With over 78 million people in the US alone blocking ads, garnering the term “adlergic,” creating smart content that reaches our target consumers has gotten more critical than ever.
Content marketing is smart marketing in an age where our consumers are looking for what they want, when they want it.
Content marketing WORKS tremendously well.
But, it doesn’t hit those HUGE return numbers without a smart content strategy.
The best content marketers use a strong content strategy. It’s true – Content Marketing Institute’s benchmark study says the most successful content marketers are far more likely than their less successful peers to have a documented content marketing strategy (65% vs. 14%)!
So, you have to know your content strategy to achieve real content marketing success.
Not sure how to do that? You’re in luck! Learn how to put together an effective content strategy for powerful marketing, in my new video.
[bctt tweet=”Watch as @JuliaEMcCoy discusses the 6 cores involved in a high-performing content strategy for your #contentmarketing ” username=”ExpWriters”]
How to Create a Content Strategy for Your Content Marketing (Video)
Video Transcription: How to Build a Strong Content Strategy for Your Content Marketing
If you know me, you already know how much I LOVE content marketing. I’ve been preaching it, writing books about content strategy and marketing, and practicing it since 2011.
Heck, I’ve got ‘serial content marketer’ and ‘content hacker’ in all my social media bios.
I believe in content marketing and a smart content strategy because, simply put, it WORKS to build a real audience today. Content is one of the LOWEST-COST, highest-ROI marketing efforts you could be doing, especially if you focus on your onsite presence. SEO content leads have a 14.6% close rate, as opposed to outbound leads (1.7% close rate!)
Through a smart content strategy and content marketing, inside eight years, I’ve built a seven-figure digital agency. I haven’t had to show up to any office – at all – in those seven years. I haven’t had to cold call. I fired my commission sales rep over three years ago because content marketing works so well! Our story of growth through content has gone around town. Neil Patel has featured it on his site (this study is fairly old – we’re at 2,500 visitors/day organically now), and we were even interviewed and featured on Forbes.
BUT – before I got smart on my content marketing strategy, let me tell you, my content was a HOT MESS! I was publishing with no results, just hitting publish, publish, and in a hamster wheel of content efforts.
After figuring out our content strategy, I almost TRIPLED our agency’s monthly income!
Keep watching for the full story, and the lowdown on the six content strategy cores I still use today for powerful results.
Before we go any further, hit that subscribe button! I want you back here! Click on the banner below to visit my YouTube channel and subscribe.
The Backstory: Before I Put a Content Strategy In Place, Here’s What My Content Marketing Results Looked Like
Okay, so quick backstory before I go into the six content strategy cores you should be putting into practice for real content marketing results.
From my beginning year of 2011 all the way up until about 2015, I was a stressed-out, struggling marketer.
I was producing content in a whirlwind of deadlines, just to keep my “online presence” afloat.
My agency made money, and we got leads… but not enough. It always seemed we’d ride by with nothing to show for it each month.
Why can’t my marketing WORK? I’m creating content daily! I was thinking to myself.
Fast-forward to 2016. After working for five years in my agency, I decided a “spray-and-pray” approach just wasn’t good enough. I settled in, stood back, and taught myself how to be strategic. I tested, analyzed, and surveyed. Then, I applied a series of strategic moves to my content marketing, started publishing less, and focused on the right things.
And it paid off…
In less than 18 months, I reached 150% MONTHLY revenue growth.
Our team and client base grew by 25%, we now have almost 90 team members, and we have new clients coming in every week after finding us through our content.
Getting strategic with our content has truly paid off.
We don’t have to sell ourselves anymore — our content does the selling.
These six content strategy cores are the reason our marketing is so successful. Let’s get into them.
