Crafting a Winning Content Marketing Strategy | The Ultimate Guide

Content is king and indispensable when it comes to generating revenue, brand awareness, and ensuring survival in these highly competitive times. But, let’s get real. Where to start? What to create? Where to deliver? Whom to target? We all have been bugged by these questions when starting out with our content marketing efforts. The answers to all these and more lie in content marketing strategy.

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.” – Yogi Berra

Content strategy helps you define your objectives and align your efforts to get the best possible results. With 83% of marketers placing their trust in high-quality pieces, planning ahead and setting guidelines and quality checks has never been more important! Remember, every piece of content you publish represents your brand out there.

Let’s get started to help you come up with your own tailored marketing strategy to ace the game that is content marketing.

What is content marketing strategy?

Content marketing strategy entails defining your objectives, assessing your current position and that of your competitors, and defining what, where, and whom of content production and delivery.

Content marketing involves sharing value and engaging the audience through various pieces of content, such as blogs, videos, podcasts, or infographics across different platforms, such as your own website, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and many more. Content marketing strategy helps you plan ahead on what content to create, where, and whom to deliver so your efforts bring maximum value to the table! 

Why is content strategy important?

Content marketing can both strengthen your brand and damage it. Quality content that is engaging and delivers value can boost your audience numbers, their trust in your brand, and scale your revenue, whereas poor content can lead to people bouncing off your page, reducing engagement, and damaging your reputation and revenue. The content strategy lays the foundation for successful content marketing, helping you address the different aspects of content marketing.

Some of the benefits of having a content marketing strategy are:

Define your objectives

Don’t venture into the night unprepared. Know what you want to get out of your content marketing efforts. Is it more brand awareness, more leads, or maybe higher revenue? Align your efforts with your objectives and create content that resonates with them.

Deliver value

A single piece of content demands a lot of time and effort. Make sure it’s worth it! Content strategy helps you know your own position, and that of your competitors, and learn everything about your customers to create content that engages, inspires, and converts your audience!

Streamline your efforts

Content marketing involves several stages, such as keyword research, production, editorial, and SEO across various formats, such as blogs, social media, and videos, across various platforms. Managing all this at once while ensuring quality for every piece sounds hectic, doesn’t it? Content strategy helps you streamline your production process while establishing certain benchmarks for quality and delivery.

Gain trust of stakeholders

More often than not, communicating the importance of content marketing strategy and demonstrating results can be challenging for marketers. Content marketing is a slow process and builds organically over time to create a powerful pipeline. In the meantime, marketers can use content strategy as a means to communicate current standing, future plans of action, and insights into performance to instill trust and confidence among stakeholders.

Know the worth of your efforts

Creating content, just for the sake of it is not the answer. You are wasting your time and resources and unknowingly damaging your brand. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to content marketing. Every business is unique, every customer is different. Content strategy helps you monitor your performance through different metrics, such as traffic, Click Through Rate(CTR), Average Session Duration, and much more to analyze what’s working and what’s not. Double down on your strengths and optimize weaknesses for better results.

What are the essential elements of a content marketing strategy?

A content marketing strategy is the very foundation of successful content marketing. It serves as a roadmap to navigate the choppy waters of content creation, publication, distribution, and optimization. Remember, a lot goes into quality content production, and without a proper content strategy in place, your brand reputation can fall apart quickly. Your content represents your brand out there.

Here are ten key pillars of a successful marketing strategy:

Establish SMART goals

In Benjamin Franklin’s words, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” This statement perfectly encapsulates the essence of meticulous planning as the foundation of success.

SMART goals is an approach to planning where set goals should be:

• S- Specific
• M- Measurable
• A- Actionable
• R- Relevant
• T- Time Bound

For instance, instead of wishing for more clients and revenue, you can establish a goal of increasing your revenue by 20% year on year by exploiting different digital channels. Furthermore, you can set weekly production targets, content topics, and delivery dates.

