Content Strategy in 5 Steps

Photo by Liana Mikah on Unsplash

Did you know Bill Gates’ statement “Content is King” dates back to 1996? More than 20 years have gone by and this statement is still stronger than ever.

Marketing and content go hand in hand. You cannot conduct marketing without content, as content is the first and most important link that connects a company with the customer.

Content strategy creation has five crucial steps, and I guarantee by the end of this article you will know how to develop your content marketing strategy for 2019.

Step 1. Objective Setting

Setting objectives for your content marketing campaign should start with reviewing your business goals. Identify where your business is now and where you want to be next year:

• Are you known in this industry? Do you need to increase your brand awareness and exposure?
• Are you happy with your product and website, but the traffic to your site is low or non-existent?
• Do you want to talk to your customers on social media platforms and increase engagement with them?
• Do you want to generate more leads and increase sales?

Step 2. Content Types

After establishing your business needs and setting your content objectives, you need to define what types of content you want to create.

Below are the top 10 types of content you can choose from and how to use them:

1. Text: use on social media platforms to briefly describe your post and capture the reader’s attention, so they proceed to click, read, like and share your post with their network.
2. Images: a universal medium that can be used not only on social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, but in combination with an article.
3. Videos: initiate conversations by creating short videos. Present your product and features and share the clips on your website and other social media platforms.
4. Articles & Blogs: there are multiple topics you can write about. Introduce your company, showcase your products or services, talk about industry trends, and share updates. Think about your customer and what would they be interested in reading. Demonstrate your expertise and become a thought leader in your industry. Keep it consistent and aim to publish at least one article per month.
5. Downloads: create templates, guides, how-tos, ebooks, and case studies related to your industry. Share these on your website or social media platforms in exchange for a name and email address of the person downloading it. This way you will not only help your readers make well-informed decisions thanks to the knowledge you shared, but collecting these names will help generate leads, who you will then be able to convert into customers.
6. Webinars: just like videos, webinars are one of the best ways to connect with your audience. Inform your audience in advance that you will be hosting a live webinar and talk about the topics your target audience is interested in. Webinars will help you understand your audience better, build relationships and raise brand awareness, among other things. Make sure to save some time for a short Q&A at the end.
7. Podcasts: this is one of the easiest ways to create and reuse content. Podcasts can generate higher engagement, increase traffic and establish trust with your listeners. To make podcasts more interesting you can invite guests as the speaker or interviewee. Be consistent and schedule weekly or monthly podcasts.
8. Fun Facts: your content does not have to be always about your company, its products or industry news. Incorporate fun or interesting statistics relevant to your readers. Make them wait in anticipation for your next post to learn something new.
9. Infographics: an easy and interactive way of explaining complex processes, concepts or statistics.
10. User Generated Content (UGC): Share the content created by your followers. Make sure to tag them and give them credit.

Step 3. Customer Preferences

Now that you know which content types you can choose from, let’s find out what your audience prefers. Do they prefer reading articles or are they more visual, going for images and videos?

There are a couple of ways you can find out more about your audience’s preference.

Competition Analysis: a fast way to develop your content strategy is to look at what content your competition is sharing on their website and social media platforms. See which posts get most of the interaction and likes. But this does not mean you have to copy what they are doing. Analyse their approach, elevate it and adapt it to the best of your knowledge.

Poll: open a poll on Facebook and ask your followers about their preferences on content types. This will immediately give you a starting point.

Surveys: these are more time consuming but the rewarding way is to ask your audience what they prefer to see and read by creating and sharing a short survey. While you are at it, use this opportunity and include other questions, such as customer pain points, preferred topics, and social media platforms; this will give you even more clues and inspiration.

Step 4. Content Calendar Creation

All you have to do now is develop a content calendar. Decide on how often you will be posting, what content type to use, and what topics to talk about. I would personally recommend you use a content sharing tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite. You can connect your social media accounts with the software and schedule posts for the next two weeks for free.

A common misconception among professionals is that they think they have to create all the content they want to publish. A best practice here would be to curate content, which means finding interesting content on the web and sharing it on your social media accounts, again giving credit to the author. Doing so on a regular basis will establish you as a thought leader in your industry.

Step 5. Measure and Adjust

Schedule a quarterly or biannual content strategy review to see which of your content is performing best, which are the content types, topics and platforms that are getting most of the attention and are resulting in sales. Based on this adjust your strategy accordingly.

The beauty about the content strategy is that it’s not set in stone and it can and should be adjusted continuously. Test the waters, see what your readers like, and if you do not get the engagement you need or want, simply rethink your strategy and continue testing. Good luck!

SPIN Ideas is a strategy marketing agency, focusing on startups and SMS. We help our clients find their place in the market and grow. You want to hear more about what we do and have monthly marketing updates, subscribe to SPIN Ideas’ Journal.