How To Create A Content Marketing Strategy From Scratch

Whether you’ve failed in your current marketing technique or just about to whip one up, you’ve certainly come to the right place. This article will give you an all-encompassing guide to a powerful content marketing strategy.

So why content marketing, you ask? 

Despite 42 percent of marketers saying that content marketing gives them a boost in sales, an effective content marketing strategy can indeed do wonders for your brand.

Whether you’re a multibillion-dollar company or a startup, content marketing will enable you to compete with the biggest competitors in your industry. 

What is Content Marketing Strategy?

In a nutshell, content marketing refers to any visual, downloadable, or written content. The main goal of creating a competent content marketing strategy can be generally broken down into three:

• Create brand awareness
• Promote products and services
• Reach out to target market 

As you can see, all three goals lead to the same outcome: Boost company sales and success. And these goals can be achieved when a brand does its content marketing tactic right. 

Companies can choose between various content marketing types such as:

• Blogs
• Videos
• Infographics
• Social Meda
• Podcasts
• Ebooks
• Case Studies

However, crafting any content format isn’t enough. The lifeblood of content marketing is what it can offer to the target audience. 

They should offer value, information, solutions, or answers that can resolve any of their pain points. Also, content marketing can do as much as enlighten the audience to the point of patronizing your brand. 

However, it takes time, meticulous planning, audience analyzation, and more to pull off an effective marketing tactic. 

Easiest Way to Start a Content Marketing Approach

The easiest way to start your content marketing approach is through blog marketing. In fact, 55 percent of brands can attest to the power of blog writing.

Blog marketing is the publication of blog posts on your website or social media channels that provide the audience with valuable information. These blogs also come with compelling visuals that add to that “engagement” factor. 

While the main goal is to bring forth new leads to increase revenue, blog writing doesn’t entail explicitly pitching products and services. They subtly promote products and services through education and entertainment. 

One brand that did their blog writing right is OptinMonster. It’s an email automation software that brands can use for their email marketing strategies. 

The upper hand this company has over other brands is that their blogs not only have valuable information. The blogs have tried and tested case studies, step-by-step guides, and techniques from the company itself.

This is a perfect content marketing approach because any audience who is in the same dilemma can see OptinMonster as a credible brand in their industry. 

Another go-to channel for blog posts in the digital marketing niche is HubSpot. Like OptinMonster, they also offer some tips and tricks of the trade, including their tactics that worked.

For example, this 2018 blog about a new SEO approach they did to combat a traffic plateau worked like a charm. It increased website traffic organically by 25 percent within a year. They garnered about three million organic page views monthly! 

For a company that offers marketing software products, this is a great way to strengthen your footing in the industry.

That said, once you consistently publish your blog with adherence to white hat SEO, you’ll gradually reap the benefits. Then you can repurpose your blog posts into other content formats like videos, infographics, podcasts, ebooks, and more. 

But before you do, take note of these five essential steps to create a content marketing approach that works.

5 Easy Steps to Create a Content Marketing Approach

Know Your Goals and Objectives

Putting together a content marketing tactic is easier when you create a concrete draft of your goals and objectives. Once you know your goals, the next few steps will flow easily.

Goals and objectives are two different things. Goals refer to the outcome you want from your content marketing approach. Some of them could be:

• Building trust with the target market
• Garnering new leads
• Attract new partnerships
• Resolve the audience’s pain points
• Show the benefits of products and services
• Nurture current client relationships
• Boost online presence

On the other hand, objectives are the tangible steps you take to reach your desired goals.

Define Your Target Audience

Content marketing entails knowing how to talk to your audience. Without defining your target audience, you will never see eye to eye with them.

That said, create a buyer persona. That means putting yourself in your customers’ shoes and figure out what problems they could be having. These are called “pain points.”

Once you know that, you’ll have ideas on what content you need to publish out there. 

Pitch In Ideas

While content marketing should focus on quality, this step can focus on quantity. The more ideas you can think of, the more you’ll bolster your brand’s web presence. 

You can utilize an RSS feed like Feedly. If you can’t rack your brains on the best content topics, consult Feedly’s trending topics in your niche.

Choose Your Content Format

As mentioned above, most companies start with the easiest way: blog writing. Once you’ve done A/B testing or content audit on which blog posts create the most customer engagement, you can then repurpose it into another content format. 

You may make a tutorial or entertaining video skit out of it. You can also create an infographic for the more visual learners and readers or podcasts for the auditory learners. Better yet, publish an all-inclusive ebook about that topic. 

Think of any content format that will interest your audience. This will truly work to your advantage as long as you don’t veer away from quality. 

Pick a Content Management Software

Now it’s time to organize everything into one accessible software so you can collaborate all your content projects. 

If you’re building your platform for all your content, you can choose WordPress. Or if you’re regularly posting content on social media, you can try Hootsuite. 

You may also turn to BuzzSumo if you want to stalk your competitors’ best-performing content topics. 

Wrapping It Up

Once you’ve dealt with these five easy steps for your content marketing strategy, you can monitor your content marketing performance. Google Analytics is another tool to monitor your content marketing approach. 

Remember that content marketing usually takes time. But with patience and creativity, your brand could be catapulted to success rapidly.