Developing the Perfect Content Marketing Strategy
It can be difficult to create a piece of content and know whether or not it will land the way you want it to. Throwing random blog posts into the ether to see what sticks can become expensive as you’re using your time and effort with no clear direction. Most of the time, without a strategic content marketing strategy, your efforts will fall flat.
The great news is that you don’t need to post three blogs per day to make an impact with your content marketing strategy. The main thing is being intentional with your content and being able to connect what your business does with what your audience is searching for.
Let’s look at what you need to do to build and implement a content marketing strategy that works for your business.
Phase 1: Build the Foundation of Your Content Marketing Strategy
The first thing you need to do when creating your content marketing strategy is define your goals and who your target audience is. Here’s how to do this:
1. Tie Content to Business KPIs
What are your business KPIs? Traffic is great for the ego, but at the end of the day, revenue pays your bills and helps you create that financial stability we’re all striving towards. So, you’ll need to decide early on what success actually looks like for your business.
Here’s an example of the marketing funnel and the type of content you can create at each stage for your audience.
Top-of-Funnel (ToFu): Brand awareness, organic search traffic, and new visitors.
Middle-of-Funnel (MoFu): Newsletter sign-ups, lead magnet downloads, and returning users.
Bottom-of-Funnel (BoFu): Product sign-ups, demo requests, and sales pipeline growth.
2. Know Your Audience (Beyond Basic Demographics)
Okay, so it helps to know certain demographics when it comes to your audience, but let’s be honest, B2B decision-makers aged 30-50 isn’t necessarily a persona. Implementing a successful content marketing strategy means that you are fully aware of your audience’s pain points and daily struggles.
Pro Tip: Don't guess what your audience cares about. Talk to your sales and support teams. Ask them: What are the top 5 questions prospects ask before buying? What are their biggest frustrations? Answer those questions in your content.
Phase 2: Design Your Content Marketing Strategy Architecture
Now that you know who you’re talking to, you can create content for that one specific target audience. First, you’ll need a smart way to organise your ideas so that both humans and search engines enjoy reading your content.
1. Topic Clusters
The last thing you want to do is write about random topics. You’ll need to group your content into clusters, or content pillars, so that you make sure you’re building topical authority with search engines and within your niche or industry.
Think of the specific pain points we discussed earlier, and create working titles for your content pillars. Next, you’ll think about sub-topics that fall within each content pillar. This is how you make sure you nail every single topic relevant to your brand and business.
2. Map Content to the Buyer's Journey
It’s safe to say that not every reader will be ready to buy from you today, for example. That’s completely fine and normal, so don’t stress about it. A balanced content marketing strategy will be able to guide readers through each and every step of their decision making process, for example:
Awareness (ToFu)
Stage: Identify a problem
Type of content: Educational blogs, ultimate guides, infographics
Consideration (MoFu)
Stage: Evaluate solutions
Type of content: Comparison articles, downloadable templates, webinars
Decision (BoFu)
Stage: Choose a provider
Type of content: Case studies, product tours, ROI calculators
Phase 3: Master Production & Quality Within Your Content Marketing Strategy
You may have heard me mention that quality beats quantity, and the same goes for your content marketing strategy. Publishing one deeply researched, actionable piece of content a week will do far more for your brand than publishing five mediocre posts a day.
Set Realistic Workflows
Starting a new business can be exciting, but if you don’t manage your time properly, you can also burn out quite easily. Create a practical publishing schedule that your team will easily be able to stick to over a six-month period. Also, make sure that you outline a clear workflow for every piece of content you put out there:
Research and outline
Drafting
Editing and peer review
SEO optimisation and formatting
Publishing and distribution
Phase 4: Nail Distribution and Amplification
Now that you’ve put your creative juices to work and have managed to publish the content, you’ll need to work hard on making sure your target audience sees it. An effective content marketing strategy ensures that you can create the content once, and be able to distribute it forever.
Here’s what you can do:
Create a long-form blog post
Use the content in an email newsletter
Create a Linkedin post with the same content
Create short-form videos
Create an Instagram carousel with the same content
Being able to repurpose your content ensures that your content is used to its fullest potential and it also means that you can get the most out of every piece of content you create!
Phase 5: Measure, Audit, and Iterate
A bang-on content marketing strategy is never really complete. It’s a process that is in constant need of updates so that you ensure you remain relevant. Make sure you set aside some time each month to take a look at your analytics, for example:
What’s working? Double down on the formats and topics bringing in high-intent organic traffic.
What’s slumping? Refresh outdated blog posts with new data, better graphics, and updated links to reclaim lost rankings.
What’s converting? Identify which pieces of content are actually driving lead sign-ups and optimise those pages further.
Are You Excited to Create Your Content Marketing Strategy?
Building the perfect content marketing strategy won’t happen overnight; you’ll need to put consistent work into it by using a structured approach so that you stay ahead of your competition. Make sure, though, that you create genuine content that is going to help your audience solve their problems.
If you’re still unsure on what to do next when looking to create your content marketing strategy, be sure to get in touch with me for more information!
