media platforms.
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