Maintain brand consistency

Your content is your brand’s voice. You should observe consistency across content, and it should resonate with your brand values. Lay down the tone, design, and quality standards that should be followed across digital platforms and content production processes.

Take a deep dive into your audience persona

Customer personas help define what your ideal customer looks like. It involves understanding all their attributes. However, customer personas also depend on the industry you are in

For a B2B business, defining a customer persona includes attributes such as:

• Org size and revenue
• The industry they are in
• Their location, clients, and mode of operation

For a B2C business, defining a customer persona includes attributes such as:

• Age, gender, and occupation
• Demographics
• Psychographics

For a SaaS business, defining a customer persona includes attributes such as:

• Roles and responsibilities of the target persona
• Fundings and investments
• Pain points and how your product solves them

Define what and where of content marketing

Content marketing comes in many forms, and each one has its own unique flavor in your company’s growth story. You can choose to create content in the form of:

• Blogs, whitepapers, and e-books
• Videos
• Graphics and infographics
• Social media content
• Podcasts

And let’s not forget where to publish our content. Defining the time and platform of content delivery boosts engagement with your clients while maximizing your returns. Some of the most popular platforms are

• Own website
• Social media channels-LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest
• YouTube
• Local Business Directories- YELP, Google Maps, etc

Creating and publishing content across channels can prove to be an overwhelming task. Remember to create content calendars to schedule, track, and publish content across different formats and channels.

Set Content Production Standards

This step focuses on defining standards and guidelines to ensure quality content production. 

Assign roles and responsibilities for different stages of production, such as content writing, editorial review, SEO optimization, graphic designing, and publication. The content represents you and should resonate with your brand values.

Analyze your performance and optimize for results

The goal is not to just put content out there but to educate, instill trust, and convert a prospect into a sale. Identify what works best for you and double down on that strategy. Optimize low-performing content for better engagement and conversions. You can use tools such as Google Analytics to evaluate KPIs in content marketing. Embed your articles with calls to action to move prospects along the funnel. Content marketing is not a one-time effort but an ongoing process.

How to create a content marketing strategy for your business?

Creating a content marketing strategy requires you to define your goals, conduct internal audits and those of your competitors, define content formats, platforms, and roles, and lay guidelines to ensure quality in content production.

Here is a detailed plan to create your own content marketing strategy tailored to your business:

Know your mission

Clear specific goals help you define what you want, in what timeline, and how you would measure the success of your efforts. Prioritize certain tasks over others to make the most of your endeavors. Examples of setting SMART goals can include:

• Increasing revenue by 10% yearly
• Increasing traffic by 50%
• Generating 2x leads
• Improving conversion ratio by 5%

Know where you stand in your industry

Most businesses have content in some form or other out there. This step requires 

• Identifying what content you have out here
• Determining the performance of existing content to pinpoint what is working
• Deep dive into competitors to analyze what works best for them
• A deep audit to identify content gaps using tools such as SemRush

Define what, whom, and where of content marketing

These are probably the most important parameters when it comes to designing a content strategy. The objective of content marketing is not to just publish content but to engage and educate your audience.

The ‘what’ represents the kind of content you want to create. It can be in the form of blog posts, graphics, videos, or podcasts. Prioritize certain content over others depending on your industry.

The ‘whom’ represents your audience’s personas. Remember, the content you create should resonate with your audience. Extensively research what your customers are searching for, their interests, and psyche. Use tools such as Google Trends, Answerthepublic.com, or Answer Socrates to get insights into the latest trends.

The ‘where’ represents the platforms you can use to share your content. Learn where your audience hangs out. For instance, social media platforms, such as Instagram and TikTok would be more suited for B2C brands and small businesses, whereas LinkedIn would be more of a preferred choice for B2B brands and SaaS companies. The target platform and timings really matter when it comes to connecting with the right customers.

