70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing because of the return on investment it delivers.
A marketing strategy that isn’t well thought-out will usually result in poor outcomes. As businesses realize the importance of content strategy, the demand for content strategists is increasing, making it one of the most sought-after jobs with an annual salary of $62,424.
So what does a strategist do? What skills are required to get the job? Let’s answer that in this guide. We will also provide tips from five experts to help you achieve success in content marketing.
What does a Content Strategist do?
As a content strategist, you will be responsible for planning, managing, and executing a brand’s content strategy across various marketing channels. Your role will be to ensure that the brand’s message is consistent and engaging, while also meeting the needs of the different marketing channels.
The typical person in a digital marketing role will have a minimum of 4-5 years working in the industry, and often will have a related bachelor’s degree.
Your primary role? Developing a written content strategy with the goal of driving brand awareness and generating leads.
There is a lot that needs to be done in order to develop and execute a winning content strategy. For instance:
- Conducting audience research and studying available data to understand what new content to produce and why.
- Planning content ideas that tie back to business goals and target audience needs.
- Maintaining consistency in content production by developing a key brand message and content value proposition, creating brand voice guidelines, style guides, accessibility guidelines, and related templates.
- Setting up and maintaining a streamlined content workflow and editorial calendar for content operation and production.
- Distributing content on various channels including social media while also getting feedback on it.
- Reporting that involves studying metrics showing its performance.
- Repurposing and updating/refreshing content to get more mileage from content your team creates and ensuring all content is up to date to offer the most value to the target audience.
The content strategist role may vary depending on the needs of the organization. Some employers are looking for content marketing strategists while others are looking for those with a focus on analytics.
This is not a straightforward question to answer, as it depends on a number of factors. One factor that plays a role here is how well a business has already implemented content marketing to meet its goals.
Some companies have an established way of speaking, working, and governing their content. Some people may only be starting out and need help from a strategist to develop their editorial voice and processes.
See also: What is content management? Advice for managing content strategically
9 Key Skills A Content Strategist Needs
Since a content strategist focuses on content planning, production, analysis, distribution, and management, you need to have the following skills to succeed:
1. Solid Copywriting Skills
If you cannot produce content that is of high quality, it is not going to matter how well you plan or distribute it. The most important part of content marketing is the writing process. It is important to know who is creating your content, whether it is someone internally or externally, and how well they understand your business. This will help ensure that the content is accurate and on brand. To be a good copywriter, you need to know how to direct, plan, design, and edit content. You may not be writing daily, but you will have to write something at some point. It’s important to know what strategies are effective in order to get results.
Being able to see the big picture and see how all the content on a website or campaign fits together is important for a content strategist. Creating a website often starts with laying out the existing content architecture to identify where content is located and how it functions. To create successful campaigns, you need to understand the mindset of your users and test your ideas. How can this feedback be used to improve the messaging?
2. Content Presentation Skills
You will need to decide how to package your content once it is written and approved. This will involve determining how you want prospects and customers to consume it. The purpose of different types of content (social media posts, videos, eBooks, guides, etc.) for your audience will depend on what you think is most useful to them, which you can decide based on analytics, research and experience. Your content should be a mix of long-form and short-form pieces, with eye-catching headlines and images that help it stand out.
3. Content Delivery Skills
When your content is ready to be published, you need the skills to get it in front of your audience. You and the digital marketing experts on your team should figure out what the best distribution channels are. If you want your blog post to be successful, research the topic and find the best way to reach your audience.
4. Campaign Experience
If you don’t have several years’ worth of experience executing campaigns, it will be difficult to devise a successful strategy. In order to become a content strategist, one must have experience in planning and executing marketing campaigns, as well as analyzing metrics and developing creative strategy.
5. Content Monetization Skills
Unless you work for a media company, it is unlikely that you earn revenue through content production. The goal of advertising is not to inform people about your product or service, but to get people to buy it. As a content strategist, you are responsible for creating a plan for how your content can generate revenue, and then conveying this plan to your executive team.
6. Multitasking and Organizational Skills
The content strategist’s job can be a very solitary one. Your success in content marketing for your brand will depend largely on your own efforts, and your company’s leaders will expect you to take a proactive, independent approach to get the job done. While you will be working with other marketing team members, you will be the only one responsible for your specific initiatives. You will be expected to manage projects and people on a daily basis.
You will need project management tools, calendars, and note-taking. The ability to track projects, communicate with stakeholders and other departments, manage budgets, vendor contracts and editorial calendars, and make improvements to the content strategy or lifecycle is essential to the success of any organization. When you need support from people in positions of authority, be confident and prepared to share your ideas.
