Developing a Winning Content Marketing Strategy Part 1: Understanding the Basics of Content Marketing
According to research from the Content Marketing Institute, 61% of businesses don’t have a documented content marketing strategy. If you fall into this category, you’re failing to leverage a tool that is crucial to growing your business.
Content Marketing Strategy
Approximately 85% of consumers conduct online research prior to making a purchase. If you’re not providing these people with the information they need, it will become increasingly challenging to make your business stand out in a digital marketing landscape that grows more sophisticated by the day.
It should come as no surprise that a documented content marketing strategy will help you get the most out of your efforts. The Content Marketing Institute found that companies with a documented content marketing strategy:
- Are more likely to consider their efforts effective
- Feel significantly less challenged navigating the content marketing process
- Feel that they more effectively use all of the content marketing tactics and social media channels available to them
- Are able to justify devoting a larger percentage of their marketing budget to content marketing
Without a cohesive strategy, your content development efforts are likely to be somewhat haphazard, and you risk wasting a significant amount of time, energy and resources without achieving a strong return on your investment.
What Is Content Marketing Strategy?
Content marketing strategy refers to the overarching philosophy that guides your content development. It helps you manage every aspect of the process in order to ensure your content marketing efforts achieve their desired results. When your content marketing strategy hits the mark, you’re able to more effectively demonstrate your brand, message, and expertise to your audience.
Your content marketing strategy should be guided by the following questions:
- Who is the target audience for your content?
- What pain point of your audience is your content addressing?
- How will your content convey what makes your company unique?
- What content formats will most effectively convey your message to your audience?
- What channels should you publish your content on?
- How will you manage the content creation and publication process?
Once you’ve formulated your content marketing strategy, you can detail a specific content plan which documents the ways in which you’ll execute your overarching strategy. In other words, your content marketing strategy addresses the “why” question, while your content plan addresses the “how” question.
Why Do I Need a Content Marketing Strategy?
Content Marketing Plan
The Internet has changed the way we make decisions regarding the products and services we consume. The ability to conduct your own research has never been easier. As a result, your audience is significantly more informed before they ever reach out to a company regarding a purchase of a product or service. By developing an effective content marketing strategy, you can position yourself as an industry expert when individuals are conducting their research and more effectively craft the narrative surrounding your company’s brand.
In addition, you’ll experience a variety of important benefits from creating a content marketing strategy:
- A better understanding of which metrics are necessary to identify the content that works most effectively
- Better ROI on your content marketing efforts
- More personalized content that directly addresses the specific needs of different audience segments that you serve
- A comprehensive plan for repurposing content in order to reach a wider audience and get the most value out of every piece of content you produce
- Improved long-range planning that will optimize your marketing efforts
- Greater integration of social media with your content development in order to reach a wider audience
- Elevated reputation of your brand among your audience
- Improved lead generation
- Higher conversion rate
Webolutions Can Help Build Your Content Marketing Strategy
As an industry leading content marketing agency, Webolutions is in a unique position to help you get the most out of your efforts. As part of the website design process, we’ll work closely with you to understand your company’s goals and the needs of your target audience. We’ll use this information to build a brand platform that conveys your unique message, core values and the ways in which your customers will benefit from working with you. This messaging will guide all of your content moving forward.
We’ll make sure your core web pages consistently deliver your brand messaging, provide the valuable information your audience needs, and adhere to SEO best practices. In addition, we’ll work with you to create an ongoing content marketing strategy that will help your business grow and thrive over time.
With over 25 years of experience in the digital marketing industry, Webolutions has a unique perspective. We’ve been involved since the Internet was in its infancy, and we’ve stayed on top of the latest trends as content marketing has evolved over a quarter century. Our methods achieve results because they are driven by the data. We continually test and refine our approach in order to help you achieve your marketing goals. At Webolutions, we’re your dedicated marketing partner, and our primary purpose is to empower passionate people, like you, to thrive.
See our article: 3 Tips for Your Content Marketing
Please contact us today to learn more about your content marketing options. Webolutions serves clients nationwide from our offices in Denver, Colorado.
