No one who’s part of the online bandwagon can do without a good content plan. But, what works and what doesn’t varies from business to business. With that said, there are some things that every business must bear in mind when it comes to content, which we will explore in this article.
Audit Your Existing Content
Use tools like Buzzsumo to figure out trending and high-traffic topics in your arena. After that, perform an audit of your website. Make a list of all the blogs you have published so far and compare them against the topics that are yet to be covered. This way you will get to understand the gaps between your existing and yet-to-be published content.
Collect all of your existing posts and take a good hard look at them. Figure out which posts did the best in the past and what was the common factor among all of them. Try to create future posts along the same lines. Also, pay attention to areas that need improvement. See if there are common complaints among most blogs.
Strategize Your Content Around Company Goals
You’re not creating content just because everyone is doing it. You have to understand the aim with which you write a post. Be strategic about it from the beginning. Since there’s no single approach that works for everyone in terms of content creation – you will have to come up with that on your own.
It’s good to keep your business goals in mind to come up with a successful content creation strategy.
Still, the most common content goals are:
- Creating better user engagement
- Getting more leads
- Increasing the following on social media channels
- Establishing thought leadership
Try to create content that brings you closer to these goals.
Keep Your Audience in Mind
This one may seem like a no-brainer but it bears repeating just because this point is so important. Remember, in the end, you’re writing for your audiences as they’re the ones who’ll be bringing you business.
Start with understanding your buyer persona. Buyer persona includes the age of your typical customer, their interests, hobbies, pain points, what they prefer, the kind of materials they read, their buying habits, and what they expect from businesses such as yours.
Do careful market analysis to get into the psyche of your demographic. Once you figure that out, everything from topic selection, content creation, to final edit will become a piece of cake.
For example, a typical buyer for a B2B brand is likely to benefit more from case studies, demo videos, and presentations. On the other hand, a beauty or a real estate brand is likely to benefit from imagery supplied with a description.
Study Your Competitors
Almost 77% of all B2B marketers use online content marketing. For B2B marketers, the numbers stand at 48%. And, while this may seem like you have a lot of competition to beat – it also means that you can replicate their content strategy.
All you have to do is carefully study them. Instead of recreating the cycle by following a trial-and-error approach, you can basically do what they’ve been doing so far with your own take on things.
To perform competitor analysis – you can use tools like SEMrush, SpyFu, SimilarWeb, and Google Keyword Planner.
Look at the kind of topics they’re focused on, the tone of their posts, the kind of response they are getting, their preferred format, and their overall strategy.
Find your Unique Voice/Angle
Although competitor analysis is an excellent place to give yourself a head start, that’s all it should do. In other words, use it only to get things started. It’s a common mistake to see something competitors are doing and replicate that exactly as it is.
The goal of your content should be to help users find the information they need in an interesting way.
Therefore, you must figure out ways to make yourself stand apart. You could do that by adding infographics, explainer videos, or by making your posts more personal/conversational.
Anything that makes you unique and not just another voice in the crowd is a good content strategy.
Keep an Editorial Calendar
A calendar keeps you on track in terms of what topics you’ve covered and what all still needs to be covered. It also keeps you on your toes and better prepared. Rather than using guesswork – you stick with a structured routine.
That way, instead of posting 3 blogs in a week and then not posting anything at all for another; you can ensure consistency in your publishing schedule. Timing is important when it comes to staying regular and there’s nothing like a calendar to help you in that department.
You can use tools like Sendible, MeetEdgar, SmarterQueue, and TweetDeck to schedule your content across websites and social media.
Identify all the Relevant Channels
There’s no point putting your time, money, and resources across channels where there is no relevant audience. You should, therefore, find out places where your audience hangs out the most. Using analytics tools like ahrefs, and Buzzsumo can tell you that.
It’s good to know which social channels are best for what kind of businesses.
For example –
- Pinterest is a platform for any visual content. Therefore, photography, real estate business, and any business that relies on illustrations would find it most beneficial.
- Instagram is good for almost all kinds of business; especially B2C ones like travel, beauty, and lifestyle.
- Snapchat tends to enjoy a younger presence. Therefore, any business targeting tweens and millennials should focus on this platform.
Bottom Line
It’s important that you keep fine-tuning your content marketing strategy with the ever-evolving needs of your business