“Content Marketing is the gap between what brands produce and what consumers want.”
Recently, there has been a huge shift in the way we advertise our business and services. One of the most prominent marketing strategies that every business invests in is digital marketing. Digital marketing is one of the ways to connect to your potential customers directly. Here you have a vast reach of customers, and you don’t have to go looking for them as they will find you, only if you have a great marketing strategy. One such method has been proven very effective in digital marketing, a content marketing strategy.
To understand content strategy, we need to understand what content means and how it can be turned into a powerful marketing tool. Content has a vast definition. When you hear the word content, you think of the context. For example, what you post online, can be an image or caption or a Video; it is considered as content. When you read blogs that explain in-depth about a particular subject is also content.
Content is many things and exists all around the internet. In the world of digital marketing, content incorporates four main elements.
– Information:
You need to establish what type of content you want to convey? For example, it can be factual, practical, entertaining, filled with information, or maybe all in one.
– Context:
What is your content trying to say? What message is it giving to the reader? There had been a purpose for what you published the content.
– Platform:
The platform places a major role to publish content. We can’t publish the same content on all the social media platforms. We have to choose content according to the platform that helps you bring in more customers.
– Form:
What form of content will you use? Like text, graphic, audio, video, VR, and many more. Choosing a form can help you with choosing a medium.
Content is the information relevant in a given context with a form shaped by the medium that will be used to convey the message.
What is content strategy?
People often get confused with the terms content strategy and content marketing. To them, it seems similar, but the reality is content marketing comes under a content strategy. It is planning and researching how you can establish an effective content marketing campaign. Yes, it is a campaign itself that comes after strategy.
Content Marketing Tools have become vital to attract genuine customers without being dependent on traditional advertising methods. When someone wants to buy something, they first conduct a google search and look for what they want. If your content is strong and on top of the search engines, they will go deeper in their own time. Your content should help the customers learn something, solve their issues regarding the product, and find solutions to help them with their goal.
Content Strategy is the ongoing process to understand the business purpose and goals to plan a marketing strategy that uses content as a primary goal. The content will differ from business to customer(B2C) marketers and business to business(B2B) marketers. If you want to have an organized and successful campaign, you need to clear the business objectives to which you can create content. A content strategy is successful when we understand the larger goal of your business and its purpose. It’s not about just publishing without any purpose, even if your content is great. Your content strategy should start with a business objective cause then it’ll be just content, not a strategy.
Once you establish the main objectives of your business, then you should ask some important questions:
– What should our content establish to reach the business goal?
– Who is our target audience, and what type of content we will give to them?
– How will you align your content with your brand voice, goals, and audiences?
For any content marketing strategy, you have to develop a road map that meets your brand strategy, marketing goals, and business objectives. To develop and execute a content marketing plan, there are certain steps you can follow.
content strategy for startups
1. Setting up goals:
It is a good starting point if your content marketing has a mission that clarifies what’s important and what is not. Set up your target audience and select the content you’ll use to reach them that will benefit your customers. If you are a startup, there are chances that you might be a little confused. It is easier for you to research the content that has already been successful on your target audience. After that, you can use online tools to find trending and popular topics. Tools like SEM rush, Buzzsumo, google trend, etc., helps you find articles that have been shared the most or current trending topics. You can also find popular articles in a particular domain, and you can teach the ideas into your content marketing strategy for starups.
2.Key Performance Indicators:
To achieve your goals, you have to make them specific and measurable. The KPIs will help you know when you have achieved the goals you plan in terms of revenue, sales, traffic, SEO, and different aspects of digital marketing and other social media metrics. For instance, you want to hit a certain revenue target within the month, quarter, or year. You need a solid plan to post content consistently. It brings you quality traffic to your site. We can offer them a free lead magnet to exchange with their data. We also have to improve the search rankings of some of your key pages to boost traffic to get more leads and drive more sales organically.
New businesses and entrepreneurs face difficulty in building an audience. You would have excellent products and skills to run a business, but your audiences aren’t set up to see that. So, to do that, you will have to choose a channel that has an established audience. You can submit your guest blogs, which will result in valuable backlinks and increased visits to your website. You can go for a platform that has a large following and is affiliated with credible businesses.
3.Visual Content helps startups:
In today’s generation, people don’t have time to read through a lengthy post of something they have seen for the first time. You should be able to catch their eye with an interesting visual, or you lose leads easily. When you are scrolling through Instagram or Facebook, a lengthy post won’t catch your eye, but an infographic will help a lot. This is known as Picture Superiority Effect, meaning a picture is more likely to attract audiences. Using social media channels, you can post any type of content like images, short videos, long videos. More than that, Infographic is much recommended as according to google trends, it shows the most searched and has increased more reach over the years.
4.Regular content:
Being regular with your content is very important as it helps bring in your audience. Consistency in making content makes them believe that your website is genuine and can be quick to respond if they want anything from you. Having a calendar that allows you to write at least two blogs per week is beneficial. And also sending out weekly Newsletters that keeps your subscribers up to date on new blog posts. That way, readers who don’t visit your blog daily will find it easily.
5.Influencers:
This is very effective in today’s time as social media influencers have very loyal audiences. They have built a reputation for themselves in their respective fields and can be a reliable source to people who watch them. If they promote your brand, their fans are more likely to visit your website. You can either pay them for it or get them to notice your brand. One of the best ways to do that is to mention them in your content. For example, you might write a post about a product that they used to tell them how it inspired you, Or you can recommend their post as further reading to your audience.
6.Write on a particular topic:
By picking up a niche topic, you can be different from your competitors. While others cover a broad topic in their blogs, you can choose a particular topic and write about that. It will reduce the level of competition that you face, and you can stand out from your competition.
You have to be very specific while choosing topics. You have to establish a unique point in your content and which will help you. For example, you can use Google autocomplete feature and find your topic from that, or you can focus on long-tail keywords while doing keyword research. Here the keyword finder tool will be helpful.
7.Picking up the best time:
Yes. Picking the best time to post your content helps you a lot. Your audiences don’t look for content every day, they are active during particular times, and that’s what you have to look out for.
So, if you are updating on social media platforms, you need to pick out a time for it. Some tools help you see what time the users are most active and post content accordingly.
Conclusion:
These are some of the important aspects to look out for content marketing strategy for startups. It’s an easy step to build your brand or company and have an impact on the market. It’s all about knowing where your company stands and selecting its marketing strategy accordingly.