WordPress Tips

It may seem extraneous, but a content marketing strategy is a fundamental requirement for success.

Why Content Marketing Strategy Is Important

In fact, the Content Marketing Institute reported earlier this year with their Annual Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends Report. In 2019, 61% of content marketers still say they do not have a documented content strategy, yet those who do have a content marketing strategy consistently rate their efforts as far more successful than those who don’t.

Those numbers are hard to ignore. Here are some tips to getting started with your content marketing strategy.

Document Your Goals

Before you address the who, what, when, where, and how of your content marketing strategy, determine the why.

So why are you doing content marketing? Is it to create leads? Improve your customers’ experiences? Build relationships?

No matter what your content marketing goals are, just make sure they’re sustainable for the long-term. In addition, ensure these goals connect to your company’s overarching goals, mission, and vision. To keep your strategy on target and crystal-clear, stick to three to five business goals max and document them.

Determine Your “One Thing”

Does anyone really need more content? More and more is being published every day. So what will you create in your content marketing program to set your organization apart? In other words, what is the heart and soul of your content program? Is it to:

Be disproportionately useful?
Create Youtility?
Motivate and inspire?
Educate and entertain?

The only appropriate response to all of the above is YES! Otherwise, you run the risk of providing more of the same and contributing to that enormous, growing content glut.

NOYO Web Development recommends recording all of the brand messages your organization uses. Now list the same for your top three competitors. Cross off any messages on your list that they are also using. What’s left is your unique set of messages to build upon. That’s your “one thing.”

Measure Your Content Marketing

Tracking the performance of your content is a must. You need to determine what works and what doesn’t. Avoid any metrics that really don’t have utility. We prefer four actionable metrics for content marketing.

Consumption metrics: This is one of the best and easiest places to start. Basically, what did audiences do with the content? Think actions: views, downloads, listens, visits, etc.
Sharing metrics: How resonant is this piece of content, and how often is it shared with others?
Lead generation metrics: The ultimate goal for most organizations; How many leads came from a piece of content?
Sales metrics: Did we make any money on this piece of content?

Identify Your Top 5 Target Audiences

Relevancy can mean different things to different people. You need to understand your top audiences and then market to them. These include some sub-categories:

Audience: High-level collections of similarly motivated individuals with some common interest or agenda.
Segment: Cross-sections of an audience or list in which individuals (or companies) share one or more common traits or can be grouped by a common trait.
Persona: A data-informed, detailed yet fictitious characterization of the goals and behavior of a hypothesized group of users.

Whichever audience definition you use to guide your content marketing efforts, make sure you’re focusing on your top 5 audiences only. Look into their psychographics as well as demographics. Also, consider replacing stock photos with icons or symbols to avoid getting stuck on what your audience physically looks like or stereotyping by age, race, or gender.

We’ll offer some more tips for a successful content marketing strategy next week. Check back!