Create a content marketing strategy Part 2
How do you create a content marketing strategy?
The following steps the ones we’d suggest you follow when you sit down to put your content marketing strategy together.
6. Put your strategy and tactics down on paper
Once your strategy is down on paper, it becomes a real thing. It also becomes something you can share with and talk through with the people involved so they know exactly what they’ll need to do and why.
More importantly it’ll set out how you’re going to achieve what you want to achieve. It’ll set out the tactics.
All too often when we talk about strategy, we are really talking tactics, but tactics are the ‘how’ to strategy’s ‘what’. Your tactics could include:
- Respond more quickly to current search terms
- Prioritise the keywords being used by our competitors in new blogs
- Tackle each identified topic in long- and short-form content
- Repackage existing content as infographics and video
- Add two new social media channels
7. Audit your content
Audit …. even the word conjures up a picture of wasted time and boredom!
However, with content marketing, it’s non-negotiable. The good news is it doesn’t take long and will save you a stack of time and effort.
Once a quarter look back on the titles and topics you’ve covered and see if:
- It could be updated following a recent change in your market
- It can be repurposed for a different market
- Should be tweaked a bit and reused
- if its crying out for a follow up piece because of continual progress in that area
- it was published in one format and/or for one channel and could be reused in another format or for another channel
8. Build an Editorial Calendar
Creating a formal editorial calendar is essential.
It’ll give people advance warning of what people need to write and when. And if they need to come up with ideas of their own for their next piece, it’ll also force them to submit those ideas ahead of time, so they’re not hit by writers’ block the night before their piece is due.
9. Actively promote your content
Whatever content you are producing and wherever it’s being published, success will require you to promote it, promote it and then promote it again.
Share it on social media.
Send it to your customers and contacts (preferably with a personalised note telling them why it’s of interest).
Include links in your e-newsletter.
Push it internally so that everyone in the business is promoting each new piece of content in their own way.
Encourage customers, contacts, and your wider professional networks to share it with their networks/audiences.
And again, keep a record so you can see which media, which channels, which topics, which formats, and which words are receiving the warmest welcome.
10. Adapt, improvise, overcome
Things don’t always go exactly to plan but if you have a strategy and are measuring your progress, you will soon see where changes need to be made.
Don’t ignore these warnings! Adapt, improvise, and overcome. Tweaking tactics isn’t an admission of failure. It’s the only way to protect the time and budget you invest in the next stage of your content marketing strategy.
Don’t ignore these warnings!
Adapt, improvise, and overcome. Tweaking tactics isn’t an admission of failure. It’s the only way to protect the time and budget you invest in the next stage of your content marketing strategy. Part 2 will following in the coming weeks.