How to create an easy content marketing strategy
Whether you realise it or not you’ve been doing content marketing since you started your business. Your website, social posts and adverts all create an online impression of your business.
It can feel like it’s all you’re doing and that you’re on an endless hamster wheel of churning out content off the top of your head. Let me tell you a secret, it doesn’t have to be like that.
What you need is a content marketing strategy. Don’t run away screaming yet, hear me out.
A content strategy is a fancy name for a plan that pulls together what content you’re going to use and when to meet your business goals. Effectively you do the thinking once so that everything you produce makes sense and talks straight to your audience - rather than reflecting what’s going on in your head when you write it.
But how do you create an easy content marketing strategy?
Steps to create your easy content strategy
Before we go any further you need to answer these questions and don’t move on until you are beyond crystal clear on the answers. These questions will form the basis of your strategy:
Who will be reading your content? This can be different audiences for different channels
What problem will you be solving for your audience(s)?
What makes you different?
What types of content are you going to create?
Where are you publishing your content?
How are you going to manage content creation and publication?
Answered all of those questions properly? Let’s move on.
Putting your content strategy together
I’ve seen plenty of guides that get to this section and just say - put your strategy together. That’s nice, but the reason you’re reading this is for proper advice and guidance. So let’s do this.
You now know who you want to talk to, on what channel and how you’re going to manage to create your content. That’s great.
But what are you going to talk to them about?
This is where keyword research comes into play. If you’ve already got some grab it now. Otherwise, this is what I want you to do.
Head to Google
Type in what problem you solve/what you do e.g. graphic design for small businesses
Look at the results, what stands out?
Now scroll down to the People Also Ask section and make a note of what questions are asked
Head even further down the page and look at Related Searches - what are they? Are they useful? Relevant?
Start clicking on any relevant questions and repeat the process. I want you to get lost in a rabbit’s warren of Google searches, taking note of any questions or search terms that relate to your business
That’s the start of your keyword research. You can now take those searches and think about supplementary questions or topics. Eventually, you’ll end up with a spreadsheet full of juicy topics, questions and starting points for your own content.
Making sense of your content plan
We don’t want to just dump all of that in one go on our audiences. It needs to be sorted, drip-fed with the right content going to the right platform.
Go through that list and work out what would make a good email, blog or social media post - remember you need different content to target your audience at whatever stage of the buying cycle they’re at. Then drop those into each month and slowly you’ll start to get a plan for the next 6-months or year building. That, my friend, is your content marketing plan.
Take your time to flesh it out - add in some deadlines, assign people to write different topics and of course, add in anything business-specific. You might always have a promotion over the summer so add in content reminders for that. Or you send certain emails at certain times of the year, e.g. Christmas. Add those in.
When you step back you’ll see that you’ve got a plan for all of your content for the whole year, that’s pretty special. It’ll give you consistency, strategic thought and control of what you’re putting out and when.
I hope it feels as easy as that when you do it, but if it doesn’t send me a message and I’ll see if I can chuck in some ideas for you.