The 6 Cores of a Successful Content Strategy
At a birds-eye, here are all six:
Your Content Marketing Fundamentals
Your Audience and The Sales Cycle
Know Your SEO
Build Online Authority Consistently
Create Content that Actually Works to Build Your Audience, Presence, and Revenue
Budget, Promote, and Maintain for Consistent Success
Did I mention that these aren’t quick overnight hacks? They truly aren’t. Let’s get into a bit more detail.
First, fundamentals. Everything you create in content marketing is stronger with a good foundation. You should spend a minimum of one week just planning before you create.
Here are a few fundamentals to know. First, know your topic area to build content inside of. Or, if this is for a client, this is their topic area. Center this around your expertise, and then branch out to what your audience wants to hear from you about. So if you sell shoes, don’t talk about shoes. Talk about health and fitness apps, knee health maintenance, and warmup exercises for runners.
Secondly, get to know your audience and be able to connect them to the sales cycle. Build a real audience persona by conducting market research surveys. Get to know your audience like you would a friend. Then, find out what interests them at the three stages in the sales cycle, from awareness to intent, evaluation, purchase, and loyalty.
Thirdly, get to know your SEO. Know how to research for a great keyword. Know how to write well-optimized SEO content. This is the fundamental knowledge you have to have to build incredible onsite content that brings traffic and growth in your future months. Set up your tools and time to consistently research keywords. Look for long tail keywords instead of broad keywords.
Fourthly, build your online authority consistently by focusing on a strong content house, where everything you create will live. This is your website, not another publisher’s platform that can take away publishing rights or reach. Everything you create on your house is lasting and will domino to more results over time.
Fifthly, learn how to create content that works. Delegate and get support at this stage. My agency, Express Writers, writes for hundreds of marketers and agencies. Maybe you need a writing team to craft high-quality blogs and website pages. You need to get consistent to see results, and you need to create worthwhile, valuable content.
Sixth and finally, set a content budget, promote the content on your house to your email list and social media, and maintain (clean, take care of) your content for ongoing success.
Now, this was just a bird’s-eye view of all six cores. I do have a 60-minute training that goes over each one of these content strategy cores, which you can access immediately here. Just put in your email address and you’ll instantly receive an email with the video file to watch on demand. You don’t have to show up at a certain time or day.
P.S. Did you see our new intro in today’s video? My husband got that footage with me with a drone right here in Austin, Texas. The bridge is called the Pennybacker Bridge, over the Loop 360 highway. If you’re ever in Austin, give me a shout! And don’t forget to hit that subscribe button, and the little bell to get notified for my new videos. See you around!
Need Help in the Content Creation Side of Content Marketing, Without Quality Loss?
Our team of writing experts at Express Writers is here to support your content creation!
Or, more specifically, consistent, strategic content marketing.
Online content strategy, a real, firm strategy, became my best friend to get to the “serious growth” phase.
The thing is, it took YEARS to figure out and perfect.
All the pieces had to come together, and I had to test, re-test, and test again to find out what worked (and, what didn’t).
When I figured it out, things snowballed.
Our income from Express Writers boomed to six-figures, and then to seven-figures ARR, inside just two years.
Here’s the story, and how I used my experience to get clear on EXACTLY what I needed to reach bigger, better, bolder success.
After that, I’m going to share the 6 steps I used to hone my online content strategy to a razor-sharp edge: the exact same system you can use to get crystal-clear on your own content and start seeing real results.
(What you’re about to read is a sneak peek into the six pillars of content success that I discuss and teach at length in my intensive content strategy & marketing book and course.)
Online Content Strategy Clarity Equals Success: From Near-Failure to Six-Figures after Getting Strategic
I started my business, Express Writers, from basically nothing – I was a college dropout with a dream and a mere $75 of pocket cash.
The beginning was hard. Here’s what that looked like, 2 years into the game:
By that time I had published 215 blogs, had 141 keywords ranking on Google, about 500 visitors/day to my site from organic traffic, and was earning around $29K/month.
I was creating content, but the results were lackluster.
