Where do I begin with creating a content strategy?

Creating a content strategy is a significant investment of time and money for a company; in order for it to be successful the strategy should be carefully planned

While your company may already produce content such as videos or blog posts, if there is no strategy the potential of these posts is being lost. Content can bring organic traffic to your website, this reliable turnover provides a strong base from which you can launch other marketing campaigns. Creating an organised content strategy could be a very valuable move for your business, while it won’t be cheap or easy the potential benefits are attractive. A sophisticated content strategy can bring a steady amount of organic traffic to your website, then by embedding links inside this content, it can generate more leads as time goes on. In addition, the comfort in terms of traffic levels that your content strategy brings will give your team confidence and allow them to kick start a riskier marketing campaign. Before you embark on creating a content strategy it is important to ask some basic questions. Why do you need a content strategy? What are your main aims? Will you set targets and if so how will these be defined? Understanding why you are creating a content strategy is an important first step, make sure you have a clear purpose from the start. Some companies start a strategy to help organise the content they are already producing, the previous haphazard style was not bringing in the traffic and potential revenue expected. As with anything, setting targets can motivate employees or intimidate them. Targets help your team understand what they need to do and they can organise their work schedule accordingly. On the other hand, if you set targets of a certain number of videos or blog posts being created every week this could force your employees to write low-quality articles in order to reach the target. After answering the questions above, the next stage, perhaps the most important, is to define your content’s target audience. As an established company, you should obviously know your target audience and have at least one buyer persona, however, this does not have to be the same as your content’s target audience. Content strategies can be created to help retain an existing audience or help bring in traffic from a new demographic. If your product range is changing then adopting a content strategy can help to generate interest from a new target audience. Whatever audience you are targeting it is vital to know about them, the customers you want to attract will determine both the content and the strategy. Infographics and videos could work better with one audience but another may prefer serious blog posts. After answering the questions in the first two paragraphs you will be ready to start your strategy. Depending on the size of your output it may be sensible to use a content management system, the mind boggling amount of content created daily by companies means there is a wide range of content management providers. Content management systems may be avoided at the start of your strategy in order for you to learn and understand the market, but as your content strategy grows it could be time to think of involving a third-party. A difficult aspect of a content strategy is constantly keeping your output fresh and interesting. As the start, it is useful to be with a brainstorm, regardless of the rate of your production you will want to have as many ideas as possible to choose from. All of your competitors will be producing content or thinking about doing so, in order to stand out you will need interesting ideas and this must start from day one. Similar to content management services, there are a huge number of websites that recommend content ideas (such as BuzzSumo, Ubersuggest & HubSpot Blog Ideas Generator), these sites analyse vast amounts of data related to content and their advice should be respected. It is also very useful to look at what your competitors are doing, their content may inspire your team. Starting a content strategy is intimidating but done well can be hugely rewarding. Make sure you know why you are organising your content and who it is for. These two basics will give you a solid foundation and on top of this you can produce content that will entertain and challenger your customers. If you need help building and managing content for your website contact Holograph now.