Can The Content Work For You?
Let's talk strategy
Probably you've already heard the buzzword Content Marketing being thrown around one too many times?
And it’s pretty much self explanatory, right?
“Content Marketing is a type of marketing that involves the creation and sharing of online material that does not explicitly promote a brand but is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services.”
But what does this really mean?
If content marketing isn’t necessarily a designed visual with my brand’s logo and descriptive promotion of my products/services, then what else can it be?
The truth is that possibilities are endless…
But, you should be careful since you can get lost pretty easily and that’s why you need Content Strategy.
What Is Content Strategy, and How To Create a Good One?
The goal of content strategy is to create meaningful, cohesive, engaging, and sustainable content aligned with the goals of your campaigns.
But first things first, who are you talking to?
1. Decide your target audience
This pretty much will be your signpost as for where you are headed with your content since the main stop will be reaching them.
Deciding the target audience should open and answer the most important questions that will give you a solid start point.
Who are they? What do they like? Why would they need your product/service?
What questions and doubts they might have related to your product/service?
2.What topics would you create content on?
Now let’s think a bit about how you want your brand to be experienced and known?
Take out the funnel, and start thinking of how you want to present, engage, sell or just interest them in your brand, product or service.
Write the potential topics (angles of the initial content) for each of the funnel stages.
At this point, you know who you are talking to and you know what you want to say to them.
So... Bravo! Because this is one of the crucial steps, and I suggest taking your time with it.
3. Be concise on what you want to achieve with your content in each stage of your funnel.
So, what do you want to achieve with placing content? I guess ultimately conversions, but how?
You need to be more specific and concise.
Let’s answer some questions that will help us determine this step.
How many leads do you get every month through your website compared to your social media?
How do you want the potential leads to engage with your website?
And we answer these questions just to come to the main question BY HOW MUCH WOULD YOU LIKE TO INCREASE THESE NUMBERS AND ACTIONS? Set realistic objectives.
4. Think about the after…
Basically now you are determining how you will achieve the numbers we set at the previous step.
Think about what you want your leads to do after they’ve consumed the content.
Take the entire customer journey and put down the potential ways on exactly how the content will spark action.
Here is an example:
My goal is to help businesses grow by tripling their leads.
My initial content is a social media ad that leads you to this article, valuable content that guide you to easily develop your own content strategy.
After you read this article, a pop-up will come up where I will ask for your email address to give you more exclusive valuable content, that will save you precious time and money and you can’t find it anywhere else.
Once you give me your email address, that is if you are interested in generating more quality leads, I will send you this free content and then via e-mail I will offer to help you grow your business with building your winning funnel and tripling your leads in 90 days!
See what I did there and how my content helps me achieve my business objectives?
Well, if not, detect the content pieces in my customer journey and if you don’t have time or you simply don’t want to bother to create your own steps, just replicate it, it’s my little gift to you! :)
5. Determine the type of content you will be putting out there
Here we enter in the never-ending garden of ideas.
You should focus on being efficient while creating and making sure it all makes sense in the funnel. (Take notes from the example above.)
You can choose from:
- Blog Posts/Articles
- White Papers, eBooks
- Podcasts
- E-mail
- Social Media Posts
- Videos
- How to Guides
- Webinars
Keep in mind that every type of content does not fit all businesses, regardless of whether you are excited about doing Webinars per se.
There is no point of doing a Webinar, let's say if you're selling rubber bands.
Okay technically you can, but it won’t be smart and you’ll be wasting resources that can be used for more effective content.
You get my point…
To conclude, the type of content you choose to put out here is important and every bit of content you are planning to do should be put into your strategy.
6. Decide the frequency and consistency of creating and posting this content
Decide how much content you will produce and and how much and will you be publishing.
Now that you have your list of contents divided by topic, type, segmented into a funnel, stages go and break it down into an action plan.
For example:
Blog posts on the quality of my rubber bands twice a month.
GIF’s on my social media accounts four times a week, etc.
My advice is BE CONSISTENT, make realistic plans for your content frequency and stick to it!
Now you can get to action!
