How to create a content marketing strategy in 7 easy steps

How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy

One of the questions we get asked most often at Convince & Convert is how to create a content marketing strategy and plan. Some say we're holding on to special tricks or the always-elusive, but exaggerated, "content marketing secret sauce."

The truth is that there is no secret to creating a content marketing strategy. Instead, we just use our proven 7-step framework as a guide, adding significant time and effort (usually around 60 days or so for us).

These 7 core steps provide the quintessential framework for long-term success. We've outlined them here so you can take your own content marketing strategy and plan to the next level. Oh, and we also include free content marketing strategy templates to help guide you through the process.

Of course, if there's anything else we can do to help you or your organization, please let us know.

Why Content Marketing Strategy Matters

Before going straight to the steps, we would like to emphasize that a contents mar k strategy eting is not “good to have”—it is a basic requirement for success.

In fact, Content Marketing Institute confirm this fact year after year w ith Benchmarking, annual budget and trend reports . In 2021, 57% of content marketers still say they don't have a documented content strategy but those with strategic content marketing consistently rate their efforts as much more successful than those who don't.

57% of content marketers still say they don't have a documented content strategy through @CMInscious Click to Tweet

Additionally, the pandemic has made updating content marketing strategies even more important. 70% of strategic content marketers report that the pandemic has impacted their content marketing strategy in a moderate to large way .

Percentage of B2B Marketers with a Content Marketing Strategy, 2021

Percentage of B2B Marketers with a Content Marketing Strategy in 2021 and the Impact of the Pandemic on Content Marketing Strategy, 2021

These facts and figures also echo what we see every day at Convince & Convert, where we create strategic content marketing for several The most famous brands in the world . And that's exactly why we've put together this guide that outlines our approach to creating a content marketing strategy. Plus, we have a helpful content marketing strategy template to keep you on track and relevant. You can Download the PDF form here .

Content Marketing Strategy in 7 Steps

To help you start upping your content efforts, here's an overview of each of the seven steps to creating your content marketing strategy:

first . Record Your Goals

It can be very easy to get caught up in What , how and where of content marketing that we often overlook the single most important foundational part: the why.

So why Are you doing content marketing? Is it to generate leads? Building relationships? Improve customer experience?

Whatever your content marketing goals are, just make sure they're sustainable over the long term and that they really connect with your organization's overall goals, mission, and vision. To keep your strategy focused and clear, stick to up to three to five business goals and document them.

Remember: Creating content for the sake of content should never be your goal.

Creating content for the sake of content should never be your goal. Click to Tweet

2. Define your “One Thing”

There is a lot of content, and more and more being published every day. So what would you create in your content marketing program to differentiate your organization? In other words, what is the focus and soul of your content program? Is:

Is it helpful?

Create Youtility ?

Motivating and inspiring?

Education and entertainment?

The only proper answer to all of the above is yes! Otherwise, you run the risk of having to offer more of the same and contribute to that massive, growing content offering.

Taking it a step further, Jenny Magic, one of the superstar analysts at Convince & Convert, has a great tip for checking your “one thing.” First, she recommends writing down all of the branding messages your company uses. Then remove your top three competitors and cross out any notifications on your list that they are also using. What you're left with is a completely unique set of brand messages that can help clarify your "one thing".

Remember: Allow yourself to make your story bigger.

3. Measure Your Content Marketing

If you want to track content, do something trackable and figure out how you'll prove it works before you create it. Warning: be careful when using fictitious indicators that don't really tell much.

Instead, to understand whether your content is really doing what it wants, we need to look at actions, not just eyeballs. That's where 4 types of content marketing metrics come in:

Consumption index: This is one of the best and easiest places to start. Basically, what did the audience do do with content? Thought action: views, downloads, listens, hits, etc.

Data sharing: How resonated is this piece of content and how often is it shared with others?

Lead generation metrics : The ultimate goal for most organizations; How many leads come from a piece of content?

Sales index : Do we make money from this piece of content?

Remember: The plural of anecdote is not data.”

4. Identify your top 5 audiences

Relevance magically creates time and attention. To stay relevant, we have to understand the audience we're talking to and targeting, and there are several versions that look like this:

Audience : High-level collection of similarly motivated individuals with some common interest or agenda. Think: repeat product buyers.

Segment : Sections of an object or list in which individuals (or companies) share one or more common characteristics or can be grouped by a common characteristic. Think: Parents work from home.

Persona: A fictitious, detailed but fictitious description of the goals and behavior of a hypothesized group of users. Think: Charles is in charge or Happy-Go-Lucky Hank.

No matter which audience definition you use or look to to guide your content marketing efforts, make sure you are focused on only top 5 audience and look at their psychology, not just demographics. Also, consider replacing the original image with icons or icons to avoid Get stuck in what your audience looks like or stereotyped by age, race, or gender.

Remember: You are not your audience. Focus on their needs and motives, not yours.

5. Research the needs of the audience

Whichever approach you use to classify and identify your customers from step 4, familiarize them with Method 5x5x5 .

5x5x5 engages your top 5 audiences, review their top 5 questions at each of the 5 key stages of the marketing funnel to better understand their wants, needs, and expectations, so you can create content that meets all.

If you do the math, you'll notice that this method generates 125 questions to create content for. But don't worry, once you distill 125 questions down unique questions and delete duplicate or near-match questions, you usually only have about 50 - 60 unique questions. And chances are you already have content that answers some of their questions, so start looking for obvious content gaps first.

Once you have this list, you'll understand your audience much better, plus how valuable your content is in helping them.

Remember: Your content should answer their questions, not just meet your business goals.

6. Create more content with less

When it comes to content, most people think the solution is to create more. However, as we mentioned in Step 2, there is a lot of content and we don't want to add our content to the top of the already huge pile. Plus, you probably have a lot of content created at this point, which means it's time to remix and refresh our content before we even think about creating another new one:

Reuse or reuse content : Give new life to content, by giving it a quick remix. That could include updating some content that is still relevant with new information, turning the infographic into an animated video, or re-publishing the content so it's seen by users as the centerpiece.

Selection content: Why reinvent the wheel when there's already so much great content out there? Curate content from trusted sources, but be sure to credit it when it's due and include your own views on the piece of content.

User Generated Content (UGC) : Reach out to your customers or social communities for more ideas and content.

Atomization : Take a giant piece of content and break it down into eight smaller pieces of content. This is a tried and true Convince & Convert Favorites .

Only after you have identified gaps in the content or remixed, is the content refreshed and atomized if you switch to creating new content.

Remember : Content is not free. Maximize what you have, then create new, if needed.

7. Create a Content Calendar

We have all content calendar blog post plus a free content calendar template will walk you through exactly how, what, and why to schedule, but here's the gist:

Start with your worthy performances: First, add hot shows (aka ongoing content efforts made at least 2 times per month) to your calendar, and make sure to pay attention to any important dates or events. what big.

Add your one-time specials: Pay attention to how your quarterly content commis, or one-off specials, overlap or complement your worthy programs.

Get it done with the regularly scheduled program : Last, but certainly not least, add to your regularly scheduled program. These will help fill in any gaps in your beat and keep the content consistent.

Add content to the content store: Don't have room right in your calendar for some great ideas? Add it to the repository. Let this be your hosting solution for great ideas and check it out regularly.