How To Develop An Effective Content Strategy In 6 Easy Steps

Content strategy is the marketing tactics that connects your audience, business objectives and content marketing with the aim of offering relevant content that drives business goals.

Creating an effective content marketing strategy is like using one hand to wash the other – the aim is to provide quality service whilst also meeting your business goals.

Your content strategy isn’t all about you or your business. It should be a holistic mix of the preferences of your target audience and how their needs can help you achieve yours.

Below, I’ve highlighted 6 step by step approach to conducting an audience-driven content strategy:

1.      Set a clear goal

The first step is to ask yourself: what goal do I hope to achieve with my content marketing strategy?

Your content goal could be to:

• Increase brand awareness
• Drive sales
• Build a loyal community
• Lead generation

You can also set specific content-level goals such as: “to improve website traffic by 25% in 30day” or “to add 400 subscribers per month.”

Goals help you measure your progress and return on investment (ROI).

Every strategy you create should be tied to the overall goal of your organisation Share on X

2.      Know your audience

To know your target audience, you can create a buyer persona or customer avatar.

Ask yourself:

• What type of content do they like best?
• What are their interests/ passions?
• Does your content address their pain points?
• How often should I publish content?

The more useful your content is, the more likely your audience will appreciate it. Customise each content according to their preferences.

For your website to rank high on Google SERPS, it needs to be relevant to your audience Share on X

3.      Develop a content calendar

Content calendar serves as a foundation on which to build a solid content strategy.

Some of the benefits of creating a content calendar for your organisation includes:

• It helps you stay on schedule
• Content calendar helps you keep track of your performance
• It aligns your sales and marketing team to a common goal
• Content calendar helps you plan your content in advance

With a proper editorial calendar, you can highlight when and where to publish your content and the frequency.

4.      Create intuitive content

Quality content separates good brands from great brands.

If you need to create content consistently without dropping its level of quality, you need to consider outsourcing your content creation efforts.

Outsourcing your content creation efforts allows you to save time and maintain a reasonable level of consistency and quality.

However, ensure you’re doing so to an agency or freelancer with proven industry expertise.

Read also: 6 red flags to avoid in content creation

5.      Distribute effectively

“You really shouldn’t be afraid to promote your work. If you’re proud of it. If you think it’s good. If you think your audience would find value in it… promote it” – Ross Simmond

You can also try the 80/20 rule:

• Spend 20% of your time creating content
• Spend 80% of your time distributing content

Here are 100+ strategic content distribution tactics for 12 different marketing channels to help you promote your content.

6.      Measure your performance

Tracking your content marketing efforts against the goals you’ve set at the beginning is a vital step in creating a winning content marketing strategy.

Although making sales is an obvious indication that your content strategy is effective, however, you’d need tools like Google Analytics to learn about the overall performance of individual content.

Did you meet your target?

• If not, what can you do to improve your performance?
• If yes, can this guarantee success on a consistent basis?

Conclusion

Your content marketing strategy should carter for the following:

• Your audience
• Preferred channels
• Tailored content

An audience-driven content marketing strategy is one that places the needs of the target audience before business goals.

When you satisfy your audience, they in turn will help you to achieve your goals.