Defining a strategy is important
As you may already know, content is essential for the success of an Inbound Marketing strategy, framed within the online marketing plan of your SME. It is what allows a visit to your website to become a final consumer. That is, the content is what moves your prospects or buyer personas from one state of the buyer’s journey to another. And planning a long-term content strategy means setting a course so that you don’t get lost along the way and miss your goals.
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Think that for your content strategy to work you have to be consistent in your content creation. As your contribution to good content increases, so will your return on investment (ROI). A website rich in valuable content carries incalculable weight. And to make the most of the time you and your team invest in creating it, you need to be organized. You need to have a plan.
Planning a content strategy
Step 1. Set your goals.
Every piece of content you create has to be targeted. As we have said, defining your objectives will help you organize your time and resources. Consider if, for example, for every 2 new customers you need 10 leads (sales opportunities), and if to get these 10 leads you need 400 visits. In this way, you will be able to assess which SMART objectives you define:
Specific
(specific): if your goal is to get more visitors to convert into sales opportunities, it is not enough to say that you want a greater number of leads. Specify how much, e.g., exact number or percentage over a period of time.
Measurable
(make sure you have a way to measure the results, with statistics and real evidence of improvement. You will also be able to adjust some practices as needed.
Attainable
(Don’t think of goals that you can’t achieve. You need to make sure that your efforts can bear fruit.
Realistic
(be honest at all times. Nothing worthwhile is easy, and sometimes you will encounter obstacles that are more difficult than others. Keep trying.
Timely
(with a time limit): as we have said, every objective has a deadline. Otherwise you would not be able to measure the performance of your strategy.
Step 2. Organize your content.
Whether you’ve been generating content for a while or not, you need to organize and quantify your resources. This will help you identify what you have and what content you should create in the future for your content campaign. Organizing your content involves categorizing it based on your buyer personas, in their buyer’s journey state, with the keywords you use and the format you have given it.
In other words, to plan a long term content strategy you have to be based on your buyer personas at each stage of the buyer’s journey also known as the
marketing funnel
. For this purpose, the
Content Mapping
is the most effective procedure, since it associates the content to the stages of this buying cycle:
- In the exploration stage we would talk about content for the top of the funnel or TOFU.
- At the consideration stage, for the middle of the funnel or MOFU.
- In the decision stage would be the content for the bottom of the funnel or BOFU).
Step 3. Create a content calendar.
Based on a target you have set, based on one or more buyer personas you should create an offer of downloadable content (eBook, template, demo, video, etc.), publications on your blog, social networks, events (seminars, workshops, product launches) and, at least, a newsletter that can satisfy your prospects. If you don’t want to get lost among so many actions, we recommend you to organize a calendar of content and goals for each month, quarter or year. Most importantly, prioritize in order of relevance.
In addition, if you already have some background in content marketing you should carefully analyze your CRM and CMS to identify what content your leads and customers prefer. This may also help you to assess content, set objectives and get organized.
In the next post we will talk in more detail about how to publish on your blog. As you know, having a blog is fundamental in an Inbound Marketing strategy and everything that has been talked about in this post will take more shape. See you next time!