Create a content calendar

This step involves defining the topics you want to cover as part of the content creation and marketing process. Some of the key steps in creating a content calendar are:

• Brainstorm ideas: Create an extensive list of ideas and topics around your niche. You can use tools such as the Google search engine, Google keyword planner, Ahref keyword generator, or Ubersuggest to brainstorm ideas.
• Prioritize Content: With hundreds of ideas on the table, where do you start? Certain parameters such as search volume, ranking difficulty, and impact on the audience can help you take your first steps. Always remember to look for keywords with high search volume and low ranking difficulty.
• Assign roles and timelines: Content marketing is not a one-man show. It involves different functions such as content writers, editorial, SEO experts, graphic designers, influencers, and videographers. Define specific roles and timelines for different functions to ensure smooth and hassle-free production.

Assign roles and select the right tools

Content creation is an intricate process with many different functions and stages. Defining key roles at the very start while selecting the right tools helps you move in the right direction. Here are some suggestions of tools for different stages as well as the right roles you should look out for:

	Research	Production	Optimization	Graphics	Videos	Analytics
Role	SEO expert Content Writer	Content Writer Editorial	SEO expert	Designer	Videographer Editor	SEO expert
Free tools	Google Search Engine Google Keyword Planner Ubersuggest Moz	Google Search Engine QuillBot	Ubersuggest Surfer SEO	Canva Figma	DaVinci Resolve Clipchamp	Google Analytics Excel
Paid tools	Ahref SemRush	Grammarly Hemingway Editor	Yoast SEO SemRush	Adobe Photoshop Sketch	Adobe Premiere Pro Pinnacle Studio	HubSpot SemRush
AI tools	Chat GPT Claude AI	Copy.ai Jasper AI	RankMath On-Page AI	Dall E 3 Craiyon	Synthesia Deep AI	Customfit Mutiny

Collaborate and communicate

Content marketing can seem to be overwhelming at times. Managing multiple teams, formats, and functions all at once can lead to cracks in your content production process. You cannot do everything on your own! Your team should share the vision and values your brand upholds. 

Conduct regular cross-functional meetings, and always keep lines of communication open. Use project management tools, such as Trello or ClickUp, to improve collaboration while having visibility across the entire production process.

Set standards and conduct audits

Content speaks for your brand, and remember there is a real person out there going through your content. Focus on establishing basic guidelines, such as grammar, depth, optimizations for ranking, and brand adherence. Your content should offer value while maintaining brand consistency and quality. Your time and resources are wasted on producing low-quality content.

Having guidelines and checklists raises the content quality standards while delivering consistency. Make sure to embed best practices for SEO and different social media platforms to ensure your content gets the most juice out there. Also, don’t forget to conduct regular internal audits to ensure quality and timelines are adhered to. 

Publicize your content

Creating quality content is one part of the content marketing journey. Making sure that content is actually seen by your audience is the second part. Content distribution and promotion can be done in a variety of ways such as:

• Sending email notifications to subscribers
• Sharing content on social media platforms
• Guest blogging
• Getting influencers in your niche to promote it
• Boosting your post through paid advertisements
• SEO for organic reach

Choose the channels that best resonate with your brand values and industry.

Analyze and optimize

Once your content is actually out there, you can analyze how you are doing against a range of Key performance indicators (KPIs). You can use tools such as Google Analytics or Hubspot to evaluate the individual performance of your pieces. Double down on what works best and revisit low-performing pieces. 

This approach helps you redirect your time and resources in a much more efficient way. Not all content is equal, and you should always look out for the best. Why waste precious time and resources on content that does not bring any value to you or your audience?

Reiterate your strategy

Content strategy is not a one-time thing but an ongoing process. Remember, industries are changing by the day and so are buyer preferences and trends. Keeping pace requires you to consistently adopt and review your strategy. For instance, the latest advent of AI tools has completely transformed the marketing industry. Most tedious time-consuming tasks can now be automated in a much more efficient fashion.

Conduct quarterly reviews, establish OKRs, follow industry leaders for the latest advice, and tweak your strategy accordingly. Sticking to traditional practices can lead you to depths of loss of engagement, revenue, and brand reach while giving your competitors an edge.

