All businesses big and small need a content strategy that clearly defines what they’ll put out when. Whether this just includes blog posts and social media posts, or ranges the full gamut of sales copy, usage manuals, infographics, videos, and white papers, it must be planned in advance to be successful.
If your content strategy is missing any of these crucial elements, it won’t be as effective as it could be!
If your content strategy is missing any of these crucial elements, it won’t be as effective as it could be!
1. A Content Calendar
A content calendar is an organizational tool that allows you to lay out every piece of content that your business will develop and share. Putting all of this into a calendar is a great way to plan ahead to ensure that everything that needs to be developed will be ready on time. You can space out similar items, time seasonal content appropriately, and leave room for timely relevant pieces. For more information on how to create a content calendar, check out our previous blog post.
2. Content Contributors
Creating content is everyone’s job! Content can be planned and owned by the marketing team, but you really need to have content contributors company-wide to succeed. By pulling more people in you can get fresh perspective on the topics that are most important to your target audience, which will result in richer content. You’re also more likely to get buy in from the top when you tie into different departments’ areas of expertise. As a bonus, it means less work for you because the work of creating content will be spread out across more contributors!
3. A Professional Content Scheduling Tool
The more content you have to share, the more important a scheduling tool is. You can use a social media scheduling tool, project management tool, or combination thereof. The best tools will let you organize content ideas, input, resources, drafts, and finish products to be shared publicly. For some advice on which tool(s) you should use, ask your colleagues what they use or your employees what they have experience with from their previous roles.
4. Feedback on your Content
When content goes live your job isn’t done. In fact, it’s just beginning! You need to be using some sort of analytics to evaluate the effectiveness of your content. Determine ahead of time which metrics are most important to your business and then keep track of how your content performs. But don’t just look at the hard data. You should also solicit subjective feedback from your audience to determine how your content is performing. Analyze sentiment, ask for suggestions for improvement, and engage in dialog with anyone consuming your content to find ways to continue to improve.
Need help with your content? We’d love to help! Give us a call or send us an email and let us know what you need help with – we’ll customize a solution to fit your needs!
Kate Pierce is the owner of LionShark Digital Marketing LLC, a West Michigan internet marketing company. Her areas of expertise include Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Business Blogging and Web Copywriting. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and son and enjoys cooking, watching sports, and spending time together as a family. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about current marketing trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!
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