More than just creating blog posts and social media posts, content marketing has to be a strategic process to have an impact on the bottom line.

To be successful with content, you need to have an all-inclusive and well-thought-out strategy. This will enable you to Pull in and keep a audience that is easy to identify and, as a final result, get revenue-producing customer action.

The following guide will outline the primary steps needed to develop a effective content marketing strategy.

What Is a Content Marketing Strategy

A strategy is a plan that helps you achieve a goal. Let’s distinguish it from a few similar industry terms:

• Content marketing strategy: This high-level strategy deals with mapping out the implementation and distribution of your brand’s content marketing materials.
• Content plan: You will sometimes hear this referred to as a “content calendar.” A content plan helps you organize your material implementation in a neat and orderly fashion.

Why Do You Need a Content Marketing Strategy

We found out that 40% of businesses don’t have a documented strategy yet. Having a documented content marketing strategy is important because it map outs and sets expectations for your content marketing efforts.

The text is saying that having a content strategy will help you be more organized and successful in creating content.

According to a survey of 1,500 marketers, those who felt their content marketing strategy was exceptionally effective in 2021 were more likely to have documented it.

The 5 Elements of a Powerful Content Marketing Strategy

There are five core elements to an effective Content Marketing strategy: audience personas, brand positioning, owned media value proposition, business case, and an action plan. These elements are essential because they help you to understand your audience, position your brand, and create a plan of action.

1. Audience Personas 

If you want to effectively communicate your brand’s story, you need to first understand your audience. There are multiple ways to do this:

• Survey your existing customers 
• Research industry trends 
• Know who you aren’t trying to target 
• Keep close tabs on whom your competitors are targeting

Once you have your audience in mind, you can use our free Personas tool to create a written representation of them.

It’s important to be able to explain who your audience is to anyone who is involved in creating brand messaging.

Start by exploring these persona examples for your inspiration.

2. Positioning Your Brand and Story

Having a solid brand will help you to deliver a consistent message to your audience across all of your content marketing channels. This, in turn, will help you to build the right image.

These questions will help you brainstorm your positioning in the market:

• Who are my existing and potential customers, and what are their goals?
• Who are my top competitors, and how do they market their brands?
• What is my brand’s unique value?
• What problems does my product help to solve?
• What makes it a better choice over my competitors?

Use the information to create the main topics for your brand story.

Your brand story is a window into what your company is all about. It tells potential customers who you are, what you stand for, and why they should care. By understanding your brand story, you can better craft content that resonates with your audience and helps you achieve your business goals.

Focus on the following elements:

• The hero of your story (your customer) and their goals and challenges
• Your brand’s personality
• The purpose of your brand and key brand values
• The way your product and your content can help reinforce all the above and empower your hero 

This free brand storytelling template can help you document your brand’s unique story. This can be especially useful for small businesses and startups that can use their unique backgrounds and identities to their advantage.

3. Content Marketing Mission Statement and Owned Media Value Proposition

Your brand’s value proposition is the reason why customers should believe you when you say you’re a credible content publisher. To do so, answer the following questions:

• What unique value do you provide to your audience with your content?
• How do you stand out from other content creators?
• Why should readers choose to follow your content channels?

Your content marketing strategy should include a mission statement that summarizes why you are creating content and provides information on who can benefit from it.

Make sure your content marketing mission statement includes the following elements:

• The audience you are creating your content for
• Their goals and how your content will help achieve those

Our content is designed to help digital marketing managers learn more about SEO and content marketing so that they can help their companies grow via organic channels.

4. Business Case and Content Marketing Goals

Value is important to have in your content strategy to be successful. But not only should your content marketing strategy attract new readers and followers, it should help push your business goals and objectives.

What business goals does your company need to achieve, and how will content marketing bring your company closer to those goals? How many resources do you need to invest in your content strategy, and what results do you want to generate?

Creating a document that outlines the potential benefits, costs and risks of implementing a content marketing strategy can help you to better understand how it could benefit your company and make it easier to convince decision-makers of its value.

5. Action Plan

Next, you will list out your main content marketing campaigns and projects for the year and add them to your content plan. Consider how each campaign or project will help you achieve the content marketing goals you’ve set for your business.