Content Marketing Strategies for different industries

Every business is unique and requires unique content marketing solutions. While one strategy may be effective for a certain company, it may not be that good for another. For instance, a business targeting consumers may have better chances on Instagram, TikTok, and other social media channels, whereas B2B and SaaS companies will find higher chances of success on LinkedIn, Google Business Directory, Yellow Pages, and other related platforms.

Here are some tips on how you can customize your content marketing strategy in line with your business requirements:

Content marketing strategy for small businesses and startups

We understand the strain on time and resources small businesses feel when managing operations, sales, purchases, marketing, finances, and a lot more. We can’t help but ask, do I really need to bear the burden of content marketing? Think of it as an investment you make today to secure your org’s future tomorrow. We have compiled a list of quick wins small businesses can earn without investing much time and resources:

Buyer personas are a must

Can you really communicate with your audience unless you know them? Learning all you can about your customers is the key to unlocking long-term success and building products that your audience wants, not what you want. Research demographics, interests, age, gender, psyche, where they hang out, and all that you can to address their specific pain points.

Be seen with local SEO 

The first rule for any business is that your customers should be able to find you. What good is your product or service if the right people cannot reach you? Register your business on online directories such as GoogleMyBusiness, Google Maps, and Bing, or local directories such as Yelp or Yellow Pages.

Instill confidence with user-generated content

Customer reviews, testimonials, and ratings are what we modern-day consumers trust. No matter how good your pitch is, it stands empty without customer reviews to back it up. And the best part of all, it costs nothing. Encourage your satisfied customers to leave genuine reviews and testimonials to build a culture of trust with your audience.

Partner up to power up

As a small business, competing with big brands can be overwhelming at times. With limited time and resources, how far can you really stretch? The best strategy is to partner with other small businesses in your industry. These businesses may not be your direct competitors but working on some related products in your industry. For instance, if you are a copywriting agency, you can partner with web design agencies to deliver services.

Leverage influencer marketing

In this content-driven age, people look up to influencers to make their purchasing decisions. These influencers deliver engaging content in various niches while establishing their expertise. Connect with influencers to promote your brand to reach a large relevant audience in a short amount of time.

content marketing strategy for B2B businesses

With 87% of marketers using content marketing as their primary means to generate leads, 94% leveraging blogs and articles, and 84% of marketers integrating video into their strategy, the importance of content marketing in the B2B industry cannot be emphasized enough.

Here are some key points to include in your B2B content marketing strategy:

Create thought leadership pieces to establish authority in your industry

Establish expertise in your industry by educating your audience about insights, the latest trends, and reviews while addressing their pain points and challenges. Would you rather trust a business with just a product or one that builds credibility by going deeper into the industry to uncover valuable information?

Define your brand propositions

With so much noise in almost every industry, how do you stand out from your competitors? The answer is Unique Selling Propositions (USPs). What makes your brand special? How are you better than your competitors? What is so unique about your offering? Answering these questions and more helps you position your brand in a different light as compared to your competitors.

Create content for different funnels

Creating funnel-wise content implies you are creating content based on the awareness stage of the prospect. Some customers might just be considering a product while others may be comparing features and prices. Curating content for different funnels helps move prospects along the sales lifecycle while also improving their purchasing experience.

Nurture prospects with email marketing

Email marketing is perhaps one of the most successful marketing campaigns out there for B2B businesses. Almost all businesses already have their contact information out there. The key to unlocking success lies in what you share and how you communicate. In general, everyone is tired of generic brand promotions and offers. Instead, aim to educate and nurture your audience. Share blogs, whitepapers, or actionable advice in your industry to build confidence and engage your audience.

Content Marketing Strategy For SaaS companies

As a tech firm, demonstrating value in your product and communicating the technical jargon can be challenging at times. As developers, we are well aware of the infinite possibilities our product can achieve, as a layman we might not be able to see the value. This is where content marketing bridges the gap, educating your audience, inspiring trust, and offering your product as a solution, not as a pitch.

