While content writing has acquired significant recognition over the past, content strategy is a relatively new concept even for content writers. An integral part of digital marketing, content strategy has a major role to play in not only strategizing the type of content that needs to be added to the website but even in increasing sales at every point of the funnel.
Just like content writing, different content strategies are required to market different types of businesses and there are several factors that affect the strategy.
Before diving into the question of how to develop an effective content strategy, let’s first understand why content strategy is important for any and every kind of business.
Why Is Content Strategy Important?
We all know how important content is for marketing, right? Well, for similar reasons or to manage and analyse the reasons why content is important, we need a content strategy.
In simple words, the content strategy allows you to set a goal, create content according to that, and track the progress of the business and marketing through the said content.
Creating a content strategy for any business is important so that
- One can conduct extensive research to understand the market.
- Analyse the target audience.
- Plan content according to the audience and the funnel level.
- Track how the content is working at every level of the funnel.
- Constantly improve the content as per the market requirement, without significantly affecting the whole content or marketing work.
How to Develop an Effective Content Strategy as a Beginner? A Step by Step Guide
Every business, big or small, new or old, requires content strategy. Even if you are experienced, you will most certainly require to change your content strategy with every change introduced in the market as there is no one universal content strategy that works equally for everyone at every given point in time.
So in order to develop a content strategy that works for your business, even when you are just starting out, there are a few steps that you will need to follow.
Step 1. Write Down Your Goals
Before starting with the content strategy, you need to draft an idea of what you expect out of the content you are creating.
Do you want the content to attract a bigger audience and generate leads for you?
Do you want your content to convert the leads into your customer?
Do you want your content to help you rank higher on Google?
Do you want to improve your relationship with your existing customers?
The content you create for any given goal is going to be different from each other. Depending on your goal, you are going to develop the content strategy. So make sure you are clear with your goal and expectations from the content so that you can create a content strategy accordingly.
Step 2. Recognise and Understand Your Target Audience
You will agree with us here, not every product has the same audience and not every audience is going to take action with one type of content. Depending on the age, gender, weather, region, and religion, (add everything to the list that can make a change here) you will require different kinds of content to attract different audiences.
Recognise who your target audience is and what kind of content can woo them.
You will need to research extensively for this. Understand the market, trends, what your competitors are doing to attract a similar group of audience, and what your audience is looking for, from your content.
Step 3. Determine How You Are Helping Your Target Audience
Once you have an idea about your target audience, consider determining how your product or service is going to help them.
There needs to be a problem that is common among your target audience that only your product or service can solve efficiently. Research the pain points of your target audience and strategize your content in a way that your product seems like the only plausible solution to their problem. The idea is to market your product as a solution so that the audience realises why they need the product.
Step 4. Create Valuable Content
Now that you have an idea about the market and what your audience wants, create content that offers them value. Again, instead of directly marketing your product, create content that explains how and why the product is important for the audience, how it will make their life easier, what benefits will they be getting, and how they can use it properly. Guides and how-to articles, pros and cons, different ways to use, and positive effects of the product on their day-to-day lives are the type of content that is going to work the best here because it adds value.
Writing content is not just about vocabulary and grammar. To be a good, sought-after content writer, you need to have basic knowledge about search engine optimization and content marketing. You need to make sure that your content is SEO friendly at every stage so that it reaches out to your audience organically. Using keywords that are searched by the audience will organically lead your target audience to your content and in turn your product, generating leads.
Step 5. Track Your Progress
Once you have developed a content strategy, you need to see if it worked in your favour or not. For that, you will have to track everything. Analyse the results, and see what worked the best for your audience and which was the least favourable technique for your business. Tracking both positive and negative is important so that you can eliminate the strategy that didn’t work for you.
One important thing to note here is that even when you have created the perfect content strategy for yourself, you will have to keep tracking the progress constantly so that you can make the required changes with time and betterment in the market. Every other day google and social media algorithms change. That is one reason why the same content strategy is not going to work for you.
Parting Words
A well-defined content strategy will help you simplify content creation and marketing for any business. It is one technique that is going to augment the work performance and payscale of both marketer and content writer. Knowing how to make a content strategy that will work for your client can help you stand out as a freelance content writer and get paid better even as a beginner.
If you are new to content writing and wish to learn more about it, Hustlepost Academy has a very detailed course for you that can help you kickstart your journey as a content writer on the right foot.
