When embarking on a content strategy for business with ideas firing on all cylinders, it can be tempting to start creating content immediately. Yet for content to succeed at driving targeted prospects your way and converting them into ready-warned leads, it is essential to prepare a considered inbound marketing strategy.
How to develop a content marketing strategy:
1. Identify target personas
Any company engaged in marketing of any sort will (hopefully) have personas at the core of all marketing-related activity. Personas – character profiles conveying the ideal intended customer – are pivotal to content marketing. The reason is simple: the more targeted and relevant your content, the more effective it will be at breaking through an increasingly crowded space. Once it hits your target reader, the greater the chances of eliciting desired business outcomes.
Aligned to this, determine your brand voice. The tone and experience delivered through all content (online, video, email etc.) should be consistent. Your brand voice should speak to your target persona, but also cement your unique brand identity.
2. Map content production to customer cycles
The next step – still before even thinking about actual content creation – is to consider your target customer’s buying cycle. To get inside your reader’s head, it helps to get to grips with each stage of the marketing funnel. Only when you understand where your customer is in terms of problems, needs and research journey can you target content effectively.
At the top of the funnel, for instance, is your opportunity to realise a customer’s problem…what it is they need. Obviously, SEO is a key element here, as prospects seek out information online. Blogging is highly recommended at this stage, offering easily digestible content that speaks to customers’ needs.
Further along the cycle, when prospects are researching potential solutions, is a great time to reach out with content such as white papers, webinars, ebooks or video tutorials. Above all, content should be helpful, non-promotional and informative at a fairly introductory level. Keep it simple, educate, and don’t be afraid to entertain.
3. Incorporate SEO
Once you’ve outlined the content roadmap aligned to your target persona’s journey through the funnel, it’s time to think SEO. Conduct keyword research and draw from a wealth of search tools to determine the best words for your copy. Google is still the king of keyword research, so an informed starting point is its Google Keyword Planner. Elsewhere, paid tools like Wordtracker are great if you have some spare budget.
SEO is critical for ensuring your content is discovered online. Having said this, always keep the goal of your content in sight. Resist writing for the search engines.
4. Monitor, test and refresh
Once you’ve created an editorial calendar and decided who to assign content creation to, the time finally comes to start publishing. The content marketing journey has begun. It will take considerable effort and time to keep the momentum going – content needs to be refreshed and promoted across other channels (email, social and so on). Making content shareable on social channels will let you know how popular and relevant your content is.
Creating and managing an effective content marketing strategy isn’t a one-off or haphazard activity. It takes commitment and a dedication to quality control. The content itself has to be good enough to convince prospects that you know your stuff. Nurture leads with valuable and educational content and they will, in time, become loyal customers.
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