The 4 Building Blocks of Content Marketing Strategy

30% of B2B and 38% of B2C marketers say they’re effective at content marketing. Those numbers jump 14% and 20% respectively among marketers with a documented content strategy.

To succeed at content marketing, you need to define a strategy. You’ll need to understand what your goals are, what resources you will need to achieve those goals and how you will measure success. Writing down your strategy has proven to increase the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts.

Companies with documented content strategies spend more (on average) on content marketing than those without. Marketers in these enterprises also feel less concerned by the day-to-day challenges associated with content marketing.

Your content marketing strategy will dictate how you will create content to meet the needs of your audience. From the size of the budget to media type, to frequency of content, your strategy will impact how content marketing adds value to your organization.

So what are the four building blocks of content marketing strategy?

1. Create Your Business Case

What motivated your company to begin content marketing? What do you need your content to accomplish? How do you plan to meet those requirements and your broader business goals using content?  How much will it cost and how much time will it take to achieve those goals? What will you do if your plan is not as successful as you hoped?

These are questions you need to ask yourself and develop an answer. If you cannot respond to these questions, you are not prepared to begin creating content. Having these answers is important because, without them, your efforts will seem disjointed and lack direction. Just like any other activity in your business, content marketing needs to be strategically planned to achieve best results.

There is another question that marketers need to answer before they begin creating content: Who is this for? Marketing personas ensure that content creators have an understanding of their ideal audience.

2. Define Your Personas

Marketing personas are representations of your ideal customers. These personas should be crafted using data, not stereotypes. That means research is needed to be completed to truly define your personas. You will need to research your audience’s interests and needs, buying habits and how they consume content. Once you have this information, you can build your personas. It’s likely that your audience includes more than one type of individual, so you will need to prepare multiple personas.

Why are marketing personas so important?

They are important because, without them, it becomes difficult to create content that speaks to the unique needs and interests of your audience. The most successful content is targeted at a specific type of person at a specific stage of the buying cycle. Your buyer personas help you ensure your message is on point and you create content that engages your audience and enhances your brand.

3. Develop Your Brand Story

Every brand has a story. Every brand story should explain why the business exists, but every story has unique details. The main challenge for marketers lies in figuring out how to tell that story in an authentic, engaging way.

Another major challenge in developing your brand story is finding the right tone and voice for your brand. It is easy to come off as flippant or disinterested based solely on the tone of your writing. You need to manage your brand’s voice to project warmth and good intentions to your audience.

Developing a brand story is important because it gives the audience the required information to empathize with you. If your story is engaging, told in a warm, inviting tone and accurately describes why the business exists it can engender a stronger connection between you and your customers.

For more information on the power of storytelling in business check out our article: The Power of Storytelling in the Business World.

4. Create Your Channel Plan

The final thing you need to know before creating content is where to place your content. There are many options for hosting content. Your website’s blog is an excellent property to host content. If you have a mobile app, perhaps your content would be most at home there. Depending on your target audience and overall business goals, you may want to use a mixture of channels to host your content.

Other factors that need to be considered when creating a channel plan include:

• How will you share the content with relevant members of the audience?

• Will you use social media to share your content? If so, which platforms will you use?

• How can you earn more impressions?

       • Can your content be used in industry publications?

       • Can you earn any media impressions?

• What channel will our content perform best on?

These are just some of the questions you need to consider when creating your channel plan. Every plan is unique and is dependent on your overall business goals, your target audience and how you want to tell your story. Once you have these four building blocks of content marketing strategy in place, you can dive right in.

Are you ready to start your content marketing journey? Are there any other “building blocks” that we missed? Let us know on Twitter @VeridayHQ or follow us on LinkedIn.