How to Develop a Solid Content Strategy

Whether you’re just starting out with content marketing or are highly-experienced in the field, having a solid content strategy is paramount when it comes to engaging your customers and clients. Having a relevant, modern and innovative content plan will help you to prepare for every eventuality, whether you’re an expert in the topic or not. 

Content strategies can also help you to save some time in the long run as you’d have already come up with some ideas for the upcoming year. Many content creators span their plan across twelve or even eighteen months, ensuring that ideas are already there and in place when they’re ready to let their creative juices flow. But what exactly is a content strategy, why do you need one and how can you put one in place yourself? We’re on hand to explain.

What is content strategy?

A content strategy is a plan that’s drawn up by Copywriters, for example, that’s specifically designed for scheduling content that works to engage the reader. They’re often planned for months in advance, allowing for both seasonal and evergreen content to be produced in good time. Content strategies help writers and marketing teams to meet deadlines – ideal for ensuring happy customers and clients.

A good content strategy is a fundamental foundation for attracting and retaining new website visitors and customers. It’s an integral part of a consumer’s journey, following inbound marketing frameworks to bring in new leads and prospects. 

Therefore, it’s no wonder that marketing teams are actively looking to invest more time and money in content strategies. According to HubSpot, 70% of marketers are now starting to pay attention to the power of content strategies and planning.

Why do you need a content marketing strategy?

A content strategy is a cost-effective and reliable way of attracting new prospects and retaining customers and clients. Developing a flexible content strategy will ensure that you have content ready for every eventuality, regardless of the time of year. A content strategy can also be used in a proposal for new clients as they can see that you’re being proactive when it comes to content creation for their company. 

Often, content planning and production is done in the background and although one article doesn’t look like a lot of work on the face of it, there’s a lot of planning and analysis that goes on behind the scenes in order to generate the idea in the first place. By having a content strategy that’s also transparent and easy for your clients to understand, your customers will be able to see exactly where you’re spending the time.

How to create a content strategy

Content strategies are extremely beneficial for marketing teams when it comes to ensuring success for yourselves and your clients. But If you haven’t produced a content strategy before, there are a few important questions you should ask yourself first, including:

• Who will be reading my content?
• What makes my content unique?
• What problem am I solving for my audience?
• What content formats will I be focusing on?
• What channels should I publish on?
• How will I manage content production and publication? 

Once you have answered these questions and you’re satisfied with your answers, then you can start to devise your content strategy. But how do you go about doing that if you haven’t tried this before? Below are a few things you should do in order to produce a content strategy that’s both solid and effective:

Define your goal

In order to define your goals, you should ask yourself the following questions:

• What’s the main aim of my content strategy?
• Why do I want to produce this content?
• Why do I want to devise this content plan?

It’s imperative that you know and understand your goals before producing a content strategy. This is because you’ll be able to generate better quality ideas if you simply take the time to understand what it is you want to get out of it.

Conduct persona research

Who is your target audience? This is an important step in content strategy production, especially for those who are new to the content marketing industry. If you understand who your demographic is, then you’ll be able to produce content that’s as relevant and as appealing as possible to that specific group of readers. 

Run a content audit

Most businesses start by generating article ideas for their clients as a blog or news page is one of the most effective ways of boosting SEO and bringing new visitors to a website. However, a content audit might reveal a different scenario and so your content format might change. 

Use the information you gain from the audit to determine the best-performing and worst-performing content out there and tailor your strategy towards those findings, obviously following the trends of the best-performing pieces of content. Regardless of the stage you’re at, a content audit will help you when it comes to:

• Determining what resonates with your target audience
• Identifying any gaps in topic clusters
• Brainstorming fresh, relevant and innovative content ideas

Choose a content management system

It’s important that you look into investing in a CMS in order to create, manage and track the content you produce in a quick, easy and efficient way. The vital parts of effective content management include:

• Content analytics
• Content publication
• Content creation

Determine which type of content you want to create

There are a number of different options for content creation, especially during this modern, digital age. From online pieces to hardcopy publications, there are plenty of opportunities for you to get your content out there. You could produce your content in the form of:

• Articles
• Blog posts
• Books
• Magazines
• Newspapers
• Editorials 
• Ebooks
• Flyers and leaflets
• Infographics
• Posters
• Podcasts
• Videos
• Scripts
• Cartoon strips

Brainstorm content ideas

This is a stage in the content prediction process that many writers find to be the most fun and that’s coming up with new ideas. You’ll find it most beneficial to draw up a content calendar whereby you can plan articles months or even years in advance. If you’ve never done this before, there are numerous tools you can use that’ll help to make this stage as smooth and as straightforward for you as possible. Some of those tools include:

• Feedly
• BuzzSumo
• BlogAbout
• CoSchedule

Publish & manage your content

A content strategy should go way beyond the planning and production stage. It’s important that you track how your content is performing and this is most easily done if you publish it online. Where many of the ideas you produce will be evergreen, where they’ll be relevant all year round, some will be seasonal and so you’ll likely notice peaks and troughs when it comes to how well that content is doing. 

Even so, you should keep an eye on the performance of all the content you produce, regardless of the time of year. Make this a regular activity and include it in your content strategy moving forward. Keeping a record of how your content is performing will also help when you come to produce new content as you’ll be able to spot any trends.

Here at Kumo Digital, we have a team of SEO and PPC specialists who are always on hand to produce and optimise high-quality content pieces that are tailored specifically to your business, regardless of the industry you work in. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your company with content and SEO, get in touch with a member of our team today – we’re always happy to hear from you.