Content strategy matters the most. So whether you are just starting with content marketing or using this marketing approach for a while now, it won’t hurt to revisit your content strategy frequently.
Content marketing trends are evolving with every passing second. Thus, you will remain behind in this online marketing race if you don’t have an updated and structured content strategy by your side.
In addition, a HubSpot report states that 82% of marketers were using content marketing in 2021. Out of which, 70% have already invested in content marketing strategies.
Not having a proper content strategy is a big problem for B2B and B2C businesses today.
Now, no need to scramble and draft a quick content strategy for your business. Instead, take a long breath and follow this guide to compile a killer content marketing strategy.
Why do I need to invest in a custom content strategy?
Content strategy is a well-structured plan to create, manage, distribute and promote content to achieve desired objectives. Typically, a custom content strategy is a solid game-plan to promote your brand, generate leads and sales.
Businesses need to invest in a proper content strategy to:
- High-quality leads. 79% of marketers have reported generating high-quality leads in 2020 through redrafting their content strategy.
- Better ROI. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing. That’s not only it; content marketing can drive 3X more leads per dollar spent.
- Increase sales. According to an Edelman report, 48% of C-suite executives have agreed to give business to the company with good leadership content. Further, 41% stated that they had invited a company to work with them because they have compelling leadership content.
- Creative brand image. Content allows businesses to build a unique and innovative brand identity. This, in return, leads to increased creative output and project bandwidth as per 55% of marketers.
Characteristics of a good content strategy
At Marveta, we have found one thing common among all our new clients. They think that some random blog posts, social media content, and cold emails will make a compelling content marketing strategy.
Sorry to break this, people, that’s not a good content strategy. In fact, that’s not even a content marketing strategy. Both B2B and B2C content marketing strategies need to be engaging, unique, and creative for generating desired results.
Here’s what a good content marketing strategy looks like:
Definite goal and KPI
A good content strategy is designed to meet a measurable goal. Therefore, it is essential to decide content marketing KPIs before drafting a content strategy to check whether you have achieved preset goals or not in the end.
Publishing roadmap
Content creation includes many parts, such as planning, distribution, and promotion. Thus, a good content strategy must have a proper publishing roadmap to stay consistent with your content approach. For example, create a content calendar and mark publication dates.
Content variation
A good content strategy experiment with different content styles. It helps marketers target different audience bases. For example, some common content styles are blogs, research papers, whitepapers, case studies, etc. Besides this, a well-rounded content program revolves around different content distribution modes like videos, podcasts, infographics, and more.
At Marveta, we have found one thing common among all our new clients. They think that some random blog posts, social media content, and cold emails will make a compelling content marketing strategy.
Sorry to break this, people, that’s not a good content strategy. In fact, that’s not even a content marketing strategy. Both B2B and B2C content marketing strategies need to be engaging, unique, and creative for generating desired results.
Here’s what a good content marketing strategy looks like:
Several content promotion modes
Content promotion is an integral part of content strategy. Therefore, use different content promotion channels in your strategy to increase your content’s reach. For instance, you can target different social media marketing platforms to promote your brand like LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and more.
Talented curators team
Great content doesn’t come from thin air. You need talented writers, graphic designers, and video creators in your team to produce engaging content.
Marketing automation tools
Omnichannel content marketing and creation are impossible without adequate tools. Therefore, a series of paid and free tools are required to create content, such as Grammarly, Hemingway Editor, etc.
Adequate budget
Nothing good comes free in this world. For high-quality content creation and promotion, a significant budget is required. Leave a significant room in your annual marketing budget for compelling and implementing your content strategy.
How to create a content strategy for your business?
Content strategy is a higher-level business marketing activity. It is the decision-making activity that tells whom your content will impact, how your content will achieve your business objectives, and so on.
Thus, while creating your business content strategy, you have to follow a simple step by step guide:
Step 1. Define your content strategy objectives
What do you want to achieve through content marketing?
This is a major question that you should ask yourself before drafting a content growth plan. Your content marketing efforts will be aimless and resultless without proper goals or objectives.
So, ask yourself, are you creating content to:
- Generate leads
- Brand awareness
- Boost search engine ranking
- Target old clients
- Attract new clients or something else
Once you have a clear objective, you can create a content strategy that can help you achieve it. For example, if you want to improve brand awareness with content, you can use ebooks, research papers, and how-to guides. In contrast, if increasing sales is your main goal, free demos videos, testimonials or reviews are helpful.
Step 2. Know your audience
Your content strategy will be only effective if you have a clear audience in your mind. You can’t achieve your content marketing goals without knowing your audience.
To create an effective content roadmap, you have to know:
- Where does your audience hang out?
- What is the age, income, or gender of your targeted audience?
- What type of websites do your prospects already visit?
- Which style of content do they engage with on social media? Etc.
