When we talk about content strategy it means expressing, describing and communicating ideas, information and emotions to web users, fully returning to the world of inbound marketing. In fact, by “content” we must not mean only written texts, but all that multimedia material that can strengthen communication, including videos, infographics, images and animations.
Going into more detail, content strategy refers to a document that allows you to organize and manage all content marketing activities, such as blogs, storytelling, ebooks, newsletters and everything that can be used to trigger and strengthen the inbound marketing process.
But how do you create an effective digital promotion, capable of achieving concrete and lasting results? Here is a short (and useful) guide.
How to organize a content strategy
Any self-respecting content strategy must start immediately with the clear definition of some fundamental points, such as targets, contents, objectives and data analysis. Here they are in detail:
Define the target
Considering that people will be reading and viewing the published content, it is essential to be aware of the tastes and needs of your target audience. Specifically, it is good to know the opinions of readers, extremely valuable for understanding strengths and weaknesses, which can be detected through:
- statistics;
- internal comments;
- comments on other blogs;
- threads;
- forum;
- community.
Finding out what readers think of your work can help you review your strategy, improving some aspects and filling any gaps.
Gather information and pay attention to sources
When choosing to disclose information, whether through blogs or social channels, it is essential to rely on reliable and truthful sources; this is useful not only to avoid giving wrong news, but also and above all to increase one’s authority.
At the same time, then, taking a look around helps to understand how the competition moves, not so much to “copy” as to verify the behavior of people who are passionate about a certain topic/sector.
Set goals
Any content strategy has goals, which must be defined and clarified at the beginning of the editorial plan. Why are certain contents published? For what purpose? Here are some goal ideas:
- lead generation;
- brand awareness;
- sale;
- launch of a new
- product;
- SEO.
Whatever the final objectives are, the advice is to monitor the KPIs, in order to constantly evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy and have the possibility of intervening in time in case of errors.
Publish user-friendly content
To achieve the objectives established through the contents it is necessary to choose topics that are interesting and useful for the end user. It would be wasted work, in fact, filling pages and pages of text, infographics and videos that no one will ever watch. It is certainly correct to populate a blog, as well as the pages of a website or a company’s social profile, but the content must be studied, weighted and targeted.
Doing so will also help SEO, i.e. positioning and visibility on search engines.
Manage visual content strategy
If the text is very important in organizing the contents, the eye also wants its part. Everyone is crazy about infographics lately: why? They are fun, intuitive and allow you to explain even difficult topics quickly and easily.
As a result, the interactions between comments and shares increase, increasing the engagement and interest of the reading public. Of course, the ultimate goal always remains the same: that the content is read and understood. So the graphic design must be a means to facilitate understanding of the topic and, therefore, must be defined within the editorial plan together with everything else.
Use evergreen content
An effective content strategy must focus on both current content and evergreen topics; to do this, it is possible to use tutorials, pillar articles, as well as cornerstone content which, together, become real points of reference for readers.
Evergreen content, in fact, satisfies specific and constant needs over time, given that (generally) they are full of insights and, above all, they never go out of style, on the contrary: they can be updated by introducing new paragraphs, always with the help of SEO.
Leverage GIFs and memes
Focusing on quality images and graphics is always a card to play, but considering that the public is increasingly dynamic it’s not bad to make the most of the potential of GIFs and memes: easy to create, they allow you to summarize even complex themes in a single image that usually immediately captures the user’s attention.
As with infographics, GIFs and memes also increase comments, shares and all kinds of interactions, which helps to increase brand and/or business awareness.
Give something to users
A valid content marketing strategy focuses on the gift: in what sense? That to retain readers and make lead generation, the “do ut des” formula always comes in very handy. But what can you give to your reading audience?
There are several options: an ebook with insights on a specific topic, a useful template(such as a CV, invoices or calendars), a webinar or an evento. In short, in the world of marketing there is a lot of room for generosity, a feature that allows you to create solid, faithful and above all long-lasting bonds.
Leverage video content marketing
Videos are the icing on the cake for the content strategy: it is impossible to win the hearts of users without providing multimedia content, to be inserted on web pages, social networks, newsletters and landing pages.
Every single video must be designed and studied to create interesting and quality content, in line with the needs of users and the topics covered in general. Furthermore, for the creation of presentable videos, it is necessary to use suitable tools and instruments, which allow flawless audio and video quality suitable for the web.
Enter success stories
Another card to play in a successful content strategy concerns the inclusion of successful cases, in front of which the public tends to focus in order to find a greater number of information, given that real and direct testimonies of works carried out in precedence.
Successful cases, or case studies, allow the user to identify himself and find a concrete and ad hoc solution for his own situation; in this way, they become a real magnet for readers really interested in the subject.
Predict bullet lists
To conclude on a high note, bullet lists are unbeatable: X reasons to do something or X tricks to solve a problem are simply fantastic, because they put even chaotic topics in order, giving the user real guidelines to use for personal needs.
Everyone likes lists, especially if they can be printed and compiled in a do-it-yourself way if necessary. The important thing is not to use it in a forced way, giving the reader a useless or superfluous list, on the contrary: making it pleasing to the eye and functional to use, it will guarantee enormous success.