The need for a content strategy by business owners and personal brands is increasing every day. In 2020, Smart Insight recorded a 4% increase in B2B marketers documenting their content strategy as compared to 2019 with the pandemic and vast technology as major factors. The pandemic and vast technology have caused a fundamental change in the world. Consumers are more active in the purchasing process, and marketers could not be less.
Many business owners have laboured on devising a qualitative content strategy unsuccessfully because few have the luxury of time to join the social conversation and connect consumers’ needs with their brand value. Truly, the case for content strategy is very complex. Hence, they hire a content strategist.
A content strategist devises an efficient content strategy while you, as a business owner, focus on adding value and measuring your business growth. She or he plans for marketing content by considering your target audience and business goals, then connects it with a social conversation for the attainment of pre-defined marketing goals.
The place of a content strategist today cannot be overrated, however, you can be your own content strategist by empowering yourself with these ten (10) content strategy criteria:
- Set your content strategy goals:
To begin, you must, first, set your content strategy with defined criteria. These will serve as the indices for growth measurement and future goal attainment. Do you want to write content to gain awareness, engagement, or you are looking at convertible leads for your brand? Either way, you need your content strategy goals to be S.M.A.R.T (Simple, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound), and in line with your brand’s USP and vision. This is quintessential to every other element in the content strategy process.
2. Analyze your market
Every product has its market, but not all markets are for your product. So, who is your target audience? Your target audience is people that find value in your products, therefore, you must analyze them to connect your brand value and gain acceptance from them.
Human interests and acceptance precede your goal achievement as a business owner or personal brand. If you don’t have their attention, interest, arouse their desire and convince them in line with your products and services, how do you want to achieve your goals? No way. Therefore, you need to identify them in the highly dispersed market, streamline them according to variables such as age, educational background, social status – basically, leverage psychographics and demographics elements in ensuring they are in line with your product and service value accordingly.
This will help you go forward in your content strategy journey.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The evolution of technology affects not only human behaviour but also affects our economy. We now run a content economy. Everybody is a writer and the few who are not have a low attention span. How do you make your content relatable and understandable above other content? This is where Search Engine Optimization comes in. Optimize your marketing content using notable keywords, backlinks and internal links and if harnessed well, it will rank high on search engines, drive engagement and always achieve your content goals. But if you can’t harness the opportunity that comes with SEO, don’t waste it by devising a content strategy alone, hire a content strategist.
4. Integrate your brand voice and style
Brand voice and style are the distinctive attributes of a brand. They encompass everything that sets you apart from your competitors in the same niche. They include your content style, your brand colour (s), design as well as how you relate with your customers. They are as specific as that. How do you ensure your brand voice and style are formidable and unique? How do you ensure your brand voice commands the respect it needs in the marketplace without bowing for other products of the same calibre? You need reliable answers to these questions. According to Sprout Social Index, 45% of consumers unfollow a brand on social media for irrelevant content, 49% for poor customer service, 26 for corporate scandal and 45% for too many ads. How do you wither this? Brand consistency matters a lot, and that should be one of the priorities of a content strategist.
5. Know your competitors’ worth and learn from their each step
Your competitors are closer to you than you think. The knowledge of what your competitors are doing is essential to upscale your marketing strategy. You must learn from their mistakes and successes to further define your brand. As a self-content strategist, you must ask yourself if you are ready to poke a nose in your competitors’ affairs and if you are not, hire a content strategist or see your product slipping down the hills, it is that simple to gain a larger market share.
6. Invest in Niche Marketing
A well-defined target audience is easily converted to lead if well invested. So you must be strategic in identifying your target audience and do well in getting interesting stories and memorable content to them. A niche market does not require much, but it needs a brand that can consistently satisfy its needs in the following regard – customer service, and social content. Quality content and consistency help you gain their trust and loyalty, they want to see you give them value and they will insist on it or go get it elsewhere.
7. Get a Social Media Manager
Having a clear cut content layout and creative design is one of those things that integrate your brand voice, however, as a business owner you need a social media manager to ensure timely posting and engagement. You can’t do everything alone.
The presence of a social manager will add to the consistency of your brand pages, and she or he will help with content research, understanding of the target audience’s interest and measurement of your content strategy. The efficacy of two heads is better than one is undoubted.
8. Content Variation:
Your brand content should not at all times be focused on sales, vary it. Write about account service, public relations, leadership and other social topics you know your audience would like to read because too much on sales bore and could make you lose your customer’s interest and it’s interest that keeps them engaged greatly.
Endeavour to vary your content, let there be humour, knowledge exchange and interactions.
9. Invest your time and ideas:
Ascend the role of your brand content strategist only if you are ready to inject your original ideas, anecdotes, perspectives, stories and time because it takes all of those to be successful. And these in retrospect will make your brand vision and ideas rooted in your target audience’s mind and I bet it will be an excellent decision.
10. Carry Out Active Research & Join Social conversations
Research cuts through devising a content strategy, and it is irreplaceable. So, be well prepared.
The aforementioned are quintessential and applicable to startups and companies that want to thrive in this age. But as easy as it may sound, content strategy goes beyond setting objectives and writing content for your target audience, it deals with action and results. It is the key to achieving short- and long-term content marketing goals and like trends, they could bounce. Hence, it is very much okay if you need help in setting simple, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound goals. The return on investment (ROI) you see other business owners and personal brands hit at the end of the year is not by miracle, but by being strategic, and nothing stops you from being strategic but YOU. The only thing you need is to give your content and social media pages the brand voice and style they need by getting yourself a content strategist.
If you need help on getting a content strategist or a go-to-market strategy and social media management, reach out to us at [email protected] or call: 07031035989.
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