Developing a content marketing strategy is one of the most important tasks which today’s businesses must do, as it acts as their voice and interacts with their targeted audience. Strategy is the action plan towards achieving one’s goals. All strategies of the organization should always focus upon the vision of the organization. Developing a content marketing strategy for the organization follows the same notion i.e. it must produce value for the organization. Just like other strategic plans, content marketing strategy also involves the consideration of organizational resources, goals and measurement of results.
This article is a bird’s eye view of the whole process of developing a content marketing strategy. Let’s have a look:
Putting out too many non strategic messages to the audience proves to be an inappropriate action while developing a content marketing strategy. Likewise, every goal to be achieved requires a well carved strategic plan, content produced for raising the voice of the organization and interacting with audience also goes the same way.
First step in developing a content marketing strategy is understanding your target audience. Remember, not everyone is your audience. Every product or service serves a specific segment of the population. This segment is called your niche. Each niche has particular behaviors, needs, resources and responses. Depending upon these attributes, a general depiction of this niche’s audience is made which is called “buyer persona”. Buyer persona in short, is the personality of your buyer or target audience. This is the best strategic tip of developing a content marketing strategy as it continues to guide the content strategists throughout the entire campaign of content marketing.
A clothing company intends to launch men collection with young guys as the target segment. Here, the best buyer persona can be designed by interviewing a sample of guys of the same age. Then the common results are generalized. Young guys usually prefer bright and stylish clothes as they want to look attractive to others. The company can target their interests, likes and dislikes to shape the content marketing campaign in a catchy way. Presenting the collection as something which can help them look smart both in personal and professional lives is the best idea. So, a whole picture of different aspects of their lives is captured.
Quoting the dislikes, challenges and fears of the target customer refines the process of developing a content marketing strategy to a point where the buyer thinks of the product as the best choice for himself. The campaign convinces him that this product is bringing him close to his goals. It is fulfilling his needs and setting in his life in the best way.
If this buyer persona is created well, half of the content marketing strategic objectives are achieved because now you know about the needs of your customer more than he knows.
Availability of resources is the basic consideration while developing a content marketing strategy. If you are a big business, hiring a professional is a good idea when you have ample financial resources and less expertise or time. The professional content strategists should conceive the entire online content marketing strategy to avoid flaws and risks in the process.
For small businesses or websites specifically new blogs, usually the webmaster creates all the content himself. In this case, he has to spot the audience’s characteristics himself.
Here are the 4 top tips to engage audience when developing a content marketing strategy:
This constitutes the first and last dot of the content strategy line. Keeping focus on the target audience is the key to developing successful content. Identifying audience needs establishes the tone and voice of the content. Content for a young guy will always have a different tone and voice than the one intended for an old man. Needs of a poor man are different than those of a rich man. If a content strategist correctly identifies his audience, he can engage the target audience more effectively for long time.
Understand that the audience has busy lives and much more to do. Utilize the correct time and platform to engage the audience. Posting the content at midnight will have less audience reach than when people are available during day time. The key is to make the content as valuable for them as one can by delivering it at the right time and place.
Don’t tell audience what you want them to know. Tell them what they want to hear. People like to go through the content they like and remember they don’t have time? So provide them with the content they demand as you need to make these moments a time out experience for them. Such content is more likely to engage them for long. People pay attention to the topics when they find them interesting and a delightful source of freedom from their work routines.
In pleasing the audience, don’t forget prime purpose of developing a content marketing strategy is to benefit your products/services. For this,you need to create “brand experience” in the minds of consumers. For this, it is essential to create a “brand positioning statement” which specifies who is your audience, what is the core concept of brand and what is your competitive advantage. Stick to your brand positioning statement strictly while developing a content marketing strategy. In this way, people can relate to your brand through the content (images, videos, text) whenever they see it. In this way, you can achieve the objective of your content marketing campaign too.
For example ads or content about perfumes bring the idea of fragrances in mind. Similarly, if a clothing brand communicates that people wearing its costumes look trendy, then this drives buyers to buy its products. Therefore, linking the brand positioning statement and brand experience to our content is central to engage the audience.
Developing a content marketing strategy also deals with the understanding of which platforms & media to use for every niche and campaign. Young people are mostly present on social media while elderly people are more connected with print media. Therefore, this strategic planning also deals with the selection of appropriate platform choices to reach the target segments.