Doing this will allow you to think through each content strategy step. Make sure to include the following information:

• Content formats you want to focus on
• High-level content topics and campaigns
• Channels for content distribution and promotion

You will need to look at your past content performance and further study your audience to decide which content formats and distribution channels are best for you. We will talk about your audience more later.

We have listed the main elements to include in your content strategy. Now, let’s see how you can build it and develop effective content step by step. The first step is to assess your current situation. This means taking a close look at your website and your content. You need to ask yourself some questions, such as: -Who is your target audience? -What kind of content do they want to see? -What is your competition doing? -What are your strengths and weaknesses? After you have assessed your current situation, you need to set some goals. These goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Once you have set your goals, you need to create a content calendar. This will help you plan and publish your content in an effective way. Finally, you need to measure the results of your content strategy. This means looking at things like website traffic, engagement, and conversions. By measuring the results of your strategy, you can make necessary adjustments and improve your content over time.

7 Steps to Creating a Complete Content Strategy 

Your content marketing strategy is similar to your content marketing plan. To develop an effective strategy, follow these steps:

1. Set SMART goals.

But by taking a focused approach with your content marketing, you can set achievable goals that will help you attract and engage your target audience. The first part of your content marketing strategy should be to set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). These goals should complement your broader marketing and company goals. Having focused goals for your content marketing will help you attract and engage your target audience.

Here are some SMART goal examples:

• Improve brand awareness
• Boost revenue
• Increase conversions
• Improve brand loyalty
• Increase customer engagement
• Build rapport and trust among prospects and customers
• Attract strategic partners

2. Determine your KPIs.

Without KPIs, it can be difficult to determine whether you are on track to achieve your goal. Select KPIs that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based. After you have set your SMART goals, establish KPIs to track your progress. KPIs are quantifiable data points that you can use to measure your actual performance against your goal. Without KPIs, it can be difficult to determine whether you are on track to achieve your goal, so make sure to select KPIs that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-based.

3. Decide on the type of content.

After you have considered your target audience and buyer personas, decide what type of content you will create.

Answer the following questions about your target audience to help you narrow down the right types of content for them:

• What do they need from you?
• What challenges are they looking to overcome?
• Why do they need your product or service?
• How can you help them succeed?
• Where do they spend their time?

Choose the types of content you will create based on the different types of content you reviewed earlier.

4. Choose your content channels.

It’s time to choose the specific content channels you will share your content on. These are the places where your content will be hosted and shared from.

The channel you need to work with will be obvious depending on the content type. For example, if you are creating content for Facebook, then the channel you will use is the social platform itself.

5. Set a budget.

You need to set a budget for your content marketing. This will include the cost of creating the content, as well as any fees associated with promoting it on various channels.

Then, ask yourself the following questions to determine your budget:

• Do you need to purchase any software or technology to create the content (such as graphic design software like Adobe Photoshop, a subscription to Canva, a camera to take high-quality photos and videos)?
• Do you need to hire any content marketers or designers (such as artists, writers, editors, designers)?
• Do you need to pay for ad space?
• Do you need access to specific tools or resources to enhance or measure your specific type of content?

When estimating your budget, take note of how your responses will impact the amount of money you will need – whether you will need more or less than you initially thought.

6. Create and distribute the content.

Your content should be easily consumed by your audience so that they are more likely to convert. To make sure you are producing and sharing content regularly, use a social media calendar or editorial content calendar.

This will allow you to better manage your team’s content creation and schedule it in advance.

Using an editorial calendar can help you schedule and optimize your marketing content to boost conversions.

7. Analyze and measure results.

It is important to analyze and measure the results of your content marketing efforts so that you can make any necessary changes to improve your reach.

The success of your content marketing strategy can be determined by looking at your SMART goals and KPIs. Did you achieve your goals and KPIs? Were you close to reaching them, or were you off in your estimations?

Here are some tools to help you with your content marketing strategy analytics and results:

• HubSpot Marketing Analytics Software
• HubSpot Social Media Management Software
• Mention
• SharedCount
• Sprout Social
• Google Analytics

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