How to start your content marketing strategy
Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2024 10:02 am
Chances are, if you're already using social media , you're doing content marketing to some degree. The next step is to get a strategy in place. In this post, we'll walk you through why having a content marketing strategy is important and the different ways you can get started on your own.
What is content marketing?
For starters, content marketing involves any type of content (digital or physical) and sending/sharing it to your audience. Adding a strategy to this means you have thought about your goals, audiences, and distribution channels.
A typical content marketing plan will answer the following questions:
Who is your audience? These are usually based on market segments and certain types of content will target specific segments.
What channels will you use?
What metrics will you use to measure success and ROI?
What resources do you have?
What pain points will you solve?
In this example, Mailchimp created a multimedia case study in a post and then repurposed the video for a LinkedIn post. It explains how custom email templates were used to increase sales – a tactic that is useful for many businesses.
Types of content
There are many types of content now with new channels being developed every year. Part of being a good content marketer is being able to learn new types and being open to experimentation. Relatively new to the scene is social media content, which is user-generated and can be used as part of your strategy.
Here is a non-exhaustive list to help you think about what type of content your company has access to:
Company Blog Posts
Branded Blog Posts
User-generated content like an Instagram post
Videos
Podcasts
Whitepapers
Case Studies
Infographics
Photographs
Webinars
Press releases
News and magazine articles.
Types of channels
How are you going to spread the word about your content? You can publish all the white papers you want, but no one will see them if you're not talking about them. For some channels, the line between content and channel gets blurred. For example, email newsletters are a great way to promote your brand's content. However, some brands also include unique content in the body of the newsletter. There's no right or wrong way to approach this. If you find that mixing it up works for your company, then go for it.
Some common channels include:
E-mail
Social media
Pamphlets
Search Engine Ads
Website
content marketing channels
The most common channel is email , with 82% of marketers reporting it as the most effective. This is not so closely followed by social media at 54% and website/blog at 51%.
What does this mean for you? If you're just starting out, use this as a starting point to focus your initial efforts on. Start with one or two channels and expand as you become more comfortable.
What resources are available?
Before you start diving into all the content possibilities, take a step back and look at what resources you have available. Are you a marketing team of one or ten? What skills are already on your team? Does your marketing budget have room to hire a professional content creator?
You shouldn't start producing videos if you don't have the skills available or the budget for a videographer. Keep in mind that time is also a resource. New types of content take time to learn, experiment with, and create.
Next, think about who can generate this content. Don’t limit it to just the marketing team. Your sales and support teams will also know what the customer or company is interested in. All departments should have some content ideas that can be developed.
Develop your content marketing strategy.
There are many ways to begin developing your strategy. Here, we'll offer three ways to get started. You may have already done some of this work. In that case, repurpose previous research and put it into practice.
1. Define your goals and metrics
The start of any new strategy starts with knowing what goals you have in mind. In content marketing, multiple goals are common and are often combined with channels and content types. And for each goal, you’ll need to define the metrics used to measure success.
For example, one of your content marketing goals may be to increase your trial sign-ups. To do this, you will plan to create case studies that will be posted on your website and shared via social media. The case study includes text, photos, a downloadable PDF, and video. Your sales team will use the link to share the case study with potential customers, and your social media team will use the different media formats to repeatedly promote the case study.
content matrix - content matrix
This content matrix from Ninetyblack provides a graphic guide on where you can drive content. The matrix may look different for your business. Quizzes are usually designed to be entertaining and can be a useful way to spread brand awareness.
2. Audit your current content
What's working for you now? If you already have branded content, conduct a content audit to help you understand what has and hasn't been successful. The audit should include actual content links and distribution channels.
Maybe you’ve produced a few videos, but they’ve only been published on YouTube. You’ve found that the audience is receptive to videos. At this point, you may notice that some videos gambling data singapore have call-to-action links in the captions that lead to your website. These videos were not only watched, but people clicked on them to learn more. This discovery could potentially lead you to add more links to your captions for more cross-channel promotions.
successful content channels
In a 2018 trends report from the Content Marketing Institute , B2B marketers recognized content creation and strategy as the two main factors in their content marketing success. Note that for content creation, it is specified that it is higher quality and more efficient. Low-quality content no longer cuts it, especially if your competition is also focused on content marketing.