I was doing a few things wrong:
My content quality wasn’t consistently high
I often published content just to “get it out there”
I was trying to push out TOO MUCH content (at least one blog post a day)
I was doing cold outreach to get more clients – and not earning any ROI for my time spent (read: the cold emails I sent out turned up nothing but crickets chirping)
I was trying to boost growth on every channel possible
In short, growth from content marketing was slow. I was hustling every day, snatching at leads wherever I could. And, the leads I did get from my content weren’t that good.
And, all of this was happening while I was a wife, a mom of a two-year-old, and had an understandably busy family life.
Bottom line: I was overworked and not seeing the results I dreamed of from my content.
The Turning Point: Enter Content Strategy
The turning point came in 2016. Our low-profit, high-expense months were not sustainable. We were making an average of $65K/month, but were lucky to take home 35% of that total.
Then, in May 2016, I discovered my two managers had been embezzling from the company for months.
I fired them. After that, some reassessing happened. I had to rebuild my business and my team.
It wasn’t until a few months later, while we were still slowly recovering, that I finally started implementing a content strategy.
With the combination of that strategy and better members on the EW team, we started seeing returns, slowly but surely.
We even started setting records for our monthly gross income.
Before using content strategy, I was publishing an average of 4 blogs/week. We had about 3,900 keywords indexed on Google, and we were making $65K/month, with some lower months after the embezzling fiasco.
One year later, and only a few months after implementing a content strategy, we hit our first $71K month in income. We also reached 6,000 keywords indexed on Google, which was nearly double the amount from the previous year.
And that momentum kept building as I refined my content strategy.
We continued having record months. Our Google presence kept building, and our online visibility skyrocketed. We started ranking #1 for hot keywords, and our traffic jumped to thousands of visitors per day.
Today, our content marketing continues to work and build on itself.
Without the strategy, though, none of it would be possible.
By now, you’re probably dying to know what that strategy looks like.
Listen up, because I’m sharing the 6 steps to my content strategy framework next. These steps build out the foundation of a rock-solid strategy.
6 Steps to Build an Unstoppable Content Strategy Framework
This is how you do content marketing that wins.
1. Understand the Basic Fundamentals of a Content Strategy
Content strategy defines as:
If you don’t understand what a content strategy is, go back and get clear on this. It’s the only way you’ll also understand how content strategy fits into content marketing, and why the two cannot exist without each other.
Think of it this way: It’s impossible to succeed at any activity without a thorough base knowledge to guide you. Content strategy is no different.
You should also know what you’re talking about, and how to branch out into topics your audience wants to hear about. Finding your topic area is a fundamental first step in a content strategy.
Along with that, know your CDF – your Content Differentiation Factor. What makes you different than all the other content voices out there?
2. Know Your Audience and How to Lead Them to a Sale (Bridge the Gap)
Knowing your audience is one thing, but knowing how to turn your audience into customers is another.
If you don’t understand how to bridge that gap, you’re missing out on one of the biggest first steps involved in putting your content strategy in place.
Of course, before you can connect the dots, you must know who your REAL audience is – not your imagined audience (only research and having actual conversations can tell you this!).
Once you know your persona, you can create content that matches the lifecycle stages of awareness, in the sales cycle. Example:
3. Use SEO (and Understand Its Importance)
Want to get found online? Including SEO in your content strategy is a foolproof way to do it organically, without paying a cent for ads.
Using SEO to get all its associated benefits means:
Knowing how to find keywords that will bring you profitable traffic (people with buying intent)
Knowing which tools to use to do keyword research
Understanding Google’s ranking factors and making sure your content hits them
You need to know the right tools and methodologies to use when you’re working on improving your search engine rankings. Keyword research plays a big part in this.
4. Build Your Gravitas Online (Be an Authority)
Building your authority online can have a few different meanings.
It can mean:
Building your brand as a trusted source of information
Building your brand as an authority website by Google’s standards
Both are valuable to your content strategy, and you should do things that help boost your gravitas in both scenarios.
