In today’s marketing landscape, Content marketing is undoubtedly one of the most profitable channels. It is a sophisticated approach focused on providing value to the audience, making it an essential element in any business’s marketing strategy. That’s why many establishments have a documented content marketing plan. Research by SmartBlogger showed that 62% of marketers ranked “content” as one of the highest channels for profitability. Moreover, a written content plan helped 78% of marketers achieve successful content marketing results.
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If you want to drive sales and increase brand awareness through an efficient and effective content marketing strategy in 2023, this article is for you. You’ll discover how to create a content marketing strategy for your business. Plus, because it’s Black History Month, you get a bonus tip if you read till the end!
Importance of a Content Marketing Strategy
A Content Marketing Strategy can benefit your business in many ways, including:
- Increased web traffic
- Lead attraction
- Nurturing potential buyers
- Increased sales, conversions, and revenue.
Below are the necessary steps for developing an effective content marketing strategy to help skyrocket your business goals in 2023.
Steps on How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy
STEP 1: Create S.M.A.R.T Marketing Goals
When developing a content marketing strategy, it is crucial to establish S.M.A.R.T (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound) marketing goals for your business.
The first step is to set clear objectives and determine what you hope to achieve through your content marketing efforts. Aim to improve specific metrics over specific periods, such as website traffic, page views, click-through rates, average order value, and revenue.
By establishing specific and achievable goals, you can create a content strategy that aligns with your business objectives and helps you achieve success.
STEP 2: Distinct your audience
Defining your target audience is crucial in creating a successful content marketing strategy. By understanding the audience’s interests and challenges and how to help solve them, you can create content that resonates with them. This exercise also involves developing buyer personas and creating empathy maps to increase your knowledge of your audience’s demographics and psychographics.
These small exercises can help you better understand your audience and create content that speaks to their needs, preferences, and pain points.
STEP 3: Determine the Broad Categories of your Content Marketing Strategy
After establishing your marketing goals and identifying your target audience, the next step is determining your broad content categories. It is crucial to select a category that aligns with your audience’s interests and problems and naturally aligns with your product and company offerings.
For example, at Spotcovery, some broad categories include Advertising & Marketing, Arts & Culture, Health & Medical, and more. By defining your content categories, you can create content marketing strategies that effectively communicate your value proposition to your audience.
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STEP 4: Create a Map of Content Topics & Build a Content Calendar
Creating a content topic map involves multiple processes, such as brainstorming, keyword research, social listening, and analyzing existing content. While it can be challenging, sticking to the process makes it easier to create an effective map and develop a content marketing strategy.
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STEP 5: Build a Content Calendar
Once you’ve designed your content map, next, you need to develop your content calendar. A content calendar is essential because it allows you to designate specific days for publishing your topics in their respective categories. This makes it easy to manage your workflow, keep track of what has been published (or not), and plan your future content.
Popular project management tools used by content marketers include Airtable, Asana, ClickUp, Google Sheets, etc.
STEP 6: Create Impressive Contents
The highlight of an inbound content marketing strategy is to develop content that attracts high-quality leads, good purchases, and increased business revenue.
Hence, after all the planning, it is only right to create content that helps achieve all these possible goals. Different types of content include:
- Text
- Video
- Image
- Sound/Audio
These are relevant content you can skillfully transform over and over again. This is how to create a content marketing strategy.
So here you go, start creating those content!
BONUS STEP: Emphasize a Promotion Plan
Don’t overlook the final step of a successful content marketing strategy: promotion. Your content won’t achieve its goals if no one hears about it. Unfortunately, many brands invest in creating great content but fail to distribute it effectively.
Read Also: 20 Marketing Tools for Black Entrepreneurs
Marketing expert, Ross Simmonds, advises a content strategy that includes an all-encompassing distribution plan. Some good promotion options to consider are:
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- Email lists
- Social media
- Slack communities
- Discord chat rooms
- Influencer marketing e.t.c
By prioritizing content distribution, you can ensure your audience will engage with your content and accomplish your business objectives.
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