To boost conversions and improve your reputation, content marketing is the key. Before you get started, you’ll need to plan yourself a winning content marketing strategy. Using this six-step approach, you’ll soon see results.

Determine your goals

When you’re planning a content marketing strategy the first thing you’ll need to do is assess your goals. Establishing your goals makes it easier to plan appropriate tasks, and evaluate your progress. Here are a few of the typical goals for content marketing:

• Generating high-quality leads and driving sales.
• Driving traffic to your website.
• Gaining authority and thought leader status.
• Improving your SEO.
• Better social media engagement.
  
  Think about your KPIs

To craft a winning content marketing strategy you’ll also need to think about your KPIs. Key performance indicators help you to measure your success and improve your marketing efforts ongoing. There are plenty of KPIs that you can track including shares, inbound links, shares, and downloads. You might also track interactions and comments lead generation and conversion rates.

Once you start meeting your goals, you can use your KPIs to move the goal post and aim higher. Keeping an eye on your performance is crucial. If you’re struggling with your marketing, and need some support, working with a SEO Company is a great shout.

Focus on the audience 

When you’re planning a content marketing strategy you’ll need to focus on your target audience. To create the right kind of content you’ll need to draw on information from your buyer personas. What do you know about your audience? What do they value? What are they interested in? The more data you have the easier it is to build relevant and engaging content.

It can be helpful to split your audience into different segments. This way, you can deliver personalized marketing, to gain trust and loyalty.

Research your competitors

If you don’t want to lose customers you’ll need to stay one step ahead of your competitors. Make sure that you perform plenty of competitor research. Carefully analyze the content they are putting out there, it’s your job to offer something more appealing. When you’re carrying out competitor research, you may like to focus on the following questions:

• What type of content do your competitors use?
• How would you describe their content style/tone of voice?
• What’s unique about their content?
• How can you offer extra value to the audience?

  Choose your platforms

Choosing the platforms you’ll use is an incredibly important part of your content marketing strategy. When it comes to social media, you’ll need to focus on the platforms that your target audience are using. For instance, Tiktok is more popular with Gen Z, whereas Facebook is preferred by older millennials and boomers.

Once you’ve figured out your platforms, you’ll need to ensure that you're posting the right content in the right places. Every social media platform has different strengths, and understanding these strengths will help you to improve your content strategy.

Content support tools

There are plenty of different content support tools which can help you to improve your content marketing strategy. From content creation to analytics, the right technology can help you to design the perfect campaign. If you’re looking for visual content creation tools be sure to check out Canva and Pixlr. For help with topic ideas, try using Answer The Public or Hubspot Blog Topic Generator.

Focusing on these six steps will help you to plan the perfect content marketing strategy. The more effort you put into the planning stages the more chance you have of success. Figuring out your content goals is the first step. Remember to track your progress, analytics are the key to ongoing improvement.