Just one way to build your domain as an authority in Google’s eyes is to focus on publishing content on YOUR platform, i.e. a domain that YOU own – not proprietary ones like Facebook, Instagram, or HuffingtonPost (which sadly discontinued their guest blogging platform not too long ago–I, along with many others, lost my content profile and login).
[bctt tweet=”Focus on your ‘content house’ to get better online results, says @JuliaEMcCoy. #ContentMarketing #SEOContent ” username=”ExpWriters”]
5. Create Content Strategically
When the times comes to create content, guess what?
This is what your content strategy is FOR.
Every previous step should lead you in the right direction for creating the right kind of content for your audience and brand.
Of course, there are a few extra steps involved, like putting a workable process in place for content creation (research, writing, editing, publishing); understanding what kind of formatting, tone of voice, and topics lead to high-ROI; and placing quality above quantity.
6. Maintain + Build Your Content Momentum (Budget, Audit, and Promote)
To maintain your forward progress with content marketing and strategy, you must budget wisely, audit strategically, and promote faithfully.
These three activities will keep your content marketing going. Instead of drifting aimlessly in a boat with no paddles, you’ll be riding the next wave with a motor at your back.
Budgeting content is about planning your expenses wisely and knowing where your dollars are going. I.e., know how much outsourcing content costs, and budget for high-quality.
Google loves fresh content. Do content audits of old posts and update anything outdated or thin.
Content promotion gets more eyes on your content assets, which can result in more leads + sales. Promotion doesn’t have to cost much, either.
Remember, a content strategy needs constant work to keep moving. Update, budget, plan, and promote so your content marketing never goes stale.
This 6-Step Content Strategy Framework Is Just the Beginning (Join My In-Depth 60-Minute Class for More)
Once you have the 6 steps down for building a profitable content strategy framework, your content marketing can grow, and grow, and grow…
But only because you’ve taken the time to lay a rock-solid foundation to stand on.
If you rush these steps or skip one or two, you’ll find yourself back at square one. The whole thing will collapse.
Don’t let that happen.
Know the framework inside-out, build your strategy with steel instead of straw, and you’ll be far more likely to succeed.
In short, make sure you have this stuff down!
Get a deeper explanation of each step, plus tips and advice, when you join my 60-minute 6-Step Framework to a Profitable Content Strategy masterclass that covers this framework from front-to-back. This is a FREE, on-demand webinar that dives into each step to a profitable content strategy in one, information-packed hour. Choose a time that fits your busy schedule, and ask your burning questions live. Don’t miss it!
How would you like to get more mileage out of your online content? If so, you’re in the right place! That’s exactly what we discussed in this week’s #ContentWritingChat. Our participants shared tips for implementing an influencer strategy, how to increase social media shares, and tips for content efficiency.
Keep reading for all the amazing advice they had to share with us!
#ContentWritingChat Recap: How to Get More Mileage, Shares and Traction from Your Content Efforts with Susan Moeller
Our guest host this week was Susan Moeller. Susan is the Business Development Manager over at BuzzSumo, which is a tool we love to use here at Express Writers. She had some valuable tips to share with us, which we’ve added to this week’s recap.
Q1: Do you think social media shares are a valuable metric to track? Why?
Do you pay much attention to the amount of shares you get on social media? Some of our chat participants found this an important metric to track, while others felt there were better things to focus on. Here’s what a few of them had to say:
A1 I think they are more of a vote for the relationship than the content itself #ContentWritingChat
The important thing to remember is that a social share doesn’t necessarily mean someone read your content. They could have shared without actually reading it.
A1: Social shares are worth looking at, but they aren’t the most important metric. Sharing content can be very passive. #contentwritingchat
As Lexie said, social sharing can be very passive.
Q2: What is your top suggestion for getting more shares on social media?