Here are some key points to remember when creating a content strategy for your SaaS company:

Define key content themes to educate your audience

One of the major roadblocks in the SaaS industry is communicating the effectiveness and functionality of your product. Although developers are the ones working on it, it is usually marketing personnel or management that decides whether to make a purchase. Even if you are a B2C brand, helping users develop familiarity with the product can be challenging. 

This gap can be bridged with content marketing. Sharing in-depth articles about your products, answering FAQs, having user guides, and product videos helps your users navigate the product with ease while improving the overall experience.

Establish authority on relevant review sites

For most SaaS companies out there, review organizations such as G2 or Google App reviews are the holy grail of conducting business. These websites are trusted by thousands of users worldwide. Make sure you have a well-optimized profile, the best reviews out there, and a good response to any user complaints or queries. Doing so gives you an edge in terms of leads and over-competition.

Double down on SEO

More than often, people turn to search engines to have their queries answered or their problems solved. Ensure your product is seen whenever a user searches for a query related to your business. Extensively cover all topics in your niche, create thought leadership articles around trends and insights, and align your product in a way that addresses your user’s pain points.  

Analyze, optimize, and reiterate

Make sure to embed Key Performance Indicators as a pillar of your content strategy. Making efforts without knowing the value it brings is effort wasted. Focus on key metrics, such as website traffic, engagement metrics, conversion rates, customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (CLV), and churn rate to make calculated decisions as to what to focus on and what to omit.

The key to a great marketing campaign is also experimentation. Experiment with different platforms, content formats, and distribution channels to pinpoint what works best for your brand. Analytics, optimization, and reiteration will help you bring maximum Return on Investment(ROI) while saving you quite a lot of time and resources.

Content Marketing Strategy For E-commerce

Brand positioning and product positioning are major pillars of a content marketing strategy. What values does your brand uphold? How are your products different? Are they environmentally conscious? Customers connect with a brand on a personal level these days rather than just browsing products. They want to know if you are making a difference. With so much noise in the E-commerce industry, it’s important your brand stands out. 

Here are some ways to level up your content strategy for E-commerce and have an edge over competitors.

Research, research, and research

Even before you have a product, conduct extensive research about your target audience. Design your product to resonate with your audience. For instance, in the skin care industry, more and more consumers are inclined towards eco-conscious products that do not use animal products. 

Conduct surveys, ask your friends and family, and start with a small batch to analyze how well your product works. Remember, there is no use investing in a product no one needs. Being well aware of your target audience and their specific needs sets you up for success.

Visual Storytelling

Your product images create your brand’s first impression in customers’ minds. Make sure you have high-quality, visually appealing images which are also optimized for site performance. Create content across different formats such as product images, infographics, and videos to create compelling visual stories. Leverage tools such as tinypng.com or bulkresize.com to upload optimized image sizes while maintaining quality.

Double down on social media

With your audience spending most of their time on social media platforms, you cannot miss out on all this action. Create content to engage your audience rather than sell your product. Get influencers and run paid campaigns to promote your product. Leverage in-built social commerce features to scale sales and revenue.

Broadcast your reviews and ratings

Make sure your customer’s reviews and ratings are seen everywhere. Always ask for reviews from your satisfied clients. The final purchasing decision of the buyer is more than often influenced by ratings and reviews about your product.

Content Marketing Strategy for different platforms

Content comes in many different forms, from blogs and podcasts to videos, and infographics. Also, there are so many different platforms out there, each one catering to a specific segment. The real question is what content you want to create and what platforms will yield the best results for your business. Let’s look at some of the most popular content platforms and how you can outshine your competitors with a few tips and guidelines:

Content Marketing Strategy for SEO

With 93% of users starting their internet session through a search engine, SEO is probably one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal to scale organically while boosting your brand presence and revenue. Here are some key points to consider in your SEO strategy:

Keyword research and content planner

Before you start creating content, keyword research is paramount. It gives you insights into what people are searching for(Keyword ideas), what is trending(Search Volume), and what is the ranking difficulty(Keyword Difficulty), You can use tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SemRush to get these metrics. Getting keyword ideas and metrics is one side of the story.

