Content marketing strategy and planning
To get the most from content marketing, its important to plan ahead and take a strategic approach. You have more chance of success with a detailed strategy and clear plan.
Set objectives
Its important to define your goals and what want to achieve from content marketing. You may want to increase your brand awareness among your target audience or drive traffic to your site to boost online sales. You should set SMART (specific, measureable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) objectives. See your marketing objectives.
Define your target audience
Consider who your target audience are. You should research their needs and interests so you can create content they will find valuable and relevant. See understand your customers needs.
If you already publish content (such as blog posts) analyse what has been popular and look at your web visitor demographics.
Brainstorm content topics and formats
Use research to help develop ideas for new content. Consider what has worked in the past and look at social media to find trending topics in your industry. Staff who work directly with customers may have ideas on what will be most relevant.
There are various formats and types of content you can try. For example; blog posts, infographics, videos and templates. See types of content for marketing.
Plan, manage and publish
Plan to publish your content throughout the year with an editorial calendar. This will help you spread out your content over time and ensure its topical. For example, if you are a gift retailer you could publish a blog post on romantic present ideas before Valentines day.
Your calendar will help keep you on track of when content should be written, approved and published.
You should also use a schedule to plan when you will promote each piece of content on your various social media and other marketing channels.
Evaluate and refine
To evaluate the success of your content marketing, look at metrics that relate to your objectives. You could measure:
number of downloads
page visits
social media engagement
conversions such as sales or registrations
As part of your evaluation you should consider the return on investment. Use your analysis to refine and improve future campaigns.
Creating content for marketing campaigns
To create quality content for your audience, you should base your decisions on research and analysis of the popularity of past content. When you are starting out you should trial various content formats and topics so you can compare the results.
Aim to create content that is valuable to your audience. Generate content that is:
informative
entertaining
accurate, where facts are included
relevant
original
offering a solution to a problem
thought provoking
Headlines
Getting your headlines right is important to grab your audiences attention and for search engine optimisation (SEO). Consider the following best practice:
Make sure your headline is accurate and relevant to the content. The user should have a clear expectation of what the content will be.
Use the right keywords. Consider the kind of language your audience will search for.
Keep it interesting. The headline is your chance to draw your audience in. Make the value of the content clear and use emphatic language.
Ensure your headline is concise otherwise it will get cut off by search engines and social media platforms.
Try using numbers in your headline. People enjoy reading list articles as they know they will get a quick summary of information.
Images
Images are a useful way to break up text-based content and to illustrate information. Consider using a combination of text and visual content such as photos, graphs, infographics and videos.
Topical vs evergreen content
Some content is topical and current, for example news articles, seasonal content, statistics or pieces about recent trends. This kind of content will be effective at the time of publishing and works well on social media.
However, evergreen content will remain relevant and retain its value over time. This type of content may include how-to guides, templates, videos and top tips. With the right keywords, it can drive search engine traffic to your site in the long-term.
You should consider using a mix of topical and evergreen content as part of your content marketing strategy.