Are you wondering why or even if – you need a content marketing strategy for your business?
So, you’ve decided to take a content marketing approach to help grow your business. Am I right? This is a big deal. It’s not something that you’re going to want to go into lightly.
After all, content marketing isn’t just about writing a few blog posts when you feel like it. Good content marketing needs to be holistic, connected, and work as part of an overall holistic overall strategy.
Don’t believe me? Here are 7 reasons why you need a content marketing strategy.
1. Know where you’re going and why
The first thing a content marketing strategy will help you do, is to set clear goals (in other words, S.M.A.R.T. goals), and work out how you’re going to get there.
It might be stating the obvious, but without clear goals, and a strategy to back them up, it’s easy to veer off-course and end up six months down the line no better off than you were before.
Nobody likes to waste their time, which is why a good strategy is absolutely vital.
2. Know your audience and how to connect with them
A good content or inbound marketing strategy should always include specific buyer personas (or ideal clients) you’re looking to target – BEFORE you start planning out your blog titles.
The more detail, the better. If you don’t have these figured out, how are you going to know their questions, problems and challenges – or what they’re searching for in Google?
Content marketing is all about connecting with the right people at the right time. A strategy should include their challenges, age and demographics, questions, typical buyer’s journey, and so much more.
3. Cohesiveness to help establish your voice and message
When you’re publishing regular content, you want to be able to establish your voice and message. A content marketing strategy will help to keep things cohesive, and complementing each other.
You’ll know what’s being published, when, and how that connects to your other posts – and every other part of the puzzle (like your premium content, social media and SEO).
You can often include internal links to other helpful blog posts you’ve written, to be even more helpful to your readers.
4. Increased productivity in your marketing efforts
When you know what you’re meant to be doing and when, you (and possibly your team, if applicable) will be able to keep things on track and productive.
Pro tip: A good project management software will help you see exactly who’s doing what, so you can collaborate and plan seamlessly – so nothing slips through the cracks.
5. Monitor, track and adapt your results
All good content marketing strategies should include detailed monitoring and tracking of your results, so you know what’s working and when to adapt.
After all, if you’re not monitoring your activities, how will you know where you should focus your efforts? This is absolutely vital for any marketing strategy in 2017 and beyond.
Pro tip: A/B testing is a great example of how you can continue to measure your conversions, and optimise so that they’re always increasing.
6. Get your entire team on-board
Content marketing shouldn’t just be something restricted to management, or your marketing team. Believe it or not, your entire workforce all have something valuable they can bring to your content marketing strategy.
In fact, anyone who interacts with your customers or clients should be able to contribute – from sales, to customer service and even your receptionist! Who else do you think can pinpoint the exact questions and concerns your best clients have on a day-to-day basis?
You’ll find your content will be better as a result, with better buyer personas as your foundation, and an entire company culture that’s focused on being helpful at every stage of your buyers’ journey.
7. Deliver a better ROI
Here’s the best part: everything I’ve mentioned above adds up to a much better return on investment for your marketing.
You’ll be writing for and connecting with the right people, measuring how they’re reacting to your content, and you’ll be measuring and tracking your results, so that you can stay flexible and ensure you’re getting the best results.
Much better than just throwing content out there and seeing what sticks, am I right?
Skip to the end… (key takeaways)
I hope this has helped you realise just how much you need a content marketing strategy. In general, content marketing takes quite a bit of time and effort (not to mention budget), and you don’t want all of your efforts to go to waste. That’d be sad; we’d be sad.
The best place to get a content marketing strategy that will cover everything you need to grow your business, is a content marketing agency. Why not check out some of the ones in Edinburgh we’ve listed on our blog? And of course, we’ll be right here if you decide you need any help.
What do you think of some of the reasons above? We’d love to hear your input – or answer any questions about content marketing you might have! Just drop us a comment below, and I promise to respond!
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