Now comes the strategic part. How should you prioritize certain content over others? How should you plan your content production? The answer lies in the objective you are trying to accomplish. The best way to go around it is by using a funnel-based approach. Different funnels contribute to different objectives, but the importance of having a full-funnel marketing strategy cannot be emphasized enough. Here are funnels you can implement in your content marketing strategy:

• Top of the funnel– Informational content to increase brand awareness, authority, and audience.
• Middle of the funnel: Content that answers specific questions related to your product or industry. Drives leads and aids in customer’s purchasing journey.
• Bottom of the funnel: Transactional content that answers queries related to purchase, such as prices, features, ratings, etc. Drives revenue.

Also, make sure to target keywords with high search volume and low search difficulty if you are just starting out. Always make sure your blogs are relevant to your business and adopt the micro niche approach. You can also use project management tools, such as Trello or ClickUp, to ease the production process. 

Create quality content and engaging blog pages

If your content is not up to the mark, in terms of depth, grammar, or structure among other factors, it is pretty likely your content will be shelved by Google and not shown in search results. Go through Google’s guidelines on content creation to understand the different attributes the algorithm takes into account when ranking content.

While following Google’s guidelines is important, keep in mind that ultimately it is a real human going through your blog. Share in-depth knowledge on the subject, make your articles engaging, and ensure good structure and flow. Further decorate your articles with infographics, stats, videos, and more. Focus on lead generation and sales by plugging in Call to Action buttons and Lead Magnets at relevant places.

Upgrade your domain authority

Domain authority is a combination of backlinking and internal linking processes. Backlinking, in simple terms, is when you get inbound links from an external website. Search engines find backlinking as a way of establishing the domain authority of one website over the other. The higher the domain authority you have, the higher the chances of ranking. While getting external links is important, remember internal link-building is just as important to establish subject authority. Here are some ways to boost your domain authority:

• Cluster Model: Clusters are a way of establishing subject authority in a particular niche. Cluster models consist of a pillar page that covers a wide topic, such as digital marketing. Within its body, it is then internally linked to different blogs that extensively cover individual headings in detail, for instance, content marketing and social media marketing pages.
• Share on social platforms: Sharing your content on social platforms gives you a boost from high domain authority social media platforms.
• Guest blogging: Blogging for other businesses in your industry and then linking that article to your own is also a great way of generating backlinks.
• Hire a freelancer or agency: These people specialize in generating backlinks. They can offer a good number of backlinks for a certain amount. Make sure the backlinks you are getting are from websites with high domain authority. 

Optimize everything

When it comes to SEO, it’s just not your content that search engines account for. It accounts for your whole website, for instance, the site’s speed and ease of navigation. Refining these parameters not only improves your ranking but also enhances user experience. 

Here are some optimizations you should consider for SEO marketing:

• SEO Optimizations: Includes On-Page, Off-Page, and Technical SEO. Use tools such as Yoast SEO or RankMath for SEO optimizations.
• Image Optimizations: The larger the file size of the image, the longer it takes to load. Compress your images while maintaining quality with tools like bulkresize.com or Squoosh from Google. Always try to maintain file size within Kbs.
• Website Speed: Make sure you have a fast-loading webpages. Use Google speed analyzer to measure your load time. Use methods such as caching and lazy image load to improve performance.
• No broken links: Always make sure that all the links on your website are working. Broken links give bad signals to search engine algorithms and also disrupt user experience.

Content Marketing Strategy for YouTube and Videos

With 2.5 billion active monthly users, and 1 billion viewing hours on a daily basis, can you really miss out on all the action on YouTube, the 2nd largest search engine after Google?  As a matter of fact, video marketing is at an all-time high, leveraged by 91% of businesses and 88% of marketers agree that YouTube marketing has boosted their sales. Here are some steps to establish your YouTube marketing strategy:

Create a branded YouTube channel

First things first. Create a YouTube channel whose theme aligns with your brand. Have your profile picture, channel description, banner image, website link, and social links out there. Ensure brand consistency at every step.

