How to develop your content strategy in 7 easy steps

The most important part of any content is its strategy.

But, before you dive into the content creation process, it's vital to consider your key objectives and come up with a plan of action.

While it’s tempting to jump right in and start creating content, skipping strategy means you might use your marketing budget to produce content that doesn’t perform well.

Here are 7 key steps to keep in mind to create an effective content strategy:

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1. Set clear goals

Right from the start, you’ll want to figure out what it is you want your content to achieve.

How does it support your wider business goals? You could be looking for brand awareness, lead generation, or thought leadership to name a few. Understanding how your content can get you closer to your wider goals has a huge influence on the type of content you need to create.

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2. Understand your target audience

Understanding your target audience is key to creative content that resonates with them.

Think about their demographics, needs, wants and preferences to guide your content strategy.

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3. Know how you fit into the competitor landscape

It’s important to understand the positioning of your competitors so that you can capitalise on your point of difference.

When doing a competitor analysis, we don’t want to copy what they do, because we don’t know their goals. Instead, understand what content your target audience are seeing and where you might fit.

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4. Be curious about the platforms

Each social media platform has its own characteristics, algorithm, and audience behaviour.

You need to know which platforms will help you get closer to your goals, and where your target audience are most likely to be. Without this, you could be distributing your content in the wrong place.

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5. Choose your content types wisely

Content marketing is varied and can include blogs, video, infographics, podcasts, webinars, and social media.

Choosing the right types of content for your businesses goals whilst thinking about what the platforms to prioritise, means it’s more likely that your content will end up in front of the right people.

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6. Think about formats

Once you understand your goals, audience, andplatforms, you need to know what content formats are required.

For example, on Instagram, a portrait video will perform, and look, much better than a landscape version as it occupies more real estate on a phone. Meanwhile longer form videos, on Youtube for example, are more likely to be viewed on a desktop which would favour a landscape aspect ratio.

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7. Review and adjust

Good content marketing is always evolving, and that’s why you have to be on top of your analytics.

Regularly reviewing the performance of your content allows you to adjust your strategy to create more of what works well, and less of what doesn’t.

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By following these steps, you can develop a content strategy that will work best for your business.

If you’re ready to invest in content. We can help! Book a consultation call today to find out how we can support your business: https://calendly.com/inkblotcreative/discovery-call