What is a content marketing strategy? Do I need a content marketing strategy?

70% of marketers are producing more content in 2017 than they did in 2016. It’s a vital part of your SEO and overall digital strategy for several reasons including the importance of fresh content to Google. Producing evergreen content (content that is as relevant in a few months as it is today) is also a cheap and reliable way to generate a steady stream of website traffic and leads. When the traffic reaches your website, it is an opportunity for you to generate awareness for your brand.

There are several steps for creating a content marketing strategy.

1. Define the goal

Why are you creating content? What do you want to achieve for your business and brand from producing this content? Make sure your content and your content strategy fits with this goal always.

2. Who are you trying to reach?

The target audience needs to be clearly defined. This is a pretty obvious one, by knowing your target audience, it will be easier to produce relevant content that they will want to read and (hopefully!) convert on.

3. What is your current content performance?

What are you currently producing and what is working in terms of driving traffic and leads to your website? If you aren’t producing content yet then that’s 1 step less for you to go through 😉

4. Define how the content will be managed

The main parts of content management to have in place are content creation, content publication and content performance analysis.

5. Brainstorm content ideas

Now it’s time to come up with ideas for the actual content you’re going to be producing. Let those creative juices flow!

6. What type of content do you want to produce?

Blog posts, infographics, videos, audio files, eBooks, podcasts, slide shares, Q&As sessions, webinars, guides – there are so many options to choose from depending on your goals and resources.

7. Create, publish, and organise the content

Time to get to work on creating the content from your strategy. The content marketing plan should also cover how the content will be organised. Use a content calendar and plan when the content needs to be published (and therefore created for). Then add in when this will be promoted across your social media.