Insights for everything

This step is all about research. Create extensive customer personas for your target audience while deep-diving into competitor analysis. The idea is not to make a pitch but to educate, build trust, and convert prospects. into loyal customers. Knowing your customer’s pain points is the best way to align your products as the solution.

Create quality video content that resonates with your audience

With so many videos being uploaded daily, only a few are able to make it to the spotlight. Focus on offering value to your customers. Get your creative juices flowing, use the best quality equipment, add captions, and invest in editing and post-production to have the best content out there. Remember, the present-day audience has a very short attention span. Try to grab their attention in the first 6 seconds.

Explore all content forms

Create shorts, long-form content, informative content, entertaining content, and product-centred content. Every form of content has a chance out there to drive sales to your business. Categorize different content ideas into different funnels, and create content catered to each niche.

Optimize for performance

YouTube optimization is an overlooked aspect of most videos out there yet plays a crucial role in contributing to your visibility and engagement. Optimize your title, description, thumbnails, and tags. Make sure to include CTAs, links to your website, product links, and social media links. You can also internally link your videos to drive traffic and move customers along the sales funnel.

Leverage paid marketing, influencer marketing, and other distribution channels

The goal of creating content is to get it across to as many relevant prospects as possible. You can leverage multiple distribution strategies to boost visibility. Paid advertisement to boost existing posts is a great way to boost engagement, sales, and revenue. But remember, there is no alternative to engaging quality content. Paid ads will only work if your audience finds value in your content. 

As per 70% of marketers, partnering up with influencers in your niche is also a great way to boost your visibility. Most influencers already have a huge number of followers in your industry and are trusted for their expertise. Imagine tapping into this reservoir of relevant leads.

Content Marketing Strategy for Social Media

With nearly 60% of the global population on social media, Social Media Marketing(SMM) has become an indispensable part of any content marketing strategy. The key to any successful social media marketing strategy is sharing the right content with the right people on the right platform. Here are some steps to create your social media marketing strategy:

Define your objective

SMM serves an array of purposes, you just have to prioritize what’s yours. You can use SMM for:

• Brand awareness: Aimed at increasing followers
• Engagement: Aimed at comments, saves, shares, and mentions
• Conversions: Aimed at driving sales and revenue through CTAs
• Building community: Aimed at building a community for discussions and forums in your industry
• Reduce churn: Aimed at getting testimonials and reviews to instill confidence in customers.

Social media audits and calendars

This step involves a deep dive into your current social positioning, customer personas, and competitors. Pinpoint what works and what does not in your current strategy, Learn everything about your customers, and analyze strategies adopted by your competitors. This will help you gather ideas and narrow down what’s working. 

Once you have all your findings, it’s time to visualize and organize the ‘big picture.’ Create social calendars to clearly define the target ideas, content forms, time and date of delivery, and metrics to track performance.

Define what and where of social media marketing

This is perhaps one of the most important steps of social strategy. Learn where your audience hangs out. For instance, if you are a B2C brand, you have better chances on Instagram or Facebook, whereas, if you are a B2B brand, you better leverage LinkedIn.

We recommend exploring and creating content in all forms for different social media channels, especially the latest features. For instance, on Instagram, you can go for reels, carousels, shorts, and E-commerce features, whereas on LinkedIn, sharing industry stats, thought leadership articles, long-form content, and infographics would be a better choice.

Promote, promote, and promote

Creating quality content that resonates with your audience is one side of the content. The next important step is to make sure it is seen by as much “relevant” audience as possible. Not everyone out there is a potential customer, so make sure to utilize your resources to find the right people. You can leverage paid marketing, influencer marketing, and inbuilt platform features. Make sure to align with social media best practices as well, to make the most out of organic search.

Analyze and optimize

Social media strategy is not a one-size-fits-all. The world is changing at a pace faster than ever before, and so are customer preferences, industry trends, and technology. Make sure to keep up with customer market research, the latest developments in tech and how they can benefit you, and what works best for your org. Define key performance metrics such as traffic, engagement, shares, and more to track your efforts and optimize your strategy from time to time to reap the maximum benefits of social media marketing.

