As we ring in 2019, New Year’s Resolutions are at the forefront of everyone’s minds, especially those New Year’s Content Marketing Strategy goals. Most every entrepreneur and business owner that I know has at least one goal that involves more effective marketing for their business to drive sales and increase revenue. And I tell them all the same thing: results like that lie in a content marketing strategy for 2019.
What is a Content Strategy?
A content strategy is a marketing plan for all the digital content you publish. This includes blog posts, YouTube videos, podcasts, social media posts, and more.
A content marketing strategy ensures that you create content that gets the job done and are prepared to publish it on time. When you plan for content, you have time to carefully craft your publications to make sure it hits all the marks, like SEO and branding, and is quality content that brings in hordes of traffic.
Why You Need a Content Marketing Strategy in 2019
Now that you know what a content marketing strategy is, you need to know why you need one. You may think that a strategy like this is only for large companies with a huge marketing department, but that couldn’t be further from the truth
A content marketing strategy can do wonders for any small business or entrepreneur, and here’s how:
1.You create a brand identity and a strong online presence. Just like the fact that branding is very important, creating a brand identity is essential to your business. In fact, the two go hand in hand.
You want readers to see a piece of your content and know immediately that it’s yours. You do this through font choice, color palettes, language, and several other kinds of visuals. It takes a lot of planning to do this effectively.
A content marketing strategy ensures that you will cover all your bases and brand every piece of content that you publish because it forces you to plan ahead. It also makes sure that you plan your content out for every platform, theme, and special occasion.
In doing so, you create a strong online presence that looks professional and attracts customers
2. You establish your brand as an industry leader. When you want someone to give you money for products or services, it’s much easier to convince them to do so when you and your business are considered experts or a leader in your industry.
To establish yourself, or brand, as an industry leader, you want to be a resource for others in your industry to rely on. The best way to do this is to offer a wealth of information through content marketing.
Through blog posts, video tutorials, e-courses, and more, you assert your knowledge on your industry topics (without sounding like you’re bragging) and effectively become a leader
3. You save more money on marketing. Instead of shoveling more and more money into paid advertisements, use a content marketing strategy to achieve the same, if not better, results.
Ads are definitely an effective way to market your business, but they can be complicated and costly if you don’t know what you’re doing. In fact, DemandMetric found that “content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads.”
Instead of wasting time and money trying to figure things out, use a content marketing strategy to reach your customers. They are searching for content every single day and if you have a content marketing strategy, you’ll be appearing in their results. You don’t need an ad to reach them
4. You attract a following and increase leads and potential sales. We all know that in today’s world, everyone is looking at the
Followers follow you to receive updates on your content because they are interested in what you have to offer. That means they are already interested in buying your products or services!
Imagine marketing to an audience you already know is interested in buying and halfway through the marketing funnel. That’s what you have when you have a following on social media or your own website. The same goes for having and growing an email list. It takes the guesswork out of generating leads.
5. You make your marketing more effective. When you have a content marketing strategy, all your marketing efforts are concentrated and working towards the same goal instead of being all over the place.
Content marketing encapsulates several different areas. You have blogs, social media, YouTube, newsletters, podcasts, and so much more. It’s easy to work heavily on one while letting the other slip, especially if you aren’t planning ahead.
With a content marketing strategy, you get to manage the big picture of your marketing by planning ahead. What are you trying to achieve? What do you want your new customers to do? With a strategy, you can make sure every piece of content you publish has a link to your store or a CTA to purchase your services.
A content marketing strategy also helps you take advantage of certain trends, like holidays. Take Christmas, for example. The average person starts their Christmas shopping long before December. Even if they aren’t on top of their purchases, they at least start their planning several months beforehand.
If you are only publishing Christmas content in December, after everyone has already planned their holiday, because that’s when you’re starting to see Christmas content, it won’t be nearly as effective as it would be if it were published earlier.
With a content marketing strategy, you can plan to have your Christmas content out as early as August so you reach everyone, even those early planners!
How to Create a Content Strategy
Now you may be thinking, “Well, that all sounds great, but where do I begin?”
This is where I come in. I have helped numerous businesses craft a content strategy to transform their digital marketing and I have learned that content marketing is possible for any business in any industry. Developing a content strategy doesn’t have to be as hard as it sounds. In fact, I have created a 5-step process that can help anyone in creating a content marketing strategy.
- Determine Goals: What do you want to achieve through content marketing? Writing down your goals and prioritizing them can help you focus your marketing and start coming up with content ideas.
- Brainstorm and Categorize: You probably already have an idea of content you want to create so, write it down and come up with more! Come up with as many ideas as you can and start categorizing them based on theme or outlet for publication. While starting with multiple publications at once, such as a blog, YouTube Channel, and podcast, is not recommended, knowing what you want to do in the future can help direct your first publication in that direction.
- Determine Frequency: How often do you want to publish? Once a month? Once a week? Once a day? Your frequency will all depend on your platform and your own availability. 1-2 blog posts a week is ideal, but if you can only manage to get out 1-2 a month at first, there’s nothing wrong with that!
- Schedule: Once you know what content you’re going to make and when, make it! Go ahead and get it done ahead of time. You’ll thank me later. You could even write a year’s worth of blog posts in one month if that works for you. Just get it done and add it to a scheduler so you never miss a deadline.
- Monitor: As the content you scheduled gets published, don’t just let it go and forget about it! Monitor how that content does. Make note of content that performs well so you can share it again, learn what went right so you can replicate its success, and even repurpose it!
FREE Content Marketing Strategy Template
To get you started in creating your own content marketing strategy, I have a free PDF template you can download!
This content strategy template PDF has everything you need to create your digital content strategy including sections for brainstorming, organizing, and a calendar so you can start visualizing your schedule. Sign up for your FREE copy!
As an added bonus, I’m running a New Year’s Sale for 20% off all of my digital marketing services! That includes content marketing strategy if you’re still struggling to get your 2019 content marketing strategy up and running.
My content writing and social media management services are also included in case you have your strategy in place but are having trouble getting your awesome content out there!
Sign up for your free consultation before January 31st to take advantage of these low prices!