A successful marketing plan is one which is based on a good content strategy. But the main question is that what exactly is meant by a content strategy. Is it the same as content marketing? Do we actually need it? This article will provide you answers to all such questions. Go on, let the learning begin.
Introduction to Content Strategy and Content Marketing
- Content Marketing- Content marketing is the marketing strategy about how you will be making your content reach your audience. It involves techniques and tactics to make your content visible to your target audience and convert your audience into leads and leads into customers.
- Content Strategy- Content strategy is the part of marketing that is mainly focused on, planning, creating, delivering and analysing content. Having a content strategy is a must to ensure that your website has well-structured high-quality content. Content strategy is a part of content marketing.
Creating Content Strategy
To start with your content marketing plans, you first need to have a content strategy. Let’s get to know the steps involved in preparing a content strategy.
1. Purpose of your Content
Before creating any content, you should have a fair idea about who you are creating for and what is the goal that you will achieve by creating the content. Some points to focus on during the start would be-
- Increased Visibility of Brand
- Increase the Inbound Leads
- Establishing the Authority in the Particular Industry
- Increasing Sales of the Brand
However, when you are working on achieving the above targets, you need to remember that content is also of different types. A content which may work for driving inbound leads, may not work for increasing the brand visibility.
2. Client Understanding
Understanding your clients is the basic step towards an effective content strategy. You need to know that what content will help the audience and give them the relevant information that they need. If you keep this in mind while formulating your brand strategy, you will be able to become a reliable information delivery platform for the audience and will also get the public’s trust.
3. Frequency
Creating content requires creative thinking and creative thinking is only possible when the mind is free and uninhibited. So to make sure that you deliver to your audience a good and high-quality content, you should commit to only what you can actually deliver.
4. Creating, Managing and Maintaining Content
A single soul cannot do all the tasks. So if you consider yourself efficient enough to manage all the tasks and get them completed, give it a try. But if you think that some help would do you good and help in producing better results, then you should assign the tasks of creating and managing the content to skilled individuals. This will not just make things easy for you, but will also end up helping your company grow.
5. Style Guide
Style Guide is an important element in maintaining the consistency of the content on your website. In cases where you are outsourcing content from external sources, you need to follow a specific colour, font, style to make sure that all the content present on your website looks smooth.
Content Marketing Strategy
Now that you have your content strategy set up, you can now think of creating a content marketing strategy, which will form a base for inbound marketing plans. A marketing strategy will provide you with an outline about how to use the content that you created to attract leads and convert them into customers.
1. Your Marketing Goals
Your marketing goals play an important part in deciding what your marketing strategy will be. Before you start planning your strategy, you should jot down the goals that you want to focus on.
2. Needs of the Buyer
A buyer goes through the journey of-Product awareness, information about the solutions, Product need. To make sure that you convert your leads of the initial phase into customers that last till the final phase, you should cater to the needs of the customer at every step.
3. Content Type
Content is not just about words. It includes other elements like audio, images, texts, etc. Different types of contents affect the audience differently. A good mix of a variety of content can work wonders in getting you leads of potential customers.
4. Distribution Strategy
If you create a high quality and influential content but do not distribute it, then it has a nil value. You need to make your content’s presence felt at places where the audience needs it the most.
5. Editorial Calendar
While going forward with the marketing process, you can make the process easier by creating an editorial calendar that will provide you with an outline of the content purpose, timing, type, etc.
With this new found information given above, we can say that content strategy forms that base for content marketing. Without a strategy, content marketing is not possible. So to meet the needs of your audience it is important to include both of them in your marketing and promotions plan.
