How to Craft a Content Marketing Strategy That Works

The common theme across effective digital marketing campaigns is effective content marketing. Having a strong content marketing strategy is the top concern for growing companies as it hits essential goals which are vital to the success of any business:

• Builds trust by creating your company as a thought leader,
• Differentiates your brand from competitors,
• Strengthens relationships with customers and also attracts new leads,
• Boosts conversions, and
• Improves SEO performance.

In addition, content marketing supports the rest of the digital marketing strategy as assets can be reused as well as repurposed for a number of different of marketing efforts.

The Power Of Content Marketing

A recently conducted study found that individuals are 131% more likely to buy from brands which educate them with content. Even seven days later, those consumers were still 48% more likely to make a purchase. Perhaps the most important take-out from the study is that content increases brand affinity – as well as trust – over time.

The more content which you create in order to teach your target audience with, the better off you’ll be in the long run. However, as tempting as it may be to take something your competition is making use of and utilise it as your own — even with a few tweaks — that’s not going to work. Not only is it possibly plagiarism, but it won’t do anything to set you apart from the competition.

Evergreen content, or content which withstands the test of time, is a very important part of the equation, as it continues to work for you long after it’s created as well as published. Each piece of content which you create that ranks well in search engines can also bring in a new customer, build and strengthen relationships. It determines your expertise and integrity in your industry or niche.

For a rock-solid piece of content, you need a number of things working together, beginning with well-written content. You really need to be an English major since there are plenty of tools available online to help you such as Grammarly, Readable and ProWritingAid. If you don’t have time, there are number of freelancers out there who can write content for you.

Do I Actually Need To Create A Content Marketing Strategy?

Yes! As we’ve discovered through our research which we do on an annual basis, not only do you need a strategy but you also need to document it. Those with a documented content marketing strategy:

• Are far more likely to see themselves effective at content marketing.
• Feel significantly less challenged with every single aspect of content marketing.
• Generally, consider themselves far more effective in their usage of all content marketing tactics as well as social media channels.
• Were able to explain spending a higher percentage of their marketing budget on content marketing.

What Should My Content Marketing Strategy Include?

Think about a content marketing strategy as an outline of your key business as well as customer needs, in addition to a detailed plan for how you will utilise content in order to address them. While there are no conclusive “templates” for building a content marketing strategy — each one will be unique to the business which creates it.

By communicating your reasons for putting content together, the risks involved as well as your vision of what success will look like, you are much more likely to gain executive support for your strategy — and to get permission to make a mistake here and there as you figure out what works for your business best.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Keen on learning more about content marketing? If you are then you need to do our Digital Copywriting and Content Marketing Course.  Follow this link to find out more.