In the past few years, content has become one of the most essential components of any marketing strategy. It’s not only an important part of your website—it’s also a vital part of your digital strategy for promoting your brand and increasing engagement with customers. Content is king, so it’s essential that you create great copy and visuals that people will want to read (and share).
1. Take a strategic approach.
The first step to creating a strategy is understanding your business goals and objectives. What do you want to achieve with your content? How can it help drive sales, increase leads, or boost brand awareness?
Once you have a clear vision for the future of your content strategy, it’s time to start defining its audience. Who are these people? What do they need from their information experiences? How can this new approach help them achieve success in their lives or careers?
Now that you know who will be reading, viewing, listening or consuming your content in the future (and why), create a roadmap for how it will be created—including topics, themes and formats as well as channels through which they’ll receive this information.
2. Understand the media landscape.
There are a lot of different ways to consume content, and it’s important to know what those options are. You may want to share your news on Facebook or Twitter, but if your brand has a website or blog, then you should consider using other platforms as well.
As a rule of thumb, cross-channel posting, and integration always works best. For example, if you have a blog that focuses on fitness topics and wants more readership from women who might not be familiar with your work (or don’t have time), then consider sharing your posts on Instagram instead of Facebook. This way people can see how beautiful they look when they wake up in the morning while eating breakfast together! And those same people might also want some videos too—so why not post those?
Many companies do this exact thing: they launch new platforms so that their products or services can reach new audiences without having them go through all this extra effort.
3. Focus on quality, not quantity.
Quality is the most important aspect of any project. It’s what your audience will remember and come back for in the future. It’s important to see your content as one big picture rather than many little parts. Your priority should be to make everything work together for your brand, not to churn out as many posts as you can.
If you focus on quantity first and foremost, your content won’t be as good because there will be too many factors at play (e.g., a lack of time). So instead of focusing on how many articles or pages your website has right now, think about how great they are!
4. Create an editorial calendar.
An editorial calendar is the tried and tested go-to of nearly every social media savvy marketer. Essentially, an editorial calendar is your content masterplan. When it comes to content marketing – planning is essential to the brand’s success. Without a plan, you can’t be sure what will be published or when it will appear online—and this can lead to wasted time and effort.
A calendar is a great way to organize your brilliant thoughts, saving you time as you write. Rather than constantly reinventing the wheel, you can simply write what you need to write every month if you’ve already defined how much and what kind of content you need.
5. Plan for repurposing content.
Content repurposing involves taking content you’ve used for one purpose and reusing it for another. A blog post can be repurposed into an infographic, or an interview can be turned into a blog post, just as a water bottle can be converted into a vase. Repurposing content is an effective marketing strategy for many reasons. You can enhance your marketing, save time, and improve your online presence with it.
Repurposing content makes it much easier to scale content. That is, every post, video, and infographic does not need to be created from scratch. Posts, social media posts, webinars, videos, and more can be created based on new content.
6. Think about distribution at the start of the process.
A good way to maximize your content is by considering distribution from the very start of your content creation process. It’s important to figure out how you want your content to be distributed, and whether there are any specific channels or platforms where it will work best.
One of the most common mistakes made in this area is not having a plan for distribution before starting on a project. Having an idea for who will receive what kind of information can help you make sure that people get what they need when they need it.
7. Get feedback from others.
If you’re doing an important task, then it makes sense to ask for help from someone else who has experience in that field—your boss, your colleagues and even friends and family members who may have similar jobs at their companies. Don’t be afraid to ask questions!
When it comes to content marketing, you need to put the audience’s needs and preferences first – not your own. For this reason, it makes sense to turn to the opinion of others rather than solely trusting your own.
8. Customize your content for different audiences and channels.
Content can be overwhelming – both for those creating it and those receiving it. That’s why content personalization is one of the hottest buzzwords today. Receiving personal content allows you to connect with it so much more than all the other marketing posts out there.
Personalization is the process of creating content that is relevant, unique, and customized to a specific audience. Marketing campaigns can be improved, conversion rates can be increased, and engagement within target accounts can be increased using content personalization.
To increase your connection with your audience, be sure to customize your content using smart marketing tools like the SwaysEast Suite.
9. Pay attention to analytics but don’t obsess over them.
Analytics are a great way to understand what is working and what isn’t. They can also help you make more informed decisions about your content, but they’re not the be all and end all. If you’re looking for a perfect solution, it probably doesn’t exist—there will always be more things to learn about your audience and their behavior on your site.
With social media analytics, brands can learn what their audience cares about and what influences their buying decisions. By using these insights, marketing departments can create more relevant and personalized experiences.
It’s important to keep track of these but not to obsess over them. Remember that creativity and originality matter just as much as the numbers do! After all, your customers are people – not a study or experiment.
10. Use quality visuals and graphics, not just words.
Use visuals to tell a story.
Visuals are powerful tools that can help you engage your audience, draw attention to important content and simplify complex concepts. Visuals can also make the difference between an average content piece and one that resonates with people.
Use images or videos in place of text when possible. They are more likely to be shared than written text on social media platforms because they are easier for viewers to digest (and they usually contain a call-to-action).
Conclusion
The best content marketing strategies are both thoughtful and creative.
In the world of content marketing, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information available. If you want your brand or organization to succeed in this space, then there are some best practices that will help you stay on track and avoid common mistakes.
One of the most important things that any company can do when creating their own content is to plan ahead. This helps ensure that everything is executed thoughtfully and carefully. It helps ensure that each piece comes together cohesively as part of an entire strategy. Planning also helps prevent any surprises during execution. This means less stress for everyone involved!
Another key aspect of planning for great content is creativity: The best content marketing strategies contain both thoughtful planning as well as creative execution—and both elements must be present for them to work effectively together!
Content marketing is a powerful tool, but it can be difficult to know where and how to start. With so many moving parts, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But if you approach your content with a comprehensive strategy in mind, the results will speak for themselves—and they may even change how you think about marketing in general!
SwaysEast offers a suite of smart digital marketing tools to help brands create innovative solutions and experience their very own AI digital marketing success stories. Book for a FREE APPOINTMENT today.
