You have blogged, tweeted and spent hours on Facebook, Linkedin and Pinterest. But still your website doesn’t get enough traffic and is not generating leads for your business.
What’s Missing?
You Need a Content Marketing Strategy
Are you have been using a random, shotgun approach to creating and posting content?
Do you have a clear focus on who your ideal customer is and what they want?
Are you creating quality content that helps your readers (customers) solve a problem?
Are you using an email auto responder series to
Do you have an editorial calendar that outlines your blog posts, social media and other online marketing?
What is a Content Marketing Strategyy?
A good content strategy is simply a plan for your online marketing that focuses on connecting with your customers and helping them to solve their problems. It can be as simple as an editorial calendar for your upcoming blog posts.
The goal of creating an effective content strategy is gain the attention of your potential customers with useful content and get them to take some kind of action. That is not likely to happen after just one blog post or email newsletter. It takes time. That is where the strategy part come in.
What type of content so you create to grab your reader’s attention?
Research your industry? What problems and concerns are affecting people in that field? For instance, a restaurant owner may want to create content about their new healthy menu options.
Identify your ‘real audience‘. Not everyone who reads your content is a member of your real and true audience. Which means, no matter what you say or do, some people will never be your customer.
Be helpful and unique. Look at your competitors and others in your industry. What are they doing? You don’t want to copy them, but you want to see what is happening out there.
Create evergreen content. Write blog posts that remains relevant to your audience.
How to Plan the Perfect Child’s Birthday Party or 6 Ways to Stay on Your Diet When You Dine Out would be good topics for a restaurant.
A local real estate agent could create a blog post about 10 Things First Time Home Buyers Need to Do Before Looking for a House.
This kind of information is always useful…evergreen. It is also the kind of information that gets shared on social media. People will tweet it, like it on Facebook and share it with friends.
Why You Need a Content Marketing Strategy?
Find and connect with your ideal customer by creating blog posts they will want to read and social media they will want to share. Doing this consistently will be rewarding in several ways.
First of all, you will gain a reputation as an authority in your field. This not to say that you know everything there is to know about the entire universe.
No. It simply means that you are providing the right information, making them know you and trust you. Others will link to you and share your content on social media and before you know it, you’re popular!
What to include in Your Content Marketing Strategy?
When you think content, think online communication. There are many types of content. Your content can include an combination of these ways to communicate with your audience:
- Blogs
- Email Newsletter
- Email Auto Responder Series
- Ebooks
- Social Media
- White Papers and Special Reports
- Podcasts
- Video
- Case Studies
So, what should you do now? The easiest and best way to create your content marketing strategy is to focus on your business goal, who your customers are and what type of content will help you to reach them.
Clara Mathews is a website content copywriter for hospitality and service-based businesses. You can find Clara at