How to create a content strategy that will drive results

Content Marketing as we all know is the foundation of organic SEO, why is this? Because as we all know, it works. Provided that is that it is done correctly.

As with any SEO, it is highly important for your content marketing to have a coherent strategy, with a defined plan that you can follow so as not to get derailed as time goes on.

And like many strategies it has to be tailor made to the business you are in, also it has to be flexible so that you can tweak the strategy when things are not quite working. Businesses metamorphosize on an ongoing basis, and your content strategy should keep pace with these changes as they happen. A good content strategy should be fluid.

Understand Your Target Audience

Content should be written in a manner to engage the readers that are interested in your business. It should not be blindly written to impress search engines, although this can be of use, the primary reason for content is to get and keep the interest of the group that you are interested in, namely your target audience.

You should market your content to the exact profiles of the people who you are to engage with. So your reader market research should answer the following criteria.

• Who the person is
• What triggers their buying decisions
• When do they make the decision to buy
• What drives their behaviour
• How do they normally buy
• How do they think

If your market research can come up with the answers to the above, then you can profile your audience far better. Once you understand them better then you can start to draw up a meaningful content attack strategy.

Demographics & Psychographics

It is now that you can try and fully understand the profiles of the target audience that you have drawn up. More detailed research on demographics and psychographics will tell you who your customers are, and why they act in the manner that they do.

Psychographics will inform you of:

• Their personality
• What values they hold
• What are their interests
• How they spend their free time

Demographics will inform you of:

• Their sex and age
• What race they are
• Where they live
• What jobs they do

With this information you can formulate who is your average type of customer, what they want, what are their priorities, and what they like and do not.

Surveys and email research is a good way of checking up on your audience, and ensuring that your average customer profile is accurate or not.

Expand Your Brand’s Profile

The way you market your brand and the manner you do so, identifies your business. It is this unique identity that will set you and your business aside from the competition. If a reader cannot identify you from out of the crowd then your “voice” is being lost.

You need to develop your “brand voice”, make it stand head and shoulders above the competition.

Set Out Relevant Goals For Your Content Marketing

This is a really pertinent statement, your strategy and goals should be very specific. Without goals to drive your strategy you do not know where it is going.

For your content marketing to be successful, you have to decide what you want it to do, and what you want it to achieve.

Many businesses have the same goals that are common, such as:

• Brand Awareness
• Customer loyalty
• Lead generation
• To increase traffic
• Sales increase
• To increase leads

Being specific with the goals you want to achieve means that you can actually measure them. If your goals are too broad and encompassing you really cannot do this. All goals should be specific and measurable, you then can see how successful your strategy actually is.

Your goals should also be achievable, within a given time period. Again this means that you can measure your success or failures. Your short term goals should also include an action plan. Say to write specific content to gain ten new customers in one week. This is a clear statement of action, that can easily show if it has achieved exactly what you wanted it to.

Think Before You Create

Before any piece of content is created, you should know exactly why you are creating it and for what purpose. The short answer to this is that the content you are creating is of benefit to your customers and users. If it is not beneficial to this group then you should reconsider why you are creating it.

The content that you create should enrich your audience experience, perhaps by informing them of something new or showing them a better way of doing something. Your readers will then care about the content, and thus the content has been worth producing.

Content Together With SEO

Creating a content strategy is a valuable tool to help your business grow, but it should not be treated as an isolated strategy at the expense of SEO.

It is true that optimizing your content will always be your priority, writing for SEO will be less engaging to your audience. However, a blend is needed, SEO should not be an exclusive focus but it definitely can bring benefits with an overall strategy.

Good content can be optimized to engage your audience and to make search engines aware that you exist. This type of writing takes a lot of skill and time, but it is well worth it.

Taking Account of Your Achievements

You must measure your goals and content strategy on a regular basis. Metrics set on particular goals are best. You can track all this using Google Analytics, the free tool from Google.

Don’t be impatient, content strategy takes time. It will improve traffic and also engage your audience to a much higher degree.

If you are a little confused how to create a comprehensive content strategy then good advice would be to talk to a professional digital marketing company. Voova Digital are experts at producing exactly this sort of thing, contact them today and soon your company will have a tailor made content strategy to drive your business forward.