How to Develop a Content Strategy: A Start-to-Finish Guide

Content marketing is gaining further importance in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. With more and more companies shifting to the online medium, the competition is increasing. Today, 60% of marketers create at least one piece of content each day to promote their products and services.

If you are writing an assignment on content marketing, you should take a look at the strategy mentioned below. And if you need further information, you should seek assignment help from the experts.

Set Goals, Mission Statements and Establish KPIs

A good place to start your content strategy plan is to define a content marketing mission statement. This makes it easier to focus on what’s important (or not important) when it comes to creating content so that your content writing strategy works.

You need to focus on:

• Target audience
• The type of content
• The benefits your audience  will receive

If you want to create a mission for your company, you can apply the formula below.

We offer [audience] with [content type] to help them [business goals]

Thus, the mission statement covers what the target audience can expect from your strategy. But, you also need to think what you can acquire from the mission. This is where the goals come in. Usually, it can be:

• Selling more and getting more high-quality leads to meet your revenue goals
• SEO success that leads to more traffic 
• Reducing marketing costs as your content becomes more effective

Moreover, it is wise to make your goals specific and measurable. In this regard, the KPIs come in handy. The KPIs help you establish milestones within a timeframe. Once you have reached them, you can check them off. This includes what you want to achieve in terms of sales, revenue, SEO, and various aspects of digital marketing, such as email marketing.

Study Your Audience

Your content strategy is effective when you know who your audience is. You can gather valuable information by looking at the types of sites your potential customers are already visiting. You can do this by enabling Google demographics and interests for the type of site the potential customer is involved in, enabling Google Analytics for the content involved, and identifying popular social platforms for sharing on content pages. 

You should take a closer look at Google Analytics to determine which content is producing the best results. So, click on Behavior> Site Content> Content Breakdown. For spotting the best results, check for several factors, such as average page stay time, bounce rate, and page views. Use this information to create valuable content. The objective of creating this content is to increase the average time spent on the page, reduce the bounce rate, and increase page views.

Check Your Position in the Market

Next, you need to assess your position in the market. You need to see whether the audience is accepting your content or not. Moreover, you need to find a sweet spot, regarding the length of the content, number of pictures you should put, or videos. Moreover, you also need to know which social platform best serves your purpose.

As far as the statistics are concerned, 72% of the marketers have revealed that content marketing enhances engagements. Furthermore, as per Tiger Fitness, they got a 60% returning customer rate with video content marketing. It has also been seen that an article with 3000 words has the best return.

And as far as frequency of content posting is concerned, you need to see that for yourself with Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. To conduct a successful audit, you should identify the gaps in your content. You can use Screaming Frog, SEMRush, or Content Analyzer. You will get an in-depth look into sitemaps, duplicate pages, backlinks, social shares, keywords, etc. To know about content gaps, you can use Ahrefs.

Check Your Rivals 

If you want to flourish, you have to conduct a thorough analysis of the market scenario. You need to take a look at what your rivals are up to once in a while.  You’ll need to take another look web analytics. If you are in Google Analytics, go to Acquisition » Social » Overview to see the main social networks where your content is being shared. 

Interestingly, you can also check out statistics on your rivals (in your niche). Here are some of the websites, with which you can carry out the task.

• Alexa
• Builtwith
• Buzzsumo
• FollwerWonk
• iSpionage
• Moat
• Quantcast

The list goes on. The websites help you check the rankings of different sites, social media performance, traffic, advertising campaigns and much more.

Identification and Allocation of Resources

There are various content types- podcasts, videos, infographics, blog posts, etc. But unless you know where to post it, it won’t do you much good. In addition to this, you also need to address aspects like:

• The person in charge of producing and maintaining content
• The people, digital and physical resources and tools
• The publishing workflow, including content scheduling

For instance, the CEO has the final say in terms of content strategy. The content manager will be in charge of delivering content on a daily basis. Most importantly, the individuals will create content, according to their expertise. Your content creators might involve freelancers, specialists in video creation, graphic design or podcasting.

Finally, you will need arrangements for hosting on sites like Spreaker, YouTube, Blubrry. And as far as content workflow is concerned, you have to:

• Create a template and have  it approved
• Write the post
• Insert appropriate images
• Send  the post to the editor
• Make changes
• Upload and publish

And last but not least, you have to create a content calendar so that you stay true to the strategy and plans. Initial stories on this calendar should incorporate all of the research on topics, formats, keywords, etc. You have to capture attention and build loyalty, populate the calendar with core pieces of content. As of now, 91% of the B2B and 86% of B2C companies have adopted content strategy. So, if you haven’t applied the strategy, consider the points in this post.

Author Bio: Suhana is a passionate blogger and digital marketing enthusiast. Suhana Williams is one of the most talented assignment experts who also provide assignment help through Assignmenthelp.us. She enjoys the ever-evolving world of digital marketing and loves to share her opinion on every possible update with her audience. When not creating magic with her words, you can find her sky-diving or trekking in the most bizarre locations.