There’s nothing wrong with wanting a few extra shares on your content, right? To encourage people to spread the word, these are some great tips to remember:
Susan encourages you to collaborate with influencers throughout the process. Creating with other people can help you reach a new audience, but it also helps build relationships within your niche.
A2. This could be the answer to a dozen other questions, but…Know Your Audience. Create content they’ll find relevant. #ContentWritingChat
Kyle agrees that it’s so important to know who your audience is. He also recommended looking at past sharing from your audience, as it’s a good indicator of what they liked and may be willing to share again.
A2: Sounds obvious but, create shareable content. Before publishing, ask yourself, “Would I share/like/RT this?” #contentwritingchat
If you want to encourage social media sharing, you need to create shareable content in the first place. Ask yourself if you’d share your own content. If not, you should head back to the drawing board.
You should also make it easy for your audience to share your stuff. Add social sharing buttons to your blog posts to make it super quick. It’s just a few clicks and they’ve shared it for you.
Andrea agrees that you need to make it easy for them. Those social sharing buttons need to be clearly visible to visitors of your website.
A2: I’m no expert here, but ‘promotion’ isn’t the key. Lighthearted, relatable content and/or an impassioned call-to-action are strong candidates for shares. #ContentWritingChat
Sarah knows it’s important to repurpose your content. You want to keep it fresh by updating evergreen posts regularly to ensure they’re still relevant with the latest information. You can even take blog posts and make them into different formats.
A3. Recycle your strongest content! For me, that means turning an ebook into a webinar, blog posts, infographics, etc. #contentwritingchat
Julia shared some great ideas like creating quote cards, Instagram posts, Snapchat content, Instagram Stories, and SlideShares. All of this can be created from one in-depth post.
A3: Create videos, slides and infographics. You can use the same content in many different formats #ContentWritingChat
Don’t forget to mention or tag any co-authors or brands that are part of your post. You can even potentially “newsjack” or “trendjack” on social media to gain more traction.
Q4: Do you use an influencer strategy to gain traction on your content? If so, what do you do?
Many brand are taking advantage of influencers in their niche as a way to reach new people. If you’re considering trying it out, these are some great tips:
A4 a. #contentwritingchat Yes! 🙂 Our influencer strategy @buzzsumo begins with thinking about how we can help influencers
Susan said the team at BuzzSumo focuses on how they can help the influencers they work with. They use a relational approach, as opposed to mass emailing cold contacts.
A4: We’re in this together. If we can offer value for influencers, they’d be happy to share. #ContentWritingChat.
Qualifying the audience an influencer has can definitely be a tricky task, but it’s an important one. You want to ensure you work with the right people.
A4: Influencers can be really beneficial, but finding the RIGHT influencer is important. #contentwritingchat
Shawn is spot on with his answer. Choosing an influencer doesn’t mean you should go with the person who has the largest audience. It’s more important to work with someone who has a quality, highly engaged audience.
If those bigger influencers are out of your reach, there’s no need to worry. You can see great results when partnering with micro-influencers in your niche.
A4 I think we’re in the era of the micro-influencer. Niche WINS…broad doesn’t! I partner & collab with them on content #ContentWritingChat
Julia also sees the value in working with micro-influencers. As she said, niche wins.
Q5: What pitfalls do you try to avoid in your influencer strategy for content?
To help you avoid any troubles with your influencer strategy, we asked our chat participants to share the things they strive to avoid. Here’s what a few of them said:
A5 #contentwritingchat Stretching ourselves too thin. We have a small team and need to be careful with commitments to make sure we deliver.
When you have a small team, you have to be careful that you don’t stress yourself too thin. Don’t go overboard with commitments because you need to make sure you can still deliver.
A5 Make sure you and influencers are aligned in values. Disconnects can derail an entire content marketing strategy. #ContentWritingChat
A great piece of advice to remember: know your influencer’s audience. You want to research potential influencers to choose the right one for your brand.
