Content, is today’s marketing gold. It is the key that brands are using to connect and resonate with their audiences. Here are seven simple steps to having a rock solid content strategy. The fundamental strategy for successful content marketing is to consistently create and publish great, helpful content. The more your target audience can believe that you have solutions and answers when they have questions, the more your reputation grows as a reliable source. This is what leads you becoming a reliable, trusted brand – a go to brand. Simply: People buy from people they trust.

When creating content, ask yourself these fundamental questions first: Is this content going to provide something that the community will benefit from? Is it unique and something that the user won’t quickly find just anywhere? And, does it resolve a problem and answer a useful question. Then, use these steps to draft a solid strategy:

1. Outline your brand goals and objectives

Your social media and content marketing goals should reflect your brand and company goals. How do your content goals (both from a type of content you create, and where it will reside) should align and support your brand’s marketing goals. Audit your current social media situation and ensure that it is in line with overall marketing objectives.

2. Define your target audience

Who is your content aimed at? Have you taken the time to really understand your target audience?  Do you know their demographics? Their social media behaviours? Their media consumption habits?

Read : Customer Insights is your First Step in Digital Marketing

3. Where’s the demand? What content do they want?

Take your time to understand exactly what kind of content your audience is looking for. What are the questions they are asking? What problems do they need resolved? You need to continuously keep listening across all social media to keep a tab on this. This is critical to formulating your content strategy.

4. What kind of format works for your audience?

What format works well for your audience and community? Is it infographics? Videos? Text? Blogs? Live Streams? Webinars? You can test this yourself by analysing what does well for your posts, or you can get insights on this by monitoring what works well for your competition or your vertical.

5. What platforms are they on?

Knowing where your audience really is helps you decide on your distribution strategy. You may be creating great, useful content, but if it is on the wrong platform, it does not serve your purpose. There’s two points here to keep in mind. First, which platforms are they on, and second, what type of platform suits your type of content well.

6. Track your content performance

Have trackable, traceable criteria in place to measure performance. Set your performance goals and track against them. How do you identify and analyze what key metrics you will use? Different elements have different criteria you log against. For sales, it would be click rates and conversions, for awareness it would be audience growth and engagement.

7. Be consistent

Being consistent is key to be recognized as reliable. Having a plan is important, but do stick to it. And, as well, have a sense of readiness for in the moment content – content that reflects what’s happening around you. But again, being consistent with platform, format, delivery, timeliness are all key to succeeding.
Please share this with your friends and colleagues, and do feel free to add your comments.
Now read these related posts:

• 6 Must Know tips to Succeed with Content Marketing in 2017

• Content Marketing Strategy: What kind of content should you create?

• Plan your Distribution Strategy to succeed with Content Marketing

• Winning Content Strategy: Always share something valuable and useful

First published on Tom Roy’s blog ‘Digital Marketing Strategies 101‘
Tom Roy is CIO at MCN