3. Build the Buyer's Journey
Certain types of content work best at points in the customer’s buying journey. A helpful product troubleshooting video won’t be as interesting to a potential customer in the awareness phase as it is to someone who has already purchased. Being aware that it exists, however, can help move the purchasing decision forward.
Buyers journey
This checklist from Boston Interactive shows the different types of content that match a customer's purchasing phase.
However, remember that a customer’s journey doesn’t end with the purchase. Beyond the point of purchase, there is still retention and support that also need content marketing.
customer journey
Bright Vessel illustrates their version of a customer journey map, indicating where each department plays a role. This exercise makes you think about each touchpoint with your customer.
Mapping this out helps your brand understand where your content can best be served. Once you have the map down, your content can be tweaked and adjusted to reflect your audience and their stage in the buying journey.
Implement and review your content marketing strategy.
Now that you have three ways to brainstorm your strategy, the next steps are to document and implement it. With documentation, you’ll have a way to reference and direct your content going forward. If your strategy was to promote your blog posts on both social media and email newsletters, but you’re finding that your newsletters are getting a lot of engagement, you can increase the frequency of your emails or build a blog-only subscriber list.
Many content marketing calendars are general overviews of the content planned for the year. They often list the content, type, audience, customer phase, and distribution channel(s), along with publication dates. This type of all-in-one calendar is useful for big-picture planning.
Once you’ve drafted the schedule , you still need to monitor and distribute it. And this is where social media plays a major role. A social media-oriented content marketing strategy incorporates both social monitoring and publishing.
To monitor the topics your audience is interested in. Use branded keywords and search options to see who is talking about your brand and to curate content that you can re-distribute. Content marketing doesn't have to include only your own content. It also includes content that is published about you, news, or valuable content from your industry.
Now it's your turn!
Content marketing strategies vary from company to company. The idea of this article is to give you a framework to start your strategy. These are not rules set in stone. As you begin this journey, you may find that some strategies or content do not work for you and that is okay. Having both defined goals and a plan in hand will go a long way in getting your strategy started. Remember, if you need some company in your digital marketing strategy, we are here ready to help you.
What is content marketing?
For starters, content marketing involves any type of content (digital or physical) and sending/sharing it to your audience. Adding a strategy to this means you have thought about your goals, audiences, and distribution channels.
A typical content marketing plan will answer the following questions:
Who is your audience? These are usually based on market segments and certain types of content will target specific segments.
What channels will you use?
What metrics will you use to measure success and ROI?
What resources do you have?
What pain points will you solve?
In this example, Mailchimp created a multimedia case study in a post and then repurposed the video for a LinkedIn post. It explains how custom email templates were used to increase sales – a tactic that is useful for many businesses.
Types of content
There are many types of content now with new channels being developed every year. Part of being a good content marketer is being able to learn new types and being open to experimentation. Relatively new to the scene is social media content, which is user-generated and can be used as part of your strategy.
Here is a non-exhaustive list to help you think about what type of content your company has access to:
Company Blog Posts
Branded Blog Posts
User-generated content like an Instagram post
Videos
Podcasts
Whitepapers
Case Studies
Infographics
Photographs
Webinars
Press releases
News and magazine articles.
Types of channels
How are you going to spread the word about your content? You can publish all the white papers you want, but no one will see them if you're not talking about them. For some channels, the line between content and channel gets blurred. For example, email newsletters are a great way to promote your brand's content. However, some brands also include unique content in the body of the newsletter. There's no right or wrong way to approach this. If you find that mixing it up works for your company, then go for it.
Some common channels include:
Social media
Pamphlets
Search Engine Ads
Website
content marketing channels
The most common channel is email , with 82% of marketers reporting it as the most effective. This is not so closely followed by social media at 54% and website/blog at 51%.
What does this mean for you? If you're just starting out, use this as a starting point to focus your initial efforts on. Start with one or two channels and expand as you become more comfortable.
What resources are available?
Before you start diving into all the content possibilities, take a step back and look at what resources you have available. Are you a marketing team of one or ten? What skills are already on your team? Does your marketing budget have room to hire a professional content creator?