You can use Google Analytics to understand how your audience behaves with your on-site content and which posts attract higher traffic. Today, social media is also a great way to learn valuable information about your prospects.
For example, a study has shown that 71% of B2B buyers read blogs before purchasing. So, if you find the same pattern in your targeted audience, you can publish more blogs on your site. In addition, you can write blogs on topics that your audience more searches for online.
Step 3. Create a unique brand voice
Content is the best way to build your brand voice. The tone you use to write your content will create a certain image about your brand in your audience’s mind.
So, it is important to select the right content tone that can meet your brand identity and audience persona.
Suppose you are a B2C brand. In that case, you can use a simple and catchy content tone to connect with your audience. But, on the contrary, B2B brands have to use more refined vocabulary.
For example, if you check out the Canva Instagram page, you will find them targeting social topics, events, and user-generated content. Being a B2C brand helps Canva establish direct relationships with its customers.
On the flip side, if you head over to the HubSpot IG page, you can see lots of statistics, graphs, and charts. It’s due to most B2B buyers are professionals, and you need solid content to impress them.
Step 4. Run a content audit
This step is for users who are already investing in content marketing. However, before moving ahead, you should audit your current content assets to know which type of your content is performing well.
Content auditing will also help you understand how people interact with your content. And, how can you improve your present content strategy?
In addition, if you find a certain blog post or page attracting more traffic, you can produce ebooks or videos to elaborate it a bit more.
You can also syndicate your high-performing content using different content distribution channels. For example, if your blog post is generating high traffic, using its content, you can create infographics for your social media or videos for your YouTube channel.
Content auditing can save you from creating new content every time. Instead, it will allow you to repurpose your high-quality content and regenerate traffic.
Step 5. Define your content type
Another important step in content strategy formation is selecting the content type. Today, many different content types are trending online like blogs, podcasts, vlogs, social media, and more.
Therefore, selecting the right content type is challenging to suit your business goals. So, you should focus on primarily three things to find your content type—
Business nature
Your business nature plays a significant role in selecting your content type. For example, for B2B brands, LinkedIn is a perfect platform to connect with audiences and promote brands. On the other hand, Facebook and Instagram are major digital joints for B2C businesses to interact with direct customers.
Audience
Think of your audience persona before targeting a content type. For instance, if you wish to target young people, social media is the right platform for you. As of 2021, only 32% of Instagram users were between 25 to 35 years.
Budget
As we have already mentioned, good content doesn’t come for free. Thus, you have to set a significant budget for content creation, distribution, and promotion. And, we might add that 66% of B2B marketers plan to increase their content marketing budget for 2022. So, you better set an adequate content marketing budget to achieve desired results.
In our opinion, you should target 2-3 content styles at first in your content strategy. This way, you can monitor results and make adjustments in your strategy accordingly.
Plus, you can generate more results with a limited budget this way. Dipping into too many content types at once will only increase your budget.
Step 6. Document your content strategy
Most marketers make the big mistake of not documenting their content strategy. Unfortunately, they create verbal or unclear documents and expect results, which never happens.
Therefore, at Marveta, we spend our good time drafting and documenting a content strategy for individual clients. In fact, we document every stage and process. This helps to keep our entire team focused and streamlined.
Here are a few things that you should consider while documenting your content strategy:
- Consult your whole team and take their input
- Use proper Excel or Google sheet to define each content strategy
- Visualize your strategy for a better understanding
- Add notes to clarify points further
- Use a flexible model to document content strategy to make changes with time, etc.
Step 7. Measure your content strategy results
The final and important step is to measure your content marketing efforts. Producing content without observing results is like driving a car blindfolded. It would be best if you had a clear vision and audience feedback to keep your content strategy effective.
You can select content marketing KPIs based on your goals and objectives. However, some vital content performance metrics are:
Traffic
Traffic is the main metric that you should consider. It helps you understand how much traffic is generated via a piece of content. You should further bifurcate traffic as:
- Total number of unique visitors to a page
- Total number of pageviews
- Number of unique pageviews
Sales
Sales are the simplest content performance measurement metrics. You can know how many readers have clicked on the purchase button after reading a blog.
Engagement
Engagement metrics help you understand how effective your content strategy has been. The number of shares, likes, and comments will make you aware of your content’s engagement.
Lead generation
If your content is part of your lead generation process, evaluate how many new leads you have generated at each sale funnel stages. These metrics will help you tailor-made content specifically to target each sales funnel segment.
Let’s create a custom content strategy now!
Are you eager to customize a content strategy for your business? But, unfortunately, don’t you have sufficient time to measure your content results and reevaluate them based on the new content marketing trends?
In that case, you can knock at Marveta doorsteps anytime. We will understand your brand, niche, and audience base before drafting a unique content strategy to achieve your marketing objectives.
So, let’s not hold back any longer and touch up your old content strategy today!
