Developing Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing works to build trust and credibility through the production and sharing of original content. A diverse mix of media can be orchestrated into an effective strategy. We’ve explored some of these online and offline tactics already: custom print magazines, digital magazines, email, microsites, social media, whitepapers and video.

Nest we’ll look at the major components necessary for developing an online content marketing strategy.

Build an editorial team

Your content marketing team isn’t comprised just of people in the marketing department. The initiative can, and probably should, be viewed as a company-wide effort including multiple departments. Leveraging multiple points-of-view, expertise and writing styles will keep the content fresh, as well as alleviate placing the work on one department.

To effectively build your team it is important to consider the multiple roles and skill-sets necessary. Here is a broad overview of team players expertly presented by Heidi Cohen, president of Riverside Marketing Strategies.

Your first team member? An editor to manage the contributors and their posts.

Create an editorial calendar

Your blog – whether it is a section of your website or stand-alone microsite – is the heart of most content strategies. As Heidi Cohen writes, “Blogs are the optimal choice for your content marketing hub because they’re content chameleons combining the strength of social media with old-fashioned print-publishing functionality.”

A basic calendar will be a spreadsheet that includes the following information about each post:

·         planned publication date

·         topic and attention-worthy title

·         notes about the topic the post will explore

·         reference sites or other materials

·         who is responsible for writing

Optimize content

Ensuring that your content provides value is the first, and most critical, step in a content marketing plan. Doing so will increase the probability that customers will share the content. However, you’ll also need process that reviews individual pieces of content for their search engine effectiveness and overall optimization. Does your content effectively compete in search results, including socially driven search results? Here is one helpful evaluation tool, when you can buy essay at affordable price and don’t have problems.  Who will manage this process?

Promote content

A promotion plan should also be developed. Common ways to promote content include posting on social media platforms and announcing via email or press release. It is important to remember that several offline promotion opportunities exist, too. Custom print magazines, for example, are a symbiotic option.

These content marketing strategy components are ideally developed simultaneously with the involvement of all stakeholders. However, it is wise to expect that your online content marketing plan will change and evolve based on the responsiveness of your audience. Be prepared, but be flexible and ready for change, too.

Managing Content Marketing Initiatives

The realization that all businesses and industries are now in the “publishing business” is intimidating to many business owners and managers. In fact, the idea they are now responsible for being the voice of a brand can ignite terror in some. What about all the “extra work,” too?

Yes, managing a content marketing initiative is a large task. The good news is that although it involves a great deal of detail to manage a content marketing plan, it is easily reduced to the following key areas of maintenance:

Consistency

It is important to establish and maintain consistency across all efforts. If the company commits to publishing one blog post a day and one magazine a quarter, customers come to expect this regularity. Disrupting this flow can reduce overall effectiveness and perception. As a greater depth of content is produced each individual piece of content becomes more, not less, valuable.

Enrolling Stakeholders

Some businesses choose to involve all employees in execution of a content marketing plan. This typically takes the form of a corporate blog, and has the added advantage of improving employee communication skills. No matter who – or how many – people are involved, it is important to communicate the larger goal and how they can anticipate benefitting from the effort.

It may also be necessary to gather input from external sources, too. Suppliers and customers are rich sources of case studies or success stories, for example.

Coordination and Scheduling

Lastly, the biggest part of managing of a content marketing initiative is the coordination and scheduling of various assets. Depending on the scale of your initiative, how many contributors are involved, and the diversity of media produced, this aspect can become unwieldy. Therefore, it is best to assign one person or team to lead and manage the entire process.

Find an individual or team to manage these three areas. When you do, your content marketing initiative will run more smoothly. A finely tuned content producing machine will yield the best results.