Things You Need To Craft A Content Strategy That Works

• Date: 28 May 2018
• reading time: 7 Minutes Minutes
• Blogger: Gurby Bulo
• E-mail: [email protected]

For a successful content marketing, you need a good content strategy that actually works well for your brand. To craft a good content strategy, you must have some, if not all, of the elements.

Goals and Definitions

A content strategy needs a goal or things that you want to achieve. Identify what your goals are and clarify it for your team. Ask questions that will help you identify it like:

• What are you trying to accomplish with your content? ;
• Why are you creating a particular content? ;
• How do we know that our content is on track in achieving our goals? ;
• Which goals should be prioritized? ;
• How do we define vital elements like leads?

Ask more questions if you have agreed on them.

Methodology for Measurements

You should find ways to measure the success or your content. You should also test and tweak and re-adjust it. Metrics to measure your content's success should be available. Pinpoint Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and see how they affect each of your goals. Some of the metrics that should be taken into consideration include:

• Awareness (reach which includes: impressions, views, publication pick-up, social content metrics;
• Organic traffic (SEO) to perception which includes brand indexes and surveys to social sentiments);
• Consideration (engagement which includes traffic, time on site, lead generation rate, leads);
• Decision-making (conversions which include leads, qualified leads MQLs and SALs) and;
• Post-purchase (which includes satisfaction and advocacy - product usage, customer review scores, product registrations, account renewals, product return rate, social fans or follows)

Some of these metrics may not apply to your brand but they can help you go in the right direction.

Lead Mapping or Journey

Map out the customer journey in a very detailed way when crafting your content program. From awareness to decision-making and from the later parts of the journey, there should be indicators from one stage to another. You should also know how to move them from one stage to another. You can start your map on a whiteboard and later digitize it. Include it in your strategy and share it with your team and parties who need it. Print copies of it for future reference. The map is very important for planning that may include: marketing automation systems to editorial scheduling. It will also be a big influence in your daily tactical discussions.

Insights From Audience

In creating compelling content, you should find out ideas and know what you are trying to reach. That's why we're trying to reach them, where are they located, how can we reach them, when should we reach them, how do they speak - technically or conversationally, what do they care about, what motivates and scares them, what problems do they have, what would their lives be easier, what are their demographics - age, jobs, goals, etc.

Document your insights by creating marketing personas that clearly define your targets. This would also help you engage people and scrutinize your ideas as you move along.

Messaging Platform

If your messaging platform needs refining, better do it right away. Be sure that everything is up to date from a value proposition, mission and vision statements, positioning, tagline, messaging hierarchy, etc. You need brand identity, voice and messaging in place.

Channel Opportunities

Look in the ways you reach your target audience. Examine the channels that you are using and look for ways you can target your audience. Questions that you could ask yourself about: where are we going to reach these people, how are we going to reach them (owned, earned, paid), where are their communities, what do they reach them?

Opportunities to Tell Stories

With the information you have gathered, you may start outlining recommendations for content you want to be written. These would include big ideas, general topics, content support and proof points that will fill out your content strategy. The goal is to crystallize your content approach and help other stakeholders know and understand the voice and stories you have to put into social media.

Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar is important when publishing content on a regular basis. Decide on the volume of content that you want to publish and how often you want to do it. Schedule your storytelling opportunities with general timelines, if you plan to pursue monthly themes and campaigns. Questions like: how often do we want to interact with the customers, what's happening in the calendars of our customers, who is creating the content, should we cover all channels, are the right stages of the funnel being covered, when is the due date , when will it be published, when setting up the calendar.

Keyword Strategy

Having good keyword strategy can help in building good SEO. Do research on the most applicable terms and tailor content for those keywords. Search engines reward content that is relevant and is good quality. Relevant means that it receives clicks and high engagement and quality means having good content and has a strong narrative.

Media Plans

How will your content hit the market? Consider all bases of media: owned, earned and paid. Each project would need a different kind of distribution. Therefore, find those with high-media buys which you might need to make. Think about this when you are planning the strategy and have the attention of stakeholders.

Budget

Time, money and resources should be used appropriately for your content strategy. You will have the benefit of planning for these as you plan your strategy. You can ask for an extra budget for your in-house team to handle the job or look at the value of the content you create.

Technology Stack

Plan on the technology you need for your content strategy. Dig into the details to ensure that your technologies align with your content plans. You might want to consider: a content management system, propriety data collection and storage, design and charting tools, content platforms, marketing, automation, customer relationship management software and paid media software

Your Content Team

The right people can make your content strategy happen. Even if you have a small team, you need to be on the same page at every stage of the process. The team is aware of the content strategy, involved in planning the design and finally, distribute the content created.

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• Blogger: Gurby Bulo
• E-mail: [email protected]
• Online Marketing Strategy Expert at Social Media Gids
• Internet entrepreneur Gurby Bulo is the Founder of Social Media Gids and host of @SMG Hangout. With his virtual team, they follow the latest online marketing developments because they like it ;-) and to provide you with information, strategies and support necessary to increase your online marketing knowledge, sales and growth on your way to (financial) freedom.
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