Content strategists typically spend their days meeting with various teams across the organization to discuss ongoing and upcoming projects, outlining future content, and working with designers to create visual elements. Content strategists work with social media strategists and other specialists to create a consistent message. You will not be successful in this role if you do not have excellent communication and planning skills.
7. A (Metaphorical) Editor’s Pen
While it is important for content strategists to be able to edit words and phrases, there is more to it than that. Editorial competency is especially important during migration projects. Almost all large brands do not track the content they are publishing. It is the job of the content strategist to analyze the content to see what should be kept, edited, rewritten, or retired based on analytics, how old the content is, and how well it has performed in the past and currently.
8. An Analytical Mind
Most marketers today find it easy to collect data using apps and integrations. Although it is easy to collect data, it is difficult to know what to do with it. Content strategists analyze data to identify patterns and trends in order to make decisions about content marketing. Your blog posts might work better on Facebook, and your videos might work better on Instagram. Your brand’s most shareable content might be 1,500 words long, follow a morning publishing schedule, and include two Pinterest-sized images.
9. Consensus-Building Skills
As a content strategist, you will be responsible for creating and managing your brand’s content strategy. This will involve creating content that is on-brand and resonates with your target audience, as well as managing and overseeing the overall content strategy for your brand. Some people will not agree with your job or what it entails. Some people will not think that content marketing is important. It is important to get all members of your organization on board with content marketing by explaining the advantages it provides.
Expert Content Strategists Share Tips To Succeed In Content Marketing
Now that you know what content strategists do and the skills you need for the role, let’s walk you through five expert tips to help you succeed:
1. Create data-backed content
Content Marketing Specialist at DashThis, Marie Lamonde recommends you:
Put another way, put your data analysis to work.
Here’s an example that Lamonde shares:
2. Think like your target audience
Data is important for creating a valuable content strategy, but empathy is also essential.
If you want to know what your ideal audience is thinking, put yourself in their shoes. This is the advice of Noelina Rissman, a freelance B2B content strategist.
Rissman points out,
When you are creating content, you need to think about what your target audience would want to see.
What Rissman advises is to think about what you would want to know about topic X if you were in that person’s position. Sometimes the best pieces come from those that feel empathy instead of being supported by numbers.
Conducting customer interviews is always a good idea in order to develop an understanding of their struggles, the language they use, and more. Doing this will help you think more like them.
3. Always measure the impact of the content you create
Make sure to track your key performance indicators from the beginning in order to have a successful content marketing strategy.
“I need to stop writing things that aren’t true, or so it seems.” This is a nod to Content Marketer and Strategist Meryl D’Sa-Wilson, who writes that it seems she needs to stop writing things that aren’t true.
To this end, D’Sa-Wilson recommends asking yourself the following questions:
- “What content metrics/KPIs to track and how to track them?
- What content reporting will look like?
- How to align content goals with business goals?”
4. Update content to keep it fresh
“It needs to be nurtured and cared for regularly, or else it can quickly become out of date and lose its impact.” Chris Zacher, Content Marketing Strategist at Inter, points out that content is not a static asset that can be left alone. It requires regular attention or it will become outdated and lose its effectiveness.
Zacher advises refreshing your content every six months with updated statistics and information.
Zacher also suggests going in at the beginning of every year to update the dates. If you want your content to stay relevant, you should regularly update it. For example, if you have an article about the best content marketing tips for 2021, you should update it for 2022 by January of that year.
The reason? Google ranks fresh content higher, so adding new content and updates to your existing content will help improve your ranking.
” According to Zacher, content that is fresh and up-to-date will almost always do better than content that is outdated. Even if your content is always relevant, updating it regularly with new links and statistics will keep those pages performing at the highest level.
5. Pay attention to building links
One of Sarah Archer’s top tips, especially for small content teams, is to create a passive link-building strategy.
You could create resources, for example, that writers could use to support their stories with data, original research, and current trends in long-form content pieces.
Additionally, sharing original research and statistics on a topic is likely to result in increased backlinks, which helps to improve search engine optimization.
6. Level-headed under pressure
Being a content strategist isn’t a stress-free job. Managing strategic projects on tight schedules can be tough. It’s important to be able to stay calm under pressure while still being able to execute engaging campaigns. Flexibility is also key during difficult or unpredictable times.
To succeed as a content strategist, you should cultivate the personal qualities of independence, leadership, and attention to detail, and learn to get things done. Additionally, it would be beneficial to grow your skillset to meet all of the suggested skills above.
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