I’m often asked the same question – how did Express Writers get where we are today?
The journey to becoming a leading content creation and writing agency wasn’t easy.
It came with all the sacrifices you’d expect – long hours, lack of sleep, and learning from every ups and downs I encountered.
But if I were to point to one thing that made our approach to content marketing so successful, I could sum it up in a single word – strategy.
I’d been in the business of creating content for years. However, great content wasn’t enough to get us to a seven-figure status. For that, it required a strategic approach to researching, building, and promoting content that audiences can benefit from.
I’ve got an entire book and a comprehensive course about content marketing strategy – but today, I’ll give you a preview in the form of a six-step process you can start implementing right away.
6 Steps to Build Your Winning Content Marketing Strategy
1. Define Strategy and How it Relates to Content Marketing
2. Understand Your Audience and How to Reach Them
3. SEO: Learn It, Master It, Implement It
4. Build Brand Authority (and Use It)
5. Combine Strategy with Content Creation
6. Keep the Momentum with Smart Content Management
1. Defining Content Marketing Strategy: Framework for Success
Content marketing is undoubtedly a must-have in the modern marketer’s toolkit. The numbers don’t lie.
Over 90% of B2B marketers use content marketing, and over 85% of B2C marketers call it a key strategy.
But in terms of content marketing strategy, also called content strategy for short, we’re talking about a process that begins with planning and extends all the way through management.
Content strategy could be thought of as your knowledge base for creating and promoting great content.
It involves knowing the following:
- What is your area of expertise where you can offer the most valuable information?
- What is your differentiating factor that makes you stand out from other content marketers?
- Who is the audience you’re trying to reach and what are they looking for?
Strategy will help your content get discovered easier, stand out better, and deliver results more efficiently. I’m talking real results – traffic, leads, subscribers, and of course, ROI.
2. Who Is Your Audience? How Can You Reach Them?
One of the main struggles many content marketers face is something I went through, too. Pumping out blogs every day and sending out emails to everