The Complete Guide to Building Content Strategies for Businesses

Around 31% of marketers think blogs are essential to building brand awareness. 24% think that newsletters are the most important, while the rest likely think social media content holds the key!

Either way, content marketing is important for businesses. It helps internet users and potential customers find, engage, and become loyal to your brand.

But you can’t throw any old types of content at the wall and see what sticks. When you’re building content strategies, you need to look at the bigger picture and have a direction. You’re far more likely to see positive results from your investments.

Don’t know anything about content marketing businesses online and need help? No sweat! This complete step-by-step guide will show you exactly how to build a content strategy that works.

Step 1: Decide Your Business Goals

If you don’t know what you hope to achieve through your content marketing strategy, then there’s no point in making one. You won’t know whether your content strategy has been successful or not anyway.

So, you need to decide what they are. Here are some popular examples of content marketing business goals for inspiration:

• Maintain or increase customer base
• Maintain or increase profits
• Strengthen brand awareness/exposure
• Strengthen niche expertise
• Improve customer service and communication
• Increase awareness of new products/services
• Be more active in the local or online community
• Establish the business’s message and voice

You could choose one or a selection of these goals. If you want to focus on them all, pick a handful to start off with so you don’t overwhelm yourself.

When creating goals for your new content strategy, make sure they meet the SMART criteria. These are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-sensitive

For example, a good smart goal would be to increase your customer base by 5% over the next two months. This is specific, has a deadline, is likely achievable, and you can measure the number of customers you gain.

Step 2: Figure Out Your Target Audience

When building content strategies, figuring out your target audience helps for two reasons. First, it helps you decide what style and tone of voice your content should have. Second, it helps you narrow down the right channels you should use to publish content.

Let’s say your business is a young sports fashion brand. Your target audience is likely boys aged 16 to 25 years old with a little disposable income. They like current pop music, festivals, sports, and keeping up with internet trends.

That means your content should reference the most up-to-date memes, TV shows like Euphoria, and celebrity news. Your tone of voice should be casual, full of emojis, and include popular slang words.

Your target audience is more likely to be on TikTok and Instagram than on Facebook and Twitter. You could start a sports blog covering all the latest sports news and share it on the first two platforms.

Creating a digital avatar as a representative for your target audience will help you hone in on who you are speaking to when creating content. Give them a name and as many specific demographics as possible. This will help other members of your team create content in the same tone of voice too.

Step 3: Do a Content Audit

Before you develop a new content strategy, you need to know what is and isn’t working with your old one. You can do this by checking the analytics of your social media channels, website, and newsletter. Find out how much growth you are seeing every 30 days for the last four months.

With social media, check what percentage of your followers are “seeing” your posts. Check what percentage are interacting with them too. Discover which posts are doing well and try to figure out why.

Did someone with a big following share your most popular post? Or did you post a current internet trend at a busy time of day for social media?

Next, check how well your business website content is doing via Google Analytics. Check your website’s total traffic growth and the traffic of each blog post. Which are doing better than others and why?

Last, check the open rate of your email newsletters. Which do people open the most and do they click any links in the newsletter? Why/why not?

You should also pick three competitors and examine their online content from the last month. Use tools and your best judgment to see what content of theirs is doing well and what isn’t. Use this information to gain ideas for your own content.

Step 4: Build a Content Campaign Calendar

You know your target market and which platforms you will use to post your content. It’s time to get creative and brainstorm new ideas!

Use the following suggestions as jumping-off points for your next pieces of content:

• Annual events e.g. holidays, seasons, anniversaries
• How-to guides, tips, and advice
• Positive customer reviews and testimonials
• Behind the scenes of your business
• Industry news
• Quizzes and fun facts

Ensure all the content you create is relevant to your business. If you run a cafe then don’t post about makeup. Create your content calendar three months in advance so you can publish consistent posts and you won’t run out of ideas.

Step 5: Create High-Quality Content

Before you can publish content, you need to create it. In an ideal world, you would hire in-house or freelance professionals to create this content for you.

Consider hiring a professional photographer to take in-situ and product shots. Videographers can also capture special events and parts of your business in action better than you can. Content writers can write blog posts and optimize them for search engines too.

Start Building Content Strategies That Work

When you’re building content strategies for your business, you may not get it right the first time. You may need to examine your results, readjust your strategy, and try again.

But now you have this guide, you will know how to keep improving your strategy to keep attracting customers.

Content is a key part of your digital marketing plan, but there are many more aspects. Browse our business and marketing articles for tons more tips to boost your business’s success online!