Q6: What roadblocks to content efficiency are you trying to overcome? How’s that going for you?
Are you struggling with content efficiency? You aren’t alone! Our chat participants shared their biggest struggles and how they’re working to beat them:
A6 a #contentwritingchat Sticking to our plans! We like to run with good ideas, and sometimes that makes us inefficient.
Sticking to your plans can be tough when you have so many good ideas floating around. Susan said a system needs to be in place that allows that flexibility, but still encourages you to finish projects.
A6. My org is evolving, so is my audience. Keeping messaging/language/themes on-brand is a big challenge! #contentwritingchat
Kristen knows an evolving organization goes through a lot of transitions. Keeping messaging, language, and themes consistent and on-brand can be a tricky task.
A6: We create for clients, our biggest roadblock is the inability to get enough good info since they are the expert #ContentWritingChat
Creating for clients can sometimes be pretty challenging. You want to make sure you’re getting plenty of information from them to do your job successfully.
A6. Just trying to write long form content consistently is the roadblock I am facing #contentwritingchat
Brian knows content is king! He said upcycling means taking great content, shaping it, and customizing it for other formats. Some examples he shared with us include turning a blog post into an infographic or a SlideShare.
A1 One piece of content gets molded and recreated for various other platforms. SO many traction opps! #ContentWritingChat
As Varun said, you can repurpose your best or evergreen content. Evergreen content is great for upcycling because it will always be relevant to your audience.
A1: Upcycling is reusing & revamping your material for a different purpose or to relate to a specific niche audience #ContentWritingChat
Tracy is spot-on with her answer. If you were to recycle content, you would simply be sharing it without making any improvements. When upcycling content, you aim to make it new again.
A2. Upcycling is an improvement on the original material. Recycling keeps it the same, i.e. warming up leftovers. #ContentWritingChat
When recycling your content, you want to be careful it doesn’t come off as spammy. Instead, go for upcycling and recreate your content. Then, you can tailor it for the platform you’re sharing it on and to your audience.
Q3: How can you expand your content reach by upcycling what you create?
Do you want to expand your reach via upcycling content? Here’s how to do it:
One great idea is to take your written content, incorporate it into a visual, and then sharing it on social media. It’s a great way to reach a new audience and to grab their attention with an eye-catching image.
A3: You must research to see what is required by your readers. You don’t want to create something that never gets read #contentwritingchat
Videos are incredibly powerful because they provide a great way for your audience to connect with you. Turning your blog posts into video content is the perfect way to upcycle!
A4: Blogs can easily be grouped into e-book guides, video concepts or graphic slides. Take the best, make it better. #contentwritingchat
Brian knows it’s important to understand your audience. The content format you choose should be dictated by the community you want to reach. Provide them with what they want to see.
Kristen suggests using Google Analytics to figure out which posts are your most popular. She said you could turn those posts into an awesome email autoresponder.
A5a Video! Evergreen on YouTube, then clips for your IG/FB/etc. I did this when my book launched, LOTS of traction #ContentWritingChat
Brian knows it’s important to use analytics as a way to see what your audience likes and doesn’t like. He also shared some great tools everyone should check out.
When it comes to live video, you don’t have to be focused on perfection. Brian said you should pay more attention to the conversation.
We look forward to seeing you at the next #ContentWritingChat! Mark your calendars weekly for Tuesday at 10 AM CDT for great chats centered around content writing and marketing. Follow @ExpWriters to stay updated on our new topics and guests!
Imagine this: you’re an NFL player headed into the biggest game of the season. Everything is riding on you and your coach’s expectations are high. Your teammates are depending upon you. You’re out on the field now and they all look to you for direction and, guess what? You don’t have any because you never took the time to develop a pre-game strategy.
That would never happen, right? Right. In sports, strategy is everything and it would be crazy to enter a game without knowing how you wanted to play it. Believe it or not, the same goes for content.
