A content strategy not only helps increase leads, but provides your audience with insightful information, educates prospects, and enhances brand awareness. But developing a content strategy that works takes, well, a bit of work.
Perhaps you don’t have a content strategy at all, or the one your business is using now isn’t driving the anticipated results. In this blog, we’ll look at why your organization needs a content strategy and how to develop a content strategy that works.
First off: why?
High-quality content that grabs attention, fosters engagement, and encourages actions like clicks, helps to build trust and awareness with consumers. This means more potential customers can find your products and services. Being easier to find is always a good thing, right?
How to get started.
Start with considering goals. Ask, what is the goal of the content strategy? Is it conversions, increased brand awareness, improved SEO rankings, new leads, or something else? Determining goals should be the first step in developing a content strategy that works.
For example, if one of the goals is to increase website visitors, consider a series of routinely scheduled, quality blog posts. Not only does this help to drive website clicks, but it also provides content to engage customers. When tracking is installed, such as Google Analytics, important user data can also be obtained from the blog efforts (and any campaign efforts driving users to your website). This leads us to…
Know your audience.
A content strategy becomes effective when you understand who your audience is and what they’re looking for. In addition to sales data, there are platform-provided and third-party tools that can help.
Keep in mind that when developing a content strategy, tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and other platform analytical dashboards are great ways to learn more about what your prospects are engaging with, what pages they’ve visited, and how often. In addition, understanding your audience regarding their gender, age, and interests allows you to understand the kinds of content you need to publish and the types of audiences you need to develop for marketing campaigns.
Measure your results.
Once goals are set, determine key performance indicators (KPIs) and set benchmarks. For example, if the sales and marketing team has created a white paper and released it on LinkedIn, a goal of 100 downloads in two weeks is simple to track. Even a 25% increase in phone calls from a series of promoted posts are solid goals to track. While the ultimate goal is usually conversions and sales, KPIs can even be as simple as time spent on the website, a decrease in bounce rates, getting customer reviews, or higher engagement with a social media post. Metrics will determine what’s working and what could be better.
Setting goals, determining KPIs, and reviewing them often can help refine the content strategy.
Listen.
In addition to quality content that people want to engage with, such as white papers, infographics, gamification, and even memes, be sure to weave customer feedback into the content strategy. Listen to what customers are saying online and in reviews. Don’t be afraid to ask for honest opinions from them. This shows them that their opinion matters while helping you better your marketing tactics. Win-win, right? Even better, if they have posted their reviews publicly, those reviews can be used in marketing materials such as social posts and case studies. Listening also helps to refine products and services by understanding how customers feel about the brand.
A good content strategy matters and works.
It takes time, preparation, and creativity to mold a successful content marketing strategy, but Clearbridge Branding is up for the task. We’ll ensure you get the clicks you need and that no content goes wasted. Call now to learn more: (856) 327-4141