Content Strategy: Your Path to Effective Content Marketing

If you’re like many business owners, you understand that something has to be on your website. And you probably know that you can’t just slap an AI-generated header, no content, and a “please call me…pretty please” up there and expect it to work.

But you also have questions:

• Where do I start?
• What does success look like for my business?
• What content should I include on my website?
• How do I know who my audience is?

Some business owners, in their excitement to get even a few customers, go all in on everything: content, email, paid ads, social media, referral systems, and who knows what else. I call this the “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” approach to marketing. Unfortunately, it’s ineffective and costly.

Because the excitement fizzles when the expected results don’t come. Then, they stop blogging (to save time), maybe stick to paid ads (because they keep people aware of you), and almost definitely give up on building their email list.

If this sounds familiar, read on. This type of thing usually happens because nobody sat down and crafted a content strategy, from start to finish.

“Begin with the end in mind,” — Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

When you’re crafting a content strategy, be sure to look at the goals—more brand awareness, website traffic, organic leads, newsletter signups, etc. In other words, “Begin with the end in mind.”

Keeping sight of your end goals helps you create a better plan, because it’s easier to deconstruct the steps required along the way. List each goal in order of priority before moving on.

Who is your target audience? Research customer/audience personas

Knowing your ideal customer is perhaps the most powerful bit of information you can get. It helps you focus on the people most likely to want your product. After all, you don’t want more visitors, you want the right website visitors.

Don’t make the mistake of saying, “my target market is everyone.” It’s too broad and unfocused. Depending on the size or type of your business, you may have a couple of customer personas.

• One might be a middle-aged DIYer who only wants the supplies, equipment, and education to do it herself.
• The other could be a youngish mom who doesn’t have the time to do that and wants to find resources to make smart decisions when she hires a contractor.

You can even name your audience personas and imagine yourself speaking directly with them as you write—just like having an in-person conversation. In fact, keeping that individual in mind as you craft content will keep everything focused where it should: on your customer’s wants and needs.

Which CMS will you use?

You may already have a website with some content, which means you probably also have a CMS, or content management system.

However, if you are still gathering information and deciding, by this point, you should have enough information to make that decision. WordPress is by far the most popular because of its flexibility, but can be a little quirky. Of course, there are others—here are a few names you might have heard:

• Drupal
• HubSpot
• Wix

Each has strengths and weaknesses, and you’ll have to decide which is right. Building it yourself is possible with any of the four on my list, but if you have any doubts about whether you can do it justice find a designer.

Do you already have content? Perform a content audit.

If you have a website with a few pages, informational articles, and some blogs, an audit might be necessary. When you run a content audit, look for topic clusters, 404 errors, menu links to blank pages, and check the on-page SEO.

Here’s a content audit checklist. You can use it to go through your content, but if you get stuck, hit the button at the bottom of the list.

What type of content resonates with your audience personas? Decide what type you will publish.

Here’s your, “Gee, thanks, Captain Obvious,” statement of the day: Different people consume content in different ways.

How does this affect you and your business?

You need to know how your customers prefer to learn or consume content. Some are more visual and prefer videos or infographics, while others want the in-depth satisfaction of reading it. You may also find that initial contacts are the quick and dirty infographics, and further into their journey with your product, it shifts into more data-heavy content.

Some companies like to do a little of everything, while others choose to focus on one type. I find that blogs make a great foundation for many businesses and social media posts easier to produce.

However, that’s not true for all businesses. Some influencers may only touch a text blog once a month and do everything else through video and podcasts. It all depends on your business model.

Here’s how it might look:

• You published a blog on how to prepare your pool equipment for an upcoming stretch of below-freezing weather.
• Using quotes from the blog, you created four or five social media posts that linked to the original blog.
• Commenters on social media loved the blog, but asked if you had a short video you could share showing where some of the items are located.
• So you create the video and share it on social media—directly responding to the commenters who requested it, where possible.

If it sounds like a nod to the children’s book, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” you’d be right. There’s a logical progression to marketing and to the children’s book.

Thanks to the initial blog, you got people talking about winterizing their pool. Plus, it was so helpful that they started coming to you for information—a few people even hired you to do it for them.

But just as importantly, your responsiveness increased customer confidence, making others more interested in having you work on their pool. As a result, you saw in increase in requests for quotes.

Brainstorm ideas! Use AI to help grow a topic list, but recognize its limits.

Just don’t let it do the writing. And honestly, double-check the topics too. It isn’t good at coming up with great ideas, but the “okay” ideas it generates can spur much better ideas.

AI has limits, for example:

• It doesn’t find research papers for you, it just tells you where to find them. I can do that myself.
• AI can help you build an outline, but again, double-check it.
• Don’t bother having AI write it for you. Unless you’re a genius prompter and excellent editor, it’s not worth the extra work.

The bottom line? AI is not accurate, makes stuff up, and the content it generates is mediocre—at best. But its mediocrity can be your launchpad to greatness. With enough practice, you won’t need the extra “help,” such as it is.

Or, if you would rather start with outstanding content that connects to your target market, schedule a call with me. Learn how I can save your business time, cultivate more industry authority, and get more sales leads.

Create a calendar to guide your content

Now that you know what your customers want from you, it’s time for a calendar. Content and editorial calendars are what marketers use to decide what to publish and when to publish it.

While the terms get swapped around and used interchangeably, they are different.

• Editorial calendars often extend several months out and dictate overarching themes. For example, you don’t want to publish a blog about spring seasonal allergies in the fall. You’d want to time that correctly. Editorial calendars keep your themes and timing on track.
• Content calendars are more detailed and usually only cover a few months. Your content calendar tells you what day to publish that blog on spring seasonal allergies.

Deciding how often to publish is tricky, and you’ll have to experiment. But as long as you are consistent—whether it’s once a month or once a week—you should see improvement.

Test, test, analyze, and research more.

Even the best laid plans go awry, so test everything you do. Use tools like Google Analytics, SEMRush, or ahrefs for research and analysis. Keeping track of how much traffic your content receives, and where it’s coming from will help you make adjustments when something isn’t working. Conversely, to do more of what you knocked out of the ballpark.

A Content Strategy Will Save Money and Help Increase Sales

Creating a content strategy for your business may seem overwhelming, and maybe it’s looks easier to skip the exercise. But take the time, even if you hire a freelancer or agency to do it for you. You can’t expect success without an effective plan in place.