When it comes to your small business, developing a content strategy is an important step toward success. From drawing customers to helping you establish yourself as an authority, content strategy is the foundation upon which everything else is built.
You can build yourself upon content, as a business–with a good strategy.
A Guide to Small Business Content Strategy: 12 Essential Tips
Here’s what you need to know about small business content marketing and how you can make yours better.
How Do You Define Content?
First things first – what is content? To put it simply, content is the material you produce to further your company’s goals. In many cases, it acts as the vessel for content marketing, a practice within which companies use content to create and distribute valuable information to their fans, customers, and readers, thus driving profitable customer interaction and helping establish themselves as authorities in the field.
According to a recent Content Marketing Institute report, 86% of small businesses are currently using content marketing and 40% say that the approach is effective for their companies.
5 Key Types of Must-Have Content: Strategy for the Small Business
When you’re building your small business, one of the most important things you can do is take some time to invest in content. While it may seem more important to jump right into selling, focusing on building content first will produce higher-quality results in the long run.
Here’s are the five main types of content you should build when you start your business:
1. A blog
Blogs are huge right now and they’re not fixing to slow down any time soon. Companies that build and maintain a blog earn more leads, gain visibility, establish themselves as authorities in their industry, and expand their customer base at light-speed. In fact, marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to see a positive ROI than those who don’t.
This is due in large part to the fact that blogs are a great way to help your company get found online. According to HubSpot, customers will undertake 85% of their company relationships without ever talking to a human by 2020. This means that it’s hugely beneficial and important for companies to start blogging as soon as they start functioning.
2. A web page
Think of a web page as your home base: it helps people learn more about your company, gives you a great place to showcase new products, goods, and services, allows customers to locate your contact information, reviews, and purchasing options, and provides a platform that all of your other content can meet on.
There are many different options for building a small business web page, and in most cases, it can be done for only a few bucks in only a few minutes. Most platforms today allow for drag-and-drop website building, which makes designing a beautiful page easy, even if you’re not a pro.
3. Great keywords
If you’re doing anything online, you’ll need to learn about search engine optimization (SEO). Specifically, you’ll need to learn about keyword research and how it can benefit your company. In order to rank well in Google’s indexes and make yourself more visible online, you’ll need to research and target relevant keywords. This helps you appear prominently for relevant search queries and ensures that customers looking for a company like yours can find you easily.
4. Social media
While Google still rules the roost, it’s important to remember that social media platforms are search engines, too. If a customer is attracted to your brand or products, it’s likely that person will search for you using social media. If they can’t find you, it’s likely you’ll miss out on business.
If customers can find you, though, they’re more likely to engage with your company. For this reason, it’s important to focus on building up a social media presence from the get-go. This means selecting 1-2 social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram, for example) and building your presence there. This allows you to expand your reach with your customers and make more connections.
5. A buyer persona
Before any of the above tips can work out well for you, you’ll need to establish your buyer persona. A buyer persona defines who you’re trying to sell a product to and why. It looks at your target demographic and answers questions like: who are these people? How old are they? Where do they live? How much money do they make each year? What are they worried about? Knowing the answers to these questions is a fantastic way to set yourself up for success and to target your content marketing more effectively from the beginning.
Building Your Content Strategy: 7 Actionable Tips
Now that you’ve got some types of content to work with, it’s time to start building out your content strategy into a functional machine that helps you drive sales. Here are seven key steps.
1. Segment your audience
You used buyer personas to identify your audience, but now it’s time to segment them into individual groups. If you’re like most companies, you have several sets of populations you’re trying to target. In fact, Content Marketing Institute reports that the average small business targets four separate segments of customers. Segmenting your customer base will allow you to target each segment more efficiently and to tailor your content accordingly.
2. Decide on your topics
What do you want your content to do? How is it going to achieve that goal? The one true way to ensure that your content is successful is to ensure that the topics of your content are interesting, valuable, and relevant for your customers.