You shouldn't start producing videos if you don't have the skills available or the budget for a videographer. Keep in mind that time is also a resource. New types of content take time to learn, experiment with, and create.
Next, think about who can generate this content. Don’t limit it to just the marketing team. Your sales and support teams will also know what the customer or company is interested in. All departments should have some content ideas that can be developed.
Develop your content marketing strategy.
There are many ways to begin developing your strategy. Here, we'll offer three ways to get started. You may have already done some of this work. In that case, repurpose previous research and put it into practice.
1. Define your goals and metrics
The start of any new strategy starts with knowing what goals you have in mind. In content marketing, multiple goals are common and are often combined with channels and content types. And for each goal, you’ll need to define the metrics used to measure success.
For example, one of your content marketing goals may be to increase your trial sign-ups. To do this, you will plan to create case studies that will be posted on your website and shared via social media. The case study includes text, photos, a downloadable PDF, and video. Your sales team will use the link to share the case study with potential customers, and your social media team will use the different media formats to repeatedly promote the case study.
content matrix - content matrix
This content matrix from Ninetyblack provides a graphic guide on where you can drive content. The matrix may look different for your business. Quizzes are usually designed to be entertaining and can be a useful way to spread brand awareness.
2. Audit your current content
What's working for you now? If you already have branded content, conduct a content audit to help you understand what has and hasn't been successful. The audit should include actual content links and distribution channels.
Maybe you’ve produced a few videos, but they’ve only been published on YouTube. You’ve found that the audience is receptive to videos. At this point, you may notice that some videos gambling data singapore have call-to-action links in the captions that lead to your website. These videos were not only watched, but people clicked on them to learn more. This discovery could potentially lead you to add more links to your captions for more cross-channel promotions.
successful content channels
In a 2018 trends report from the Content Marketing Institute , B2B marketers recognized content creation and strategy as the two main factors in their content marketing success. Note that for content creation, it is specified that it is higher quality and more efficient. Low-quality content no longer cuts it, especially if your competition is also focused on content marketing.
3. Build the Buyer's Journey
Certain types of content work best at points in the customer’s buying journey. A helpful product troubleshooting video won’t be as interesting to a potential customer in the awareness phase as it is to someone who has already purchased. Being aware that it exists, however, can help move the purchasing decision forward.
Buyers journey
This checklist from Boston Interactive shows the different types of content that match a customer's purchasing phase.
However, remember that a customer’s journey doesn’t end with the purchase. Beyond the point of purchase, there is still retention and support that also need content marketing.
customer journey
Bright Vessel illustrates their version of a customer journey map, indicating where each department plays a role. This exercise makes you think about each touchpoint with your customer.
Mapping this out helps your brand understand where your content can best be served. Once you have the map down, your content can be tweaked and adjusted to reflect your audience and their stage in the buying journey.
Implement and review your content marketing strategy.
Now that you have three ways to brainstorm your strategy, the next steps are to document and implement it. With documentation, you’ll have a way to reference and direct your content going forward. If your strategy was to promote your blog posts on both social media and email newsletters, but you’re finding that your newsletters are getting a lot of engagement, you can increase the frequency of your emails or build a blog-only subscriber list.
Many content marketing calendars are general overviews of the content planned for the year. They often list the content, type, audience, customer phase, and distribution channel(s), along with publication dates. This type of all-in-one calendar is useful for big-picture planning.
Once you’ve drafted the schedule , you still need to monitor and distribute it. And this is where social media plays a major role. A social media-oriented content marketing strategy incorporates both social monitoring and publishing.
To monitor the topics your audience is interested in. Use branded keywords and search options to see who is talking about your brand and to curate content that you can re-distribute. Content marketing doesn't have to include only your own content. It also includes content that is published about you, news, or valuable content from your industry.
Now it's your turn!
Content marketing strategies vary from company to company. The idea of this article is to give you a framework to start your strategy. These are not rules set in stone. As you begin this journey, you may find that some strategies or content do not work for you and that is okay. Having both defined goals and a plan in hand will go a long way in getting your strategy started. Remember, if you need some company in your digital marketing strategy, we are here ready to help you.