What is content marketing strategy?

Content strategy is the process of employing different types of content (written, visual, or auditory) to attract an organization’s audience or clients, and to achieve organizational and business goals. While the content strategy does involve the real production and delivery of content, there’s also an important concentration on the marketing method behind the type of content being created, the audience that it targets, the methods utilized to share it, and the important purposes it’s made to achieve and this is all done by content marketing strategist.

In simple words, content strategy is an approach to correspond the right piece (or pieces) of content with the right target audience to educate, attract, and finally turn that person into a lead, a brand ambassador, or a user.

Crafting a content marketing strategy

Developing an efficient content marketing strategy means converting a leader’s vision into a series of functional pieces of content for the marketing team to produce. This process is the ordinary and everyday part of the CMS role, but it isn’t easy. It divides into a few steps:

• Fact-finding: Initial research means sitting down with leading shareholders and understanding their purposes. In an agency setting, this is a customer meeting, while an internal CMS will talk to department managers or the CEO.
• Initial content research: How close is the company’s current content to achieving the determined goal? What are rivals doing better? What would be the best way to drive the business forward the purpose? The CMS needs time to answer all these questions.
• Content planning: The CMS provide their findings and engages the marketing team including project managers, social media managers, blog post writers, graphic designers, video editors — anyone who is pertinent to the planned strategy.
• Supervision and coordination: As the team creates the content, the CMS performs as a liaison, attending meetings and ensuring the outputs are on message and as planned.
• Continuing content research: Before and after new pieces of content become operational, more rounds of research are done. Search engine optimization checks ensure the pieces are acting well. If there’s room for enhancement, the CMS will start to renew them. If the strategy is functioning correctly, it’s time to create the next one.

What does a content marketing strategist do?

While this role will differ across organizations, particular duties often involve some or all of the following.

Do initial research and analysis

The content marketing strategist thinks about the content in a more complete way to collect a comprehensive view of a diversity of factors, including:

• Business goals.
• Brand standards.
• Prior performance.

In addition, the content marketing strategist will conduct research on customer behavior and present trends.

Meet with Shareholders

Before formulating a content strategy, the content marketing strategist will meet with shareholders. These shareholders are typically at the executive management level and are capable of providing the insights required before taking action.

During these meetings, the content marketing strategist and shareholders may set up success metrics, project objectives, and specific purposes for the marketing content. Key performance indicators (KPIs) may also be mentioned and talked about.

The content marketing strategist will carry on updating the shareholders along the way, notifying them of the progress and success of the formulated content marketing strategy.

Recognize the targeted audiences

The content marketing strategist will recognize and gather data on targeted audiences, which may comprise interviews, questionnaires, or polls.

Purchaser personas will either be produced or modified based on what is found, and the stages of the purchaser’s journey addressed for each.

Get to know the competition

A study of the competition and what is already successful online can give precious data for the formulation of a content marketing strategy, so you can expect a strategist to perform a complete competitive analysis.

Perform a content audit

A review and analysis of all content of the organization’s marketing endeavors to date will happen at an initial stage.

This content audit examines your current content, recognizing what is functioning efficiently, what needs modifying, and what needs to be eliminated.

Perform a gap analysis

A gap analysis is necessary for finding what is missing from your current content. It will answer queries like:

1. Are you meeting the needs of your clients at each stage along the purchaser’s journey?
2. Is your content written for current customers only, or does it contain attractive content to reach new audiences and potential clients?

As a result, the content marketing strategist may produce a content matrix as a framework to follow moving forward.

Set up brand governance measures

Consistent branding is necessary, particularly for your content across numerous channels.

A content marketing strategist will set up content governance principles for all staff to follow, with the final purpose of guaranteeing consistency of brand voice and tone across all content.

These will most likely include:

• Content standards.
• Brand guidelines.
• Editorial and style guidelines.
• Editorial calendars.

Formulate SEO strategy guidelines

SEO will be essential to any content marketing strategy. The strategist will set up SEO strategy guidelines to improve all online content, including keyword research, metadata creation, and even local SEO measures if needed.

Suggest content types

A strategist may suggest content types precious to your targeted audiences according to research and analysis of customer behavior and successful content trends.

The purpose is to attract your online audience more, such as with the incorporation of blog posts, videos, infographics, and interactive content.

Choose marketing channels and platforms

In addition to the significance of your content is the positioning of that content for the highest impact.

The content strategist will conduct research about marketing channels and platforms and choose those that will offer the most value for content delivery.

Continue post-strategy development supervising

Even after a content marketing strategy is produced and executed, the job of the content strategist doesn’t finish.

Post-strategy development duties may include:

• Constant supervising of analytics including content traffic and engagement, leads, and conversions.
• Tracking of content ROI.
• Make sure the content strategy continues to meet business goals.
• Finding ways to enhance content delivery and its promotion.
• Recognizing what is working and what needs modifying.

Conclusion

A well-developed and efficient content strategy can make all the difference in how successful you are online in attracting more clients and driving conversion rates.

It’s no wonder then that concentrating on the formulation of that strategy is important for organizations today.

You want to get this right and sustain it to accomplish the highest positive results. For this, a content strategist will be a precious addition to your marketing team, not just in the production stages, but as a constant presence, making sure you are doing everything you can to find your targeted audiences and meet their needs over the long term.