To gain ideas for topics, look at things like your FAQ section – are there repeated questions there that you can turn into a lengthy blog series? You’ll also find a whole host of ideas on question and answer sites like Quora or by using a service like BuzzSumo, which will allow you to find and track the top-performing content in your industry. In the process, you may even find that brainstorming topic ideas helps you come up with new keywords, which paves the way for a SEO and visibility boost.
3. Define your objective
According to QuickSprout, you can define your blogging objectives by asking yourself the following six questions:
Do you want to drive physical traffic to your office or retail location?
Do you want to increase leads or generate sales?
Do you want to entice prospects to visit you from outside of your local area?
Do you want to draw in overseas clients?
Do you want to educate your readers on your company’s mission?
Do you want to provide your customers with business updates?
Do you want to build and strengthen your brand?
Now – these are all great questions, but in order to truly define your blogging objectives, you should only be identifying with two or three of these objectives. Any more than that is a recipe for content marketing disaster and a sure way to wind up being disorganized and ineffective. Pick a few objectives and stick to them for the most focused strategy possible.
4. Make the delivery exciting
Content, content everywhere, and not a delivery method in site! Now that you’ve decided on what you’re going to write and for whom you’re going to write it, you’ll have to think about how you’re going to get it to your target audience. The average small business uses 12 different content distribution tactics. Often, these tactics include methods like the following:
Social media
Blogs
Newsletters
Videos
In-person events
Visual content, including infographics and photos
Webinars
White papers
No matter how you choose to distribute your content, it’s important to ensure that you vary the method. This helps prevent people from becoming bored with your content and, most importantly, ensures that people can find your content because you continue to place it in the places they frequent. Keep in mind that the average small business uses 6 separate social media platforms for content distribution.
5. Create a content calendar
Now that you’ve built the bones of your content strategy, you need to focus on bringing it to life. You can do this by building an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar is the ultimate organizational tool for small business bloggers worldwide and when used correctly, can help you plan all of the following details for your content:
Date
Distribution channel
Content type
Reader type
Seasonal content
Trending content
Content creators
Budget
An editorial calendar is meant to be a fluid thing and will likely change as your business grows and shifts. The important thing, however, is that you develop one and that you keep it going as you continue to hone your content strategy. Doing this will allow you to create real, organized content. In other words: an editorial calendar is one of the single best tools you can use to make your content successful.
6. Create, create, create
It’s tough to have a content strategy without – you guessed it – content. That said, you’ll need to dedicate some time simply to creating content. Write about the topics you’ve brainstormed and put your fresh new content out there for your customers. Keep tabs on your content by monitoring user comments, social shares, and interaction in order to get a feel for what performs best and what seems to get no reaction. While it seems simple, a great deal of constructing an efficient content strategy is simply trial and error. By getting out into the game, you’ll quickly learn what you need to do.
7. Track your results
It’s impossible to know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been. That’s why it is so important to track the results of your content creation efforts. CMI reports that 87% of small businesses state that lead generation is the priority for their entire content strategy.
If that rings true for your company, you can track the success of your content by metrics like social media activity, web traffic (67% of small businesses report that this is their most important content marketing success metric), and lead sources. Doing this allows you to plan, execute, and measure accordingly, which in turn allows you to adjust your content strategy as you go along, creating a bombproof strategy that promises to serve your company well for all of its days.
It’s Time to Start Rocking Your Small Business Content Strategy
According to the CMI report, 74% of marketers are creating more content this year than they were one year ago. This is likely due to the fact that content has proven time and time again to be one of the most effective forms of marketing material. From providing a way for your customers to interact with your company to offering a platform on which you can provide value and relevance to your readers, content is a hugely important piece of any small business’ success. Fortunately, when you take these 12 tips to heart, you can quickly develop a content strategy that allows you to stand out from the crowd and succeed in small business content marketing.
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