Connect with us

Business

6 Vital Steps to Create a Killer Content Strategy for Your Business

Published

on

6 Vital Steps to Create a Killer Content Strategy for Your Business

Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

Content is what the internet is made of and what we all enjoy browsing through in our spare time. In order for your brand to stand out, however, you will need a good content strategy to go along with your products and services.

According to Small Biz Trends, 91% of businesses use content marketing to boost public awareness and generate leads. Likewise, 80% of people want to learn more about a company through custom content before they make a purchase or subscribe to their services. Creating killer content is about earning the trust of people you want to build a professional relationship with – let’s take a closer look at how.

Reasons to Create a Content Strategy for your Business

Why should you spend time planning your marketing strategy instead of “going with the flow” and creating content for your blog or social media pages? Based on Small Biz Genius, 65% of marketers do struggle with creating engaging content loved by users and Google’s SEO alike, since SERP ranking matters. However, 72% of marketers reported that planned content marketing has improved their income significantly with 70% of US companies now actively investing in content marketing.

Whether you create a short blog post or publish visual content on social media, these pieces of content will have ripple effects on your brand. Planning your steps in advance and having a clear goal in mind for your advertisement campaign is always smarter than ad hoc marketing. Thus, the practical benefits of creating a content strategy for your business prior to creating any content include:

  • Better collaboration, focus and creativity of your staff
  • Marketing content closely related to your branding and product/service portfolio
  • Improved brand authority and reputation in the industry
  • Creating content which is more consistent with audience expectations
  • Access to objective analytics data on what works and doesn’t work for your audience
  • Dramatically improved return on investment compared to unorganized content marketing

Vital Steps to Create a Killer Content Strategy for your Business

1. Outline Long-Term Goals for your Business

In order for you to create better content for your business going forward, you should start by outlining concrete goals for your marketing efforts. Specifically, what do you want to accomplish by creating marketing content? These goals will vary drastically depending on your business’ product portfolio, industry and market.

However, a solid set of goals can be introduced to your marketing strategy through SMART, mind-mapping and brainstorming. You can use tools such as Trello and Asana to not only remotely manage your team but also track goals and delegate content creation duties.

2. Choose your Marketing Channels

The platforms where you publish your marketing content will also depend on which audience profiles you wish to approach. Businesses that focus on retail sales or B2B will benefit from using email marketing while SaaS and eCommerce companies can make use of social media.

It’s important that you mix up the platforms you market your brand on in order to reach a wider audience but also not to over-extend. Prioritize the channels you think will be most popular with your target audience and focus your content creation efforts on those platforms first and foremost.

3. Settle on the Content Types to Create

You are not bound by expectations or technology when it comes to which types of content you can create for marketing purposes. Thankfully, both social media and email marketing are flexible enough to allow for a wide range of content types that you can pursue. Some of the content types available to you include but are not limited to:

  • Written content (blog posts, social media posts, emails, instant messages, PPC…)
  • Multimedia content (podcasts, video blogs, infographic content, photos…)
  • Interactive content (live stream, Q&A, quizzes, giveaways…)
  • Publications (PDFs, eBooks, guides, resources…)

If you find yourself overwhelmed with different content types, writing and publishing, you can visit this site to get professional editing help. Blog articles, video scripts and PDF resources will require different formatting in order for you to use the most out of them. Explore content types available to you in full and leave no stone unturned.

4. Assemble a Set of Content Tools

Once you’ve decided on the content types you’d be interested in pursuing, you should also choose several different tools to work with. Using dedicated tools for content creation will ensure that the quality of your work is professional and even from the start.

In terms of writing, tools such as Evernote and Grammarly can prove highly useful throughout the content creation process. For visuals, you can rely on Canva and Adobe Spark for images and videos respectively. Naturally, there is a plethora of content tools, both free and premium, which you can use to create content for your business. Remember to explore your options and settle for a few before jumping into content creation to make the process faster and more enjoyable.

5. Mind your SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the de facto reason to systematically create marketing content instead of taking an ad hoc approach. Based on Smart Insights, 81% of people search for products/services online before making a purchase, while only 13% of businesses retain their ranking long-term. Whether you focus on writing or multimedia, SEO will help your content gain visibility in search engines such as Google and Bing.

Check out tools such as Google Keyword Planner and SEM Rush to discover trending keywords and content optimization techniques suitable for your industry. Abide by SEO algorithm trends in your content optimization and the engagement your content will enjoy will be that much higher for it.

6. Engage your Audience as Much as Possible

As you start publishing new content under your new content strategy banner, people will start engaging with it through comments and sharing on social media. In order to make the most of your content, you should engage your audience as much as possible through different channels.

Respond to their comments, tag them on social media and respond to any direct messages you receive in a timely fashion. This will paint a very pro-consumer image of your brand and improve your business’ word of mouth significantly. As you interact with your audience, user-generated content ideas and testimonials can come into play as an extension of your interaction.

Looking at the Bigger Content Creation Picture (Conclusion)

Slowing down your marketing efforts to plan and strategize may seem like a waste of time at first. But, the more you think about your next steps, the more creative opportunities you will start to notice. Think long-term rather than short-term and set lofty goals for your business to pursue in the following months and years. Create the type of content you yourself would like to read or see and the right audience will quickly flock around your brand.

Alison Lee is a professional content creator, blogger and editor with extensive experience in digital publishing. Her body of work includes articles and case studies in digital marketing, online sales and professional development. She is a passionate writer driven by her love for copywriting. In spare time, Alison likes to read and engage in personal development courses.

Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Trending