Content strategy can build your brand or waste your time.

As a business owner, you’ve probably spent a decent amount of time thinking about how to get your hooks into new customers. One thing that gets a company ahead these days is its content. It’s a conversation and one of your strongest touchpoints with an audience. Whether you publish content on Instagram, a blog, twitter, or even a push notification, it’s engaging content that grapples onto your target prospects and builds invaluable brand awareness.

Quick fun fact: in 1996 Bill Gates wrote an essay titled ‘Content is King’, where he very accurately predicted the future of online money-making. While it’s abundantly obvious now, it certainly wasn’t back then. Anyhow!  One thing’s clear; good content is evergreen, and if you’re not pushing out content, you don’t know what you’re missing. And neither do your potential clients. Publishing gripping content that is effective takes careful planning and a solid strategy.

When it comes to building your strategy, you don’t want to rely on word vomit or some half-baked musings. Being thorough and calculated in your planning is the only effective way to go about it and gives you a solid game plan.

Here are 5 basic rules to build momentum:

FIND OUT WHERE YOUR GOALS MEET PEOPLE’S NEEDS

goals, notebook, coffee, notebook, planner

Knowing what you want out of your content will help define your entire strategy. Is it for clicks, is it to fuel a conversation, is it to foster community, is it to sell, sell, sell? Could it be all of the above? Yes. No matter the goal, make it clear and make it tangible. The next question is, what problem are you solving for your potential customers with your content, and why should they give a damn? That’s the jumping-off point.

TALK THE TALK

neon, words, stories, story

Who your targeting matters, you want to understand how they think and speak about your relevant topic. It would be far easier to read minds but don’t start calling your local psychic hotline just yet. Instead, it would help to research and develop a persona for your ‘typical’ clientele or reader. 

Who are they? 

What are their likes and dislikes? 

What online spaces do they frequent? 

Who are the authority figures in their world?

Probing questions help define and target your corner of the market. Create and structure your content based on your target audience’s needs. By doing this kind of audit, you can also figure out what they might search online and weave this into your search engine optimization (SEO). 

Sound a bit daunting? It can be tricky if you’ve never created a customer persona before, but fear not, that’s something I can help with! Getting to know your existing audience and audience-to-be is part of my content strategy offerings. Together we can pinpoint their profile and start paving a roadmap for your content.

LEVERAGE WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE

pride, born this way, unique, weird

You might have a totally original idea that’s going to change the landscape, but it’s far more likely you’ve got some competition out there. That just means you have to be sure your customers know why you’re the better bet! Your content is the perfect vehicle to do that, it can be used to tell your story, it could rely on providing distinct product features, it can provide consumers with resources that tie into your brand’s DNA, or it can inspire. Either way, nows the chance to prove you’re worth listening to over the other guy!

ALLOCATE YOUR RESOURCES AND EXECUTE

help, therapy, collaborate, cooperate

It’s around this stage you’ll have a better understanding of where you’re headed, and it’s time to start creating. But before you dive into that, you’ll have to address these questions first:

Who’s in charge of creating content? 

What kind of resources or tools do I need? 

What will the workflow look like? 

Who’s in charge of publishing and uploading?

Who will manage the community?

How will I track KPI’s?

Now’s the time to allocate roles and define how the process will run smoothly. An efficient way to do this is to build a content calendar. Its essentially a living document that provides you with a detailed outlook of what’s in the works, what are finalized, and what’s about to go live. It’ll serve you no matter how your team is set up, if you’re doing everything solo or if you manage a team of writers, designers, video producers or photographers.

BE CONSISTENT

build your business, work hard, play hard

Your brand is the center of your world, but to everyone else, you’re a drop in the water? Consistency builds a lasting impression in the minds of consumers and keeps you in their peripherals. Your flow of content should be regular, posting once every few months won’t get you much attention or build any loyalty. You want to be consistent across the board, including the way in which you communicate, continue to be useful in what you provide and always be accessible. Being accessible also means being visible when people search for you online, on google and major social platforms.

But, as you may have guessed, that not all there is to it! There’s no set formula for creating killer content. Otherwise, everyone could do it. And truth be told, I’m not giving away the secret sauce to just anyone! While these basics will give you foundations, it takes careful analysis and ingenuity to make it work your brand. It’s not easy stealing attention away from a world that’s getting served content every minute of the day.

If you’re looking to build a long-lasting strategy that delivers measurable results and gives your brand the visibility it craves, let’s talk about what services I can offer you. Whether you’re looking for someone to help you execute your content from strategy to delivery online, or you just need content consultation tips to get you started, I’m here to help!

Let’s start building your content strategy.

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