5 questions to ask as you build your content marketing strategy
I’ve met clients and business partners that have grown frustrated by their content marketing efforts and the little payoff they’ve seen. A lot of these fumbling marketing strategies are having problems because they’re just throwing out different content pieces and hoping something sticks or hoping just one big piece of content drives all the leads they’re looking for for the rest of the year.
That isn’t a good long-term content marketing strategy. A strong content strategy will make sure each content piece works harmoniously with the other and helps generate leads much longer after its first week live and that there are several anchor pieces of content to drum up excitement and new leads.
Your content marketing should address three different stages:
- Attract
- Educate
- Convert
Your strategy should also include different kinds of content, like blogs, ebooks and webinars, advertising campaigns, sponsored content, automated email campaigns, video, and so on. A content marketing strategy will guide your content production and promotion schedule, tie all of your campaigns together, and ensure a consistent look and feel to all of your pieces.
As you map out your 2020 marketing campaigns and content initiatives, be sure to ask yourself these five questions to direct your strategy.
1. What’s the goal of your marketing?
You won’t know if your marketing is working if you don’t set any goals, hence the reason many clients get frustrated that nothing’s working because they don’t know if they’ve reached their goal or not.
Your content should drive people to an action or provide an answer and get them to learn more about your brand.
Your content marketing goal could be as easy as increasing brand awareness, or establishing your brand as a thought leader, or maybe it’s to improve revenue and subscriptions. Whatever it is, all of your content should be assisting in that goal.
2. Who is your audience?
For your content to be successful you need to know who you’re marketing to and what they’re looking for in your campaigns. Is your target audience even the right audience for your brand or product?
Some basic information you need to know about your audience includes their:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Income
- Buying habits
- Pain points
- Emotional triggers
- What content and format they like
- How they communicate and share information
- What makes them loyal
3. What tactics will you invest in?
Some marketing tactics are more cost-effective than others when it comes to sharing your brand’s story.
Some popular content marketing tactics include:
- Blogs
- Sponsored content
- Advertorials
- Infographics
- Cheat sheets
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Interviews
- Industry research
- Ebooks
- Webinars
- Case studies
- Whitepapers
- Events/Speaking engagements
- Email campaigns
A question you’ll want to ask when creating your content is: What will your audience get out of it?
If you’re creating the content just to create it, it won’t get the traffic or engagement you’re hoping for and you’re right back to hoping something will stick to the wall. Make sure your content has a purpose and your audience will get something out of it, whether that’s an answer to a question, sharing best practices of using your product, or a forward-thinking educational piece.
You’ll want to include a healthy mix of content types to keep your marketing fresh and engaging. Again, keep in mind how each piece of content can complement or build up another piece. For example, you could be using an anchor piece like an ebook or webinar and turn part of a chapter into a cheatsheet or blog post, directing people to download or view the anchor piece for all the information they’re looking for.
You could also turn some of the stats used in the piece into an infographic, give a copy of your ebook to an industry influencer and then interview them about it for a blog or podcast, and make a teaser video for social media that tells people where to download the real thing.
When planning your content strategy you’ll also want to look at what your competitors are doing to make sure you’re staying competitive and on-target with your content marketing efforts.
4. How will you promote it?
You’ve invested all this time and effort into creating quality content so make sure you’ve scheduled time to promoting your pieces.
I keep two separate calendars for tracking all my efforts, one for my overall content marketing calendar and one for my social media posts. As I create my content marketing calendar I can earmark dates for social campaigns promoting the pieces.
Think about the different outlets you can use to promote your content like:
- Social media
- PPC advertising
- Sponsored emails
- Sponsored social media posts (direct advertising or sponsorships with industry media publishers)
- Working with influencers
- Blog directories
5. How and when will you measure your results?
Make tracking your results easier with a reporting template and setting up automatic reports through Google Analytics.
Keep track of:
- Site traffic and growth/decreases
- Click-through rate
- Form fills/downloads
- Unique visitors
- Bounce rate
- Time on site
- Referral source
- Conversion rate
- Social engagement and shares
You can also make your yearly audit easier by keeping track of monthly metrics and compiling a running list of the content pieces you published that month and how they performed – including sponsored content.
I run my reports monthly, quarterly, and yearly to make sure I’m on top of trends or potential problems.
What tips do you have for your fellow marketers on crafting a content marketing strategy? Share in the comments below or on Twitter!
