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According to the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of B2B marketing professionals and 70% of B2C marketing professionals integrate content marketing planning and strategy into their overall efforts. Marketers often describe content marketing as an effective way to drive business goals such as building brand authority, engaging target audiences, and enhancing their online presence.
Although numerous online tools can assist with content marketing, establishing a strong planning and strategy process ensures campaign success.
Identify Your Target Audience/Customers
Content marketing planning and strategy has one overall objective: reaching a target audience and engaging them around a call to action. Identifying your target audience begins with research and insight, focusing on various factors including web analytics, competitor research, demographics, and other internal data.
Once these factors are acquired, a thorough analysis should be performed and buyer personas should be developed. Understanding the range of potential customers allows for a more throught content marketing strategy which integrates various channels including social media, web copy, and video.
Defining Goals, Objectives, and KPIs of Content Strategy
Every content marketing strategy must have a defined result that can be quantified over time. Formulaitng a content marketing strategy means identifying particular goals and objectives, and determining the appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for that strategy. Integrating metrics and analytics into content marketing may appear daunting, but establishing goals and tracking progress allows for greater evaluation of campaign success.
Establishing goals and objectives enables greater stakeholder buy-in towards content marketing strategy. By providing justification and potential Return on Investment (ROI) for a content marketing strategy, marketers can make a stronger case for leadership and organizational support. Converting external stakeholders into advocates for particular strategic efforts can bolster efforts towards outreach in terms of support as well as insight.
Audit and Analyze Your Current Assets
Performing an initial content audit is the next critical step in any content marketing planning and strategy initiative. Once goals, objectives, and KPIs are determined, then current content (both written content such as blog posts as well as other media such as video) should be located, linked, and inventoried via spreadsheet. (There are several free and “freemium” content audit tools that can ease the process). Although performing a content audit might initially appear to be a tedious process, doing so can ensure that efforts do not include Redundant, Outdated, or Trivial (ROT) while maintaining current content SEO effectiveness.
When performing an initial content audit, identifying gaps and opportunities for content creation should be integrated into the organization’s overall strategy. Crafting unique content and integrating it with current assets will ensure a successful content marketing strategy. Integrating buyer personas and psychographics can better inform content creation and strategy by addressing potential customer questions and driving conversions.
Implementation, Outreach and Governance
Implementing a content marketing strategy begins with organizing content types, messaging, personas, and other assets into a cohesive schedule. Two critical steps are developing a content governance plan and crafting a content calendar to ensure campaign success.
Content governance consists of establishing guidelines towards ownership of various roles within content marketing efforts. Content governance planning covers roles and responsibilities throughout the process, including content creation, posting, and measurement within an organization. Effective content governance efforts ensures consistency, efficiency, and quality of efforts.
Identifying key roles in content marketing strategy is critical, but the next challenge is organizing those efforts and roles into a cohesive schedule. Crafting a content calendar as part of the content marketing planning process is critical before implementation, providing a schedule that outlines strategic timelines, roles, and responsibilities as well as aid project management through the use of in-house or online content calendar tools.
Measuring Content Marketing Effectiveness
Although KPIs were earlier determined at the start of content marketing planning, they will play a paramount role in determining content marketing effectiveness. Monitoring how outreach efforts impact strategy-specific content marketing metrics provides insight into whether content is engaging the appropriate audience, enhancing related efforts such as lead generation, and providing appropriate ROI.
Integrating metrics and learnings into content marketing outreach is a vital component of any initiative. Content marketing strategy is rarely a one-and-done activity, but an evolving process that reflects an organization’s efforts to reach key audiences, strengthen their brand, and drive conversions.
Author: Gordon Dymowski
B2B Social Media Marketing Consultant/Copywriter
Gordon Dymowski is a B2B social media consultant and copywriter working with small to medium-sized businesses around audience engagement, lead generation, and driving revenues. Gordon has assisted various organizations in social media strategy, engagement, and analytics with a specific focus on healthcare, technology, and mission-driven ventures. He is also a fiction writer who has written for various independent publishers.
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