Guidelines, Tips, and Strategies for Content Marketing

Now that we have learned the importance of content marketing, it’s time to transform our ideas into action. Showcase your expertise, be a leader in your industry, and engage more prospects with some helpful tips and guidelines to integrate into your content marketing strategy:

Resonate your content with your brand values

People don’t need products anymore, they want to connect with brands. It’s just not about putting generic content out there, it’s about building trust, relationships, and brand image in your audience’s minds. What’s your brand story? What makes you special? What pain points can your product solve? How do you contribute to the society? Answer these questions and more to define your brand. Further, align your content with the voice of your brand.

Understand customer journey

This is perhaps one of the most important steps before starting content creation. Know everything about your customers. Get all your ideas in one place. Then sort them based on funnels, search volume, and ranking difficulty. Prioritize and serve your content based on what your customers are searching for, identify different touchpoints and platforms, and simplify the customer’s journey.

Cover everything in your niche

The goal of content marketing is to establish yourself as an industry leader. You should be the brand out there with all the answers. Research everything about your industry, your customers, their pain points, what’s trending, analyze your competitors, and more. Prioritize content based on content marketing metrics and customer preferences. Create content calendars or use project management tools to navigate the production pipeline with ease.

Create rich content

Don’t just go for keywords and SEO. Make your content an experience for your audience. Add infographics, images, videos, stats, and more to provide value and nourish your prospects. Rich content also helps you stand apart from your competitors while laying the foundation for long-term relationships with your prospects.

Have an optimization checklist

While creating quality content is one side of the story, you should ensure it is search-friendly too. The goal is to be seen organically and search engines account for a number of factors, some of which are:

• Content quality
• On-page, off-page, technical SEO
• Image Optimization
• Site navigation
• Domain Authority
• Broken links

Adopt an omnichannel strategy

With big brands out there, ranking for certain keywords can prove to be challenging. Your best bet? Have content everywhere out there. You never know who may engage on what platform. The key is to identify the right channels and promote your content. For instance, for B2C brands, Instagram and Facebook are great platforms for engaging customers, whereas, for B2B brands, LinkedIn would prove more useful. And don’t forget YouTube, the second largest search engine and a content form enjoyed by all.

Embed Call to Action

When addressing customer pain points, embedding your product as a solution is a great way to achieve conversions. Additionally, you can ask them to sign up for newsletters, redirect them to other channels, or help them move along the sales funnel. But, remember not to overdo it. Subtly add CTAs in your content without spoiling the user experience.

Measure, optimize, reiterate

Content strategy is not a one-short process, but an ongoing effort. You can never really get it right but have to keep striving for better results. Just creating content is not the goal, but growth, engagement, and revenue are. Know the fruit of your efforts with consistent monitoring. Double down on what works best. Optimize what doesn’t. Reiterate periodically to tweak your strategy accordingly.

Content strategy is not a one-short process, but an ongoing effort. You can never really get it right but have to keep striving for better results. Just creating content is not the goal, but growth, engagement, and revenue are. Know the fruit of your efforts with consistent monitoring. Double down on what works best. Optimize what doesn’t. Reiterate periodically to tweak your strategy accordingly.

We’ll work together on a strategy that works for you!

When it comes to building a strategy, every business in the world is unique. There is no perfect formula for creating a perfect marketing strategy. The key to success lies in diving deep into research, creating quality content, monitoring performance, and doubling down on what works best. Remember, content marketing can make or break you.

Don’t compromise on your marketing. We understand the time and sweat you put into building your brand. Most agencies and freelancers offer standard solutions, where the association ends with the delivery of a content piece. But, who is liable for its performance?

Here at Zen Mavericks, we understand your business is special. We conduct bi-weekly calls to come up with solutions just for you! We go a step further to present you with reports and metrics, monitor the content pieces, and optimize for better results. We believe our growth lies in your growth!