Creating a content strategy is essential for maximizing the benefits of content marketing. The plan’s focus should be on your business and its intended clientele. When directing a content strategy, it’s important to focus on the following components. The acronym (SMART) stands for “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.”
Projects that are S.M.A.R.T. are ones that can be defined in detail, measured quantitatively, reached realistically, are relevant to the situation at hand, and have a firm deadline. The term was coined by George T. Doran and first appeared in an issue of Management Review in that year (1981). Some examples of SMART goals are:
- Specific: Make a strategy for your content that includes three types of content.
- Measurable: A 20% uptick in email click-throughs is a reasonable goal.
- Achievable: Create a fresh email newsletter format.
- Relevant: Make a film showing people how to use your brand’s products.
- Time-bound: By the end of the month, outline five new blog post ideas.
Key Performance Indicators
Make use of KPIs to measure your success in reaching your SMART goals. Examples of Key Performance Indicators include:
- Site traffic
- Subscription
- Mentions on social media
- Conversion rate
- Shopping cart abandonment rate
- Price trends
- Returning customers
- Likes, shares and follows on social media
Choosing Content Types
Tell me about your future intentions. Think about who you’re writing for and what they’re doing before they buy. The following questions should be taken into account:
- What specific details do they need from you?
- What is their pain point?
- To what extent does your service or product reduce or do away with the pain point?
- Specifically, where are they most likely to be found?
- If a customer is having trouble finding your goods, how will you help them?
Choosing Content Channels
The stage of the buyer’s journey a prospect is in will determine the channels you use to reach them. Blogs and white papers, for instance, could be posted on your site to reach people at the awareness stage of the buying process. Meta, Twitter, and Instagram are just some of the social media platforms available to you.
For people who are still on the fence about making a purchase, you may want to upload videos and podcasts on social media, YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Additionally, you can build informative newsletters and send them to a prospect’s inbox if you have their email address.
When it comes time to make a choice, email can be useful too. Promote sales or free trials via email. To further differentiate your products from the competition, you may also disseminate content that does so.
Setting Your Budget
The recommended percentage of marketing budget to be spent on content creation and distribution is between 25% and 30%, according to experts. Start at 25% and work up to 30% over time. In this step, you’ll evaluate your content’s ultimate goals, distribution strategy (organic vs. paid), content creation resources, and evaluation methods.
Creating Quality Content
Think about the content you want to create. Blogs, ebooks, infographics, videos, and white papers can all be created by in-house teams. These creative processes can also be outsourced, though you’ll need to be specific about what you require from the people you hire. If a company is just getting into content marketing and hasn’t had time to build an in-house team (or isn’t sure if an in-house team is cost effective), outsourcing to an outside firm may be the best option.
Distributing Content
The next step, after content creation, is dissemination. Take advantage of an editorial calendar to keep your content on track, timely, and relevant. You shouldn’t drop a ton of great content all at once, and then disappear for a few weeks. One of the most important factors in achieving marketing success is consistency. If you don’t have it, your viewers may lose interest.
Analyzing Your Performance
The distribution of your content is not the end of your content strategy. Furthermore, it is critical to evaluate and quantify the outcomes of each publication. Here’s where key performance indicators (KPIs) and S.M.A.R.T. targets shine.
Whether you set a short-term or long-term goal, ask yourself if you were successful in reaching The question is why you failed. Is there a need to adjust your long-term aims or current level of performance? Do your KPIs suggest that your content marketing effort will be fruitful? If a region isn’t performing well, it may be necessary to shift resources to other areas, try a different channel, or even reevaluate the material.
It’s critical to assess progress and make changes to your strategy frequently. The finest outcomes can only be achieved with up-to-date, precise information.