Why Do You Require a Content Marketing Strategy?
6 Reasons Why You Need a Content Strategy
Content marketing is now part and parcel of every major
brand’s marketing strategy. But still many marketers underestimate the
importance of a carefully planned and well-documented content strategy.
In fact, a 2016 CMI report showed that 88 percent of North
American B2B businesses actively engage in content marketing. Yet, 68 percent
of businesses feel that their content marketing efforts are not very effective,
while 32 percent of businesses claim that their content marketing initiative is
yielding good returns. menfashdesign
If you’re wondering what the problem is, the report reveals
the answer: only, 32 percent of the surveyed businesses have a documented
content strategy.
But before we explain the reasons to adopt a content
strategy, let’s first define what a content strategy is.
What is a Content Strategy?
As we mentioned in our blog post explaining the difference
between content strategy and content marketing, you can think of your content
strategy as a building blueprint.
That blueprint should map out everything a marketer needs to
know about his or her objectives when it comes to content production. That can
usually be done by answering questions such as:
Going by the stats from the aforementioned CMI report,
businesses with a documented content strategy are more effective at content
marketing than their competitors. ethicmenvoguee
But the reality is, many marketers — and perhaps quite
shamefully, many CMOs — underestimate the importance of a carefully planned and
well-documented content strategy to help guide each content producer.
If you’re still unconvinced, here are six compelling reasons
to gather your marketing team and kick off a content strategy.
#1 A Content Strategy Helps You Set And Reach Goals
Ideally, all marketing efforts should bring you one step
closer to your goal. However, misguided efforts only leads to wastage of time,
money and energy.
For example, you may be creating content for an audience
that doesn’t match your target market. Or, you might be trying to create
content for very competitive keywords, while ignoring the low hanging fruits
which are more likely to yield results.
A content strategy helps you define your marketing goals and
set priorities. It allows you to plan your work and ensure that all marketing
effort is goal driven. With a documented content strategy, you can ensure that
every bit of effort put-in by your team translates into tangible results.
#2 A Content Strategy Helps You Track Progress
According to Rebecca Lieb, a content strategy consultant and
keynote speaker, "There is no content strategy without measurement
strategy. Before embarking on a content initiative, irrespective of medium or
platform, it’s important to know what you want to achieve.”businessdirectorypc
In other words, your short-term and long-term goals serve as
a yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of content marketing initiative. A
strong content strategy should outline the metrics you should track and analyze
to constantly determine whether or not your content marketing efforts are
yielding results.
#3 A Content Strategy Helps You Identify New Opportunities
Successful content marketers constantly look for new content
creation opportunities. They create content around hot-button news topics which
help in the effort to reach more of their target audience.
To help with that, a good content strategy should outline
all the avenues that a marketer can use to follow news and trends and find
story ideas. Without a content strategy, the effort put into discovering new
opportunities will be uncoordinated, and that disorganization will be reflected
in the brand’s publications and tone.
#4 A Content Strategy Cuts Costs
Creating and distributing content can get costly. When
marketers work without a content strategy they can often lose sight of the
bigger picture and spend far too much on projects, leaving only limited funds
for later in the financial year.
Content strategies help define how much money should be
spent per project, how it should be spent and how marketers can find ways to
cut costs if needed.
#5 A Content Strategy Optimizes Your Marketing Team
Accountability is crucial for making any tangible progress,
no matter the context. Without a documented content strategy, your marketing
team won’t know how much content needs to be produced, where it needs to be
posted, how it can be repurposed, or anything else that can govern their
day-to-day tasks. allinternetbuziness
Most people need a little nudge to get going, and a formal
content strategy serves as a call to action. It sets out performance metrics
for team members, defines a work schedule for content creation, guidelines on
the management of social media accounts, maintenance of marketing automation
system and everything in between. When you have a strategy, all of this becomes
much easier, resulting in a more productive marketing team.
#6 A Content Strategy Help You Produce Content That Converts
Last, but certainly not least on this list, is the fact that
a content strategy is essential to producing content that converts on a
consistent basis. That is, if the content strategy contains the right
guidelines, such as:
If your content strategy contains those guidelines (and it
definitely should, and then some!), then your marketing team will have the
foundations they need whenever they approach a new project. All they have to do
is build on the foundations set out in the content strategy.
Great Content Marketing Is Rare
Keeping your goals in sight, tracking progress, discovering
new opportunities, minimizing cost, increasing productivity and producing
content that converts are all essential reasons for having a content strategy.
Great content marketing is rare, but when you do see a brand
developing relevant content on a consistent basis, it’s almost always down to
the quality of their content strategy.
With that in mind, check out our guide to the five hallmarks
of a great content strategy to help mold your strategy in a way that promotes
efficiency, cost-effectiveness and quality content production.
