Build your brand with a custom content strategy

In a world where people are increasingly allergic to anything that looks like an ad, and where viral content can circle the globe in minutes, high-quality content is crucial to enhancing your brand. Great content separates you from your competitors, establishes expertise and builds trust, all while bringing your brand to life.

Every business needs a custom content strategy. A good content strategy allows you to engage with your prospects and customers as you nurture them through the purchase funnel. But that’s not all. It also builds your brand experience, elevates your search rankings, deepens customer loyalty, and provides you with a platform to demonstrate leadership in your industry.

What is content?

Content is how you tell your story. It can be anything from the written word in your social post to a video explaining your products. At every touchpoint your messaging needs to be carefully considered and consistent with your brand’s voice and meaningful to your audience, helping you to deliver against your business objectives.

How to get started with developing your content strategy

Grasp your goals

Before you set off, you need to know where you’re going. Always establish clear business goals and KPIs. Without them, you can’t measure results or show success.

Know your audience

Take the time to understand who you’re trying to reach. Research your audience (both existing and desired) and create personas you can market to. Understand what they need to take the next step towards a purchase. It could be technical product information, information about your brand’s sustainability practices, or just learning more about your brand story. What is it that helps them consider you over your competitors?

Guard against your gaps

Audit your content, your competitors’ content, and keyword search activity in order to learn what information people are searching for. This will help to identify the gaps in your own content and therefore the opportunities to enhance your messaging, ultimately reaching new audience segments.

Choose your channels

Content channels are where you share and promote your content. Three overarching channel types – owned, earned and paid – sit above more specific channels. Owned content is the content you create. Earned content includes people talking with or about you – think social shares and guest blog posts. Paid content is when you spend money to put your content in front of eyeballs.

Different channels will have different audiences and usually require different tones of voice. You need to determine where to focus your resources to get the best results.

Pick your pillars

Content pillars are the themes or topics that guide you when creating content. Your entire comms plan should feature a content strategy with consistent pillars. Defined pillars will ensure your content speaks clearly to different audience segments at different stages of their purchasing decision journey. And by providing structure, they also make it much easier to produce compelling content on a regular basis.

Ignite your ideas

All great content begins with a great idea. You should always be thinking of ideas that allow you to share and impart knowledge and deliver value to customers. Important sources of ideas include keywords and search activity, what your competitors are doing, and issues arising in your day-to-day work. Map these ideas in your content strategy to ensure they show up in your channels.

Complete your calendar

You’ve got your audience, mapped your keywords and pillars, and drawn up a list of great ideas. But for it all to make sense, plan your content across time and channels. That way you maintain consistency while keeping things fresh. Your new content calendar will become your north star – providing guidance to help you on your content journey.

Developing a successful content strategy takes time. But the end result is a brand that shines and stands out from the crowd. Convinced about the value of a content strategy but need some assistance crafting your own? Our team of skilled marketers and wordsmiths are here to help.