If you’re a business owner just starting out with little to no cash flow and in need of some information on how to create an effective content marketing strategy to market your product or service, you’ve come to the right place! The below content strategy is designed to be repeatedly innovative, engaging and always up-to-date and will appeal to your clients and customers no matter when or how they intend to buy your product or service.
As a business owner having a well thought out, put together content plan is one of the best ways to actively engage your audience and increase your brand awareness. To start let’s talk about what content strategy is, why your business absolutely needs one and look at the different steps you need to take to create one.
What is a content strategy?
A content strategy is a plan based on your business goals and involves using content and a means to achieve those goals.
Let’s say that one of your business goals is to increase brand awareness to increase your revenue. To achieve this goal you would need to implement a content strategy that focuses particularly on SEO with the ultimate aim of getting your website on the first page of Google. This strategy will create the visibility you need to drive a large amount of traffic to your website!
New business owners may think that a content strategy is a luxury in the beginning, but producing high-quality content to meet business needs and goals will not only help to attract new customers to your website. It will also assist in building trust with new audiences through the value you provide. Having a good content strategy is how you will attract and delight customers in the all-important buyer’s journey, and will also give you a leg up to successfully compete in your industry.
You may be saying, that’s all great and everything but how do I get started? Keep reading below.
Who will be your target audience?
In other words, who will read your content? Another good question to ask yourself is, am I catering to multiple audiences or just one? Your business can cater to more than one type of audience and if that’s the case, your content strategy should too.
Once you have figured this out, you can make use of a variety of content and channels to help you show your content to each audience segment with the purpose of engaging with all sorts of customers, and not just one.
What problem does your product or service solve for your audience?
At the very least, you need to know what problem your product or service solves for your audience. After you have identified what that is, you can start to create content that speaks to these problems and educate your audience on how to solve them. This is how your brand provides value. Your content strategy should also cater to both sides of the spectrum, those who are still in the process of figuring out what their challenges are and those who already use your product or service to overcome these challenges.
What makes your business unique?
It’s likely that your competitors have a product or service that is similar to yours. So it’s important that you tell your clients and customers what makes yours better. How do you do this? Through content. Use content to prove to them why you are worth buying from and why you’re worth listening to. This is how you establish authority.
Which types of content will you use?
Decide on the type of content you want to produce. The content can range from blog posts to videos to infographics, and even social media posts. Next, work out how much available time you have to create content.
Which platforms should you share your content to?
There are a lot of options out there, so choose strategically. Adding content to your website and blog as well as various social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn is a good start.
How will you manage and publish your content?
This one is very important because you need to know when and where to publish what. This can be very daunting depending on how many pieces of content you plan to produce. The best way to go about it is to create a content calendar around general topics and gradually filter down to include the specifics as you go. When you create a content calendar, it allows you to see what you are creating and when to publish it. The calendar will also provide you with a general direction for your business’ message and will help to assert your authority through the content you create over time.
If you need assistance with the creation of a content strategy for your business, feel free to get in contact with us to find out how we can best help you.
