Content strategy is the planning, development, and management of content— written or in other media. The term has been particularly common in web development since the late 1990s.
The 3 components of content strategy:-
Industry experts will tell you that an effective content strategy must have three core elements to be successful: brand focus, user experience, and content distribution. However, there’s a fourth element some people overlook – content creation.
Brand focus
A brand focus is an essential guideline that keeps deployed content on-topic and in-tone. It considers brand positioning, a business’s outward-facing voice and creates a streamlined and well-defined plan to ensure consistent content. Let’s say a small bakery would like to release several blogs and social media posts to promote their freshly-made local produce. They’d need to cover topics like the source of their organic ingredients or the heritage and training of their master bakers – not the increase in fuel and transportation prices. What’s relevant to both the business and the customer.
User experience
To create a successful content strategy, you need to ensure that your material engages with your target audience. This includes developing ideal customer profiles so that your teams can write and design highly-targeted content.
- What makes your target audience tick?
- What keeps their attention?
- What do they care about most when evaluating a brand or product?
For example, B2B content isn’t necessarily the same as B2C, and even then, you need to know whether you’re addressing a CEO, manager, or an operations-level team member. You need to create content that addresses problems within their sector, build trust by displaying knowledge of their industry, and solve problems with a product or service. Consider which content formats – videos, lead magnets, and thought-leadership articles – are most suited to your prospects, and develop a narrative that will connect with their needs.
Content distribution
Content is critical to any strategy, but distribution drives it towards success. When you publish, where, and how will impact how likely your audience is to engage with your brand.
Making the most of all media types is the only way to ensure your brand reaches as many qualified leads as possible. Make sure to select marketing channels that align with goals and audience profiles – like earned media, paid media, and owned media.
Bonus component: Content creation
If brand focus, user experience, and content distribution are the three pillars of a successful content strategy, content creation is the ever-evolving element that drives them. Content creation is the process of generating topic ideas that appeal to your ideal customer personas and creating the written or visual content around those ideas. To ensure content distribution is consistent, try creating a publishing schedule known as a content calendar. Content calendars usually include upcoming pieces, status updates, planned promotional activity, partnerships, and updates to existing content.
Content strategy at Ekaim
Content strategy plays a huge role in the success of any marketing campaign, and there are lots of factors to consider if you’re looking to attract and convert leads.We help our clients to plan, develop and launch compelling content marketing campaigns that deliver unbeatable ROI.