Content strategies define your blogs, website content, and social media interactions. A winning content strategy allows you to keep your messages on brand and develop an identity that engages with users, conveys your message, and ultimately turns clicks into conversions. But what makes a good content strategy and how do you go about developing it?
Start with Milestones
A content strategy is nothing without targets. Before you start writing down ideas or brainstorming unique content approaches it’s important to understand why you want a content strategy. Are you looking to grow your social footprint? Do you want to market yourself as an industry expert? Perhaps you just want to create some guides so you can answer questions you’ve heard from a hundred customers. Whatever your goals or milestones it’s imperative that you set out realistic targets before planning out your content strategy.
Take a look at your KPIs with your SEO team or talk to your marketing team to get a handle on where your content should look to improve. Once you have milestones you can move on to the next step.
Study Your Users
Once you have your goals, you need to understand your users’ goals. Users visit websites for a variety of reasons from searching for answers to looking for a quick purchase with next day delivery. Most businesses will understand the different demographics and users that visit their site. If you’re not sure then a full digital marketing audit or look at metrics like Analytics can help you identify your users, what devices they use, where they come from, and what they’re looking for. Once you understand your users you can then move on to examining your content.
Start with What You Have
Before creating any new content strategies you should take stock of what you already have. Study the way you speak to your audience by examining your landing pages, blog and news content, and social media posts. This information will help you understand what your tone is and how you can shape any new content to match your brand. Alternatively, you can use this information to see what isn’t working and create a new tone or approach that differs from the existing system.
Create Content Pillars
Now that you have key insights into your brand, tone of voice, and audience it’s time to get the team into a meeting room (virtual or otherwise) and create key content pillars. Content pillars are the overarching themes or styles you will use to develop a content strategy.
For example, if you’re a builders’ merchant you may find you have content pillars dedicated to products (for e-commerce), customer education (with blogs and guides), and brand content (special events and news relating to your industry).
These pillars will give you a clear direction of the tone and reason for different types of content. You can also see where you need to focus your content. Maybe you’re an established brand? Then you’ll only need 25% for your brand content. A more e-commerce-focused approach could use 60% of your content time on product descriptions or social content that drives sales. Content pillars are vital to understanding this breakdown.
Come Up with Ideas
Now that you have the foundations in place, you and your team can do the fun stuff and come up with interesting content ideas or formats. Quizzes, articles, interviews, videos, social media contests, the list is endless! Go out there and use this info to help you create a winning content strategy.
As ever, content marketing is key to long term growth. At Fifteen Design, we have a dedicated digital team that brings together paid and organic search to create potent campaigns that work for you. To find out more about the services we offer or to get started on your next digital campaign contact us on 0115 932 5151 or email us at [email protected].