A comprehensive content strategy is critical to succeeding in content marketing. Without a plan, you’ll essentially be shooting in the darkness, relying solely on your luck. To get started with a content strategy, you should speak to a digital expert first.
If you’re hesitant about how an outside expert might help you, this article is for you. It explains why working with a digital consultant is helpful to your business, especially when it comes to creating an award-winning content strategy.
What is Content Strategy?
Before you develop a content strategy, you must know what a content strategy is. Most people use it interchangeably with content creation and content marketing, but that’s fundamentally incorrect.
Content strategy is the process of transforming business objectives and goals using content. So a strategy governs the content creation and marketing process, because of which it is higher in the hierarchical order.
So how can an expert help you in crafting a content strategy? In the following ways:
Audit the Market for Opportunity and Competition
To create a strategy, you must know about the marketing opportunities and competitors. An audit will help you achieve both.
Your competitors likely have the same products as yours, with minimal differentiation. So, when presenting your content, you need to help your customers how your products are better for them. So your content creation process has to be different from that of your competitors. Otherwise, there’s no need to create content in the first place.
An expert will help you audit the market.
Identify the Right Customers to Target
If you don’t define a targeted audience, your content marketing will fall flat. Not all internet users will be interested in the content that you create, but some will be. Your job is to identify those users who will appreciate your content and reach out to them. So you need to know about your customers before marketing to them with content.
If you don’t know who your ideal target customers are, you must work with a digital expert to figure it out. Only then should you consider developing content.
Assist in Setting up KPIs
KPIs or Key Performance Indicators are essential to any digital marketing activity. They let you know whether your campaign was a success or a failure, whether it outperformed or underperformed.
The common KPIs you’d use in content strategy are unique page visits, downloads, inbound links, mentions, social interactions, conversions, among others.
It’s essential to define the right KPI that can accurately measure your content effectiveness. That’s where an expert can help you out.
Help You Pick the Right Marketing Channel
After you’ve created the content, you need to distribute them. There are many channels like Facebook, Twitter, blogs, emails through which you can distribute. But the approach should be different for each channel.
If you’ve created a long blog post, then you cannot share it as it is on Facebook or Twitter, where people need shorter posts. Similarly, you cannot write a lengthy email to your subscribers list. By pushing out irrelevant content, you diminish the effect of your content marketing.
To help you figure out the right marketing channel, you need to speak with a consultant.
Content strategists do not come for cheap. But that’s because they add so much to the business. They help define the top-level framework that can make or break your marketing activities. If you’re creating a content strategy for your business, you must speak to a digital expert.