Content marketing has hit its golden years.
According to the 2017 B2B Content Marketing report:
- Nine out of 10 (89%) B2B businesses have adopted content marketing as a key marketing strategy.
- More than half (63%) are strongly committed to content marketing.
- Two-thirds (68%) feel that they have realistic expectations about what content marketing can achieve.
- Seven out of 10 (72%) measure content marketing ROI, so they can optimize results.
But only a third (37%) have a documented content marketing strategy.
Like any marketing effort, content requires planning to be successful. Whether you’re new to content marketing or an old pro, you need to maintain a strong foundation so your content will generate traffic and lead to sales.
If you’ve avoided setting your content strategy because you think it’s too hard or will take too long, I’ve got good news for you.
You can build a good foundation in just 52 minutes. Here’s the plan, and your time limit for each stage of the game…
1. Set your objectives (2 minutes)
When planning, it’s important to decide what you want to accomplish before you decide how you’ll accomplish it.
Most content marketers have one or more of these objectives:
- Prospecting. Generate leads for follow-up by sales and marketing teams.
- Sales. Help your sales team close sales more quickly.
- Marketing. Generate interest in your products.
- PR. Build and repair public opinion about your brand and products.
- Community building. Develop friends and fans who interact with your brand socially.
- Customer support. Help customers get the most from your products.
- Thought leadership. Develop name recognition and respect, and to influence your industry.
Bottom line, you want to engage with your readers. So take a couple of minutes and pick one or two goals you’d like to focus on.
Of course, if you’re just starting out, it’s difficult to set create goals. It feels too much like guesswork. That’s okay. Content marketing is like any marketing strategy. You need to test your ideas to see what works.
Make an educated guess for now. You can easily change your mind if you find that your original decision isn’t giving you the results you need.
I recommend making a plan and sticking with it for three to six months. Then evaluate your results. If some of your decisions don’t pan out, tweak them and give it another three to six months. That gives you enough time to test your decisions while allowing you to find your best methods quickly.
2. Know your audience
Content marketing, at its core, is attraction marketing. Think of content as bait for your ideal customers. What type of bait do you need? It depends on who you’re trying to attract.
Select the niche (5 minutes)
If you target everyone, you’ll catch no one. So you need to define the niche that you want to serve. This is a specific group of people who are interested in the topic you write about.
Refine the niche (3 minutes)
You need to be specific about who you write for. For example, “Animal lovers” is a niche, but it’s relatively broad. “Cat lovers” is a more targeted niche and could make a better target.
Can you narrow the field even more? (2 minutes)
A micro-niche is a subset of your chosen niche. For example, “cat breeders” or “lovers of hairless cats” are micro-niches in the “cat lovers” niche.
When picking your target audience, choose as small a group as possible that is still large enough to help you meet your marketing objectives. And remember, you can tweak this as you go, so take 10 minutes now and settle on a group of people who you know you can serve.
3. Define your core message
Your core message is the primary benefit you offer your customers. It might include your story or the one piece of advice you share with customers.
This message is the bottom-line reason why you’re in business and should be the guiding principle for all content.
Start with your mission statement. (5 minutes)
What do you want to do for your customers or clients? What impact do you want to have on their lives?
Phrase your core message. (15 minutes)
Based on your mission statement, what is the big benefit you want your followers to get from engaging with your content.
If you can’t decide what it is, look for one central solution you provide your customers or one big question you answer when talking with them.
Decide on 5 to 7 secondary messages (or topics) that support your core message. (10 minutes)
If you only have one message that you write about in every piece of content, it’s going to get stale quickly. To avoid repeating your core message ad nauseum—and to give you lots of editorial topics to write about—select 3 to 5 sub-topics that support your core message.
Don’t put too much thought into this. Jot them down as quickly as possible, and avoid self-editing. The first few ideas that come to mind are probably the right ones. Over time, you can change the way you phrase them, but topics are fine for now.
Make these into categories on your blog or website. Then make sure that all content fits into one of these silos.
4. Decide on the type of content you’ll create (3 minutes)
Many people think content marketing means blogging. But you have a lot more options than just articles.
- Videos
- Podcasts
- Webinars
- Teleseminars
- Live presentations
- PowerPoint, Slideshare or Prezi presentations
- Infographics
- White papers and special reports
- Newsletters
- Ebooks
You might start with blog posts, but over time, you’ll want to create a variety of content. That allows people to engage with your brand in multiple ways.
5. Set a schedule
Decide how often you’ll publish (3 minutes)
Some bloggers and vloggers publish every day, while others publish every month. Select something in that range that works for you. Be sure to think about how much time that will allow you to create other types of content, participate in social media, and get the rest of your job done.
Decide on length (3 minutes)
Do you want to set a word count for written content and a time length for webinars/podcasts? Or do you want to allow each post to be whatever length it needs to be to cover the topic at hand? Both approaches are acceptable, but you need to set the standards for your brand’s content.
Decide on style (3 minutes)
What tone or style do you want your content to have? Chatty? Friendly? Short and to the point? Professional? Brash? Will you allow slang or profanity? The choice is yours.
6. Get to work
Once these foundational decisions are made, you simply have to create content. Every time you read a book or article, as you go about your life, look for ideas that can feed your content mill.
If you don’t have time to stop and create content, jot down your notes—on paper, in a notes app, or with a voice message. Whatever works for you.
The important thing is that you stay true to your strategy, creating content that:
- Engages your readers.
- Supports your business.
- Brings traffic to your website.
- Builds community around your brand.
Need More Help?
This is just the foundation, of course. I cover content strategy more thoroughly in my book, The Business Blog Handbook.
Get your copy at one of these fine retailers:
