Content Strategy is Key to Any Successful Marketing Campaign
After working in the digital marketing world for nearly a decade now, with over 6 of those years spent freelancing for numerous clients around the world in various industries, only one key tool has remained consistently important when it comes to the design and development of any strong marketing campaign – a good content strategy is vital!
It’s a fact – humans love content!
Every day we consume lots and lots of various content types, from general sources like keeping up with the news, watching your favourite TV show or listening to the radio, to skimming through your social media feeds, digesting those daily work emails and searching the web to find the answer to what ever your question is that day! You are always consuming content whether you like it or not.
With this is mind, you can now see how important a strong content strategy will be to your next (or even current) marketing campaign. Having a strong content strategy as the foundation of your digital marketing campaign sets you up on the path for success; it enables you to have a great resource which you can share time and time again in many formats on many channels.
Creating your unique content
Creating unique content is often a scary thought for most businesses, but don’t panic – it’s actually not that hard to do, just follow these simple rules:
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Stick to what you know – keep it relevant
Don’t create content off topic, stick to topics relevant to your business or industry, remember at the end of the day, your content is there to create leads and make sales, so writing about last nights X Factor auditions when you’re a Surf Shop will not bring you any valuable leads and certainly not make sales
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Keep it short and sweet
People don’t have time to digest essays, or books – if you want to provide this quantity of content create a short article around it for your website and offer a free download instead – this will give you a chance to capture some details too!
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Make sure it provides value to your reader
If your content doesn’t add value to your reader, they are not likely to remember it, let alone make a return visit to re-read or check for more interesting articles. Think about what might keep them coming back – become a resource!
Presenting your content
The format and presentation of content has somewhat developed from my initial days within the marketing world, there are now hundreds of ways to present your content, however not all of them will be correct for your target market, so take your time to discover your audience and find out what formats they will prefer to consume. Making the consumption of your content as easy as possible for your readers will help ensure it is digested.
Below are some content types you might want to consider:
- Blogs and articles
- Email marketing
- Infographics
- Video marketing
- Consumer content generation
- E-books
- Webinars
Distributing your content
A good content strategy will incorporate the use of many channels, there are many places to distribute content, but again not all of them will be the perfect match for your audience, so take some time to research what channels will work best for your target market. Below are just a few of the main sources you might choose to include:
- Owned Website or Blog
- Un-owned website or blog – become a guest writer!
- Social media sites
- YouTube
- Forums
- Email Marketing
When developing your content strategy, you might want to consider your buyer cycle – what is the process that your typical buys might take, from unaware to aware then finally to purchase? What channels will they naturally be on? What times can you catch them? At what point will they make a purchase, and how long could this take?
So what’s they key takeaway from this article?
Content is still king and always will be!
So make sure you have a good content strategy in place.
Need help with your content strategy?
Get in touch with my team today for help and advise on developing your very own unique content marketing strategy.
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