A content strategy is an essential cog in delivering positive results in a campaign. It doesn’t take a genius to realize the central role content plays on delivering results for a campaign. Every time you search something on Google, the millions of results that pop up are a result of someone, somewhere, writing content to suit your specific query.
Our world has been overtaken by content. The biggest brands in fields like fitness, finance, and media are looking to hire more and more writers every month to beat the competition. Content creators are in demand simply because the average netizen is a voracious content hound.
A content strategy is a requirement as it helps digital marketers streamline the type of content they need to create in order to reach the target audience. Working without a strategy is something a digital marketing team cannot afford. A strategy helps the entire operation gain a clear direction and purpose. Even if you’re a blogger churning out content every day on your own, doing so without any clear plan or vision is not likely to bring success in the long-term.
In this article, we will discuss the three fundamentals of a content strategy that help give it shape and purpose.
Align Content Strategy with Business Goals
Say you’re a blogger who wants to earn extra money with affiliate marketing. You have a website which talks about wristwatches and the stream of traffic you’re getting on your blog is relatively stable.
How will you go about shaping your content strategy based on your blog?
Since your aim is to earn greater revenue through affiliate marketing, the content you write should help sell certain products related to your niche (watches).
In essence, the goal of your business is defining the type of content you write.
At a company, the objective can be broader, such as lead generation. In such a case, the content created should help a company achieve this goal.
Research Target Audience
If the company goals help set up the type of content that should be created, the target audience can set up the style and tone of the content.
For example, consider you’re writing a blog on rap music in India. Your target audience is very young. You are also running another website on life insurance policies. The target audience is these cases are men and women over thirty-five, most probably married and have children.
The style and tone in both these examples have to be distinct. Understanding this difference is part of a content writer’s job. These distinctions have to be identified in a content strategy clearly.
Build a Team which Meets Above Needs
After understanding the type of content and the style needed to engage the audience, the third step is building a team of writers who can accomplish this.
The mistake every digital marketing manager makes is hiring a team of generic content writers. When the aim is to publish niche-specific content only, hiring writers who have a background in the same is crucial. Furthermore, marketers should have a mix of SEO-oriented writers and new creative writers to balance SEO quality with creative flair.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, this article covers the three fundamentals of making a content strategy.
About the Author – Ankit Yadav is a content writing expert and digital strategist with many years of experience in the field. He currently writes guest posts for DelhiCourses, an institute known for its digital marketing course in Delhi.