By strategizing a bespoke content strategy, you are pinpointing exactly whom you are targeting, at what stage in the buyer journey you’re targeting them, and the method you’re utilising to successfully reach them.
Below are some key steps you must incorporate when strategizing your content plan in order to make sure that your marketing output is working.
First up, define your goals. These may be the following:
Marketing goals
You may be looking to increase your website traffic, or the number of leads coming in, or you may be seeking less tangible goals such as building your brand awareness or establishing yourself as a thought leader within your market.
Business goals
You may have clear cut business goals, where you’re looking to grow your revenue or client retention levels.
Other goals
It may be something else entirely, like strengthening your output by increasing the quality and volume of your content marketing.
Secondly, identify your personas (the semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer). Do this by researching the following:
Who they are
This will be their demographics, including their gender, age, location and ambitions.
What they want
These will be their goals – what they want to achieve – and their challenges – the obstacles in their way.
Why they want the product
This will be their objectives – how they make buying decisions and their requirements – and their conflicts, what their frustrations with providers are.
How best to appeal to them
You’ll be working out the marketing message they respond to and the best way to pitch to them buy thinking about where they go for information, what type of content they read and what platforms they engage with.
At this stage, you should be ready to start mapping out your content. Using your knowledge of where your personas digest their content, utilize paid for, owned and earned for online and offline channels to push out your content.
At Zest Media, we brainstorm highly targeted content ideas that incorporate personas and life cycle stages, so the content is reaching your ideal audience on the channels they use, at the times they use them.
Remember, if you don’t strategize, you aren’t sending the right content to the correct customer, meaning your content is failing.
To find out more about honing your strategy skills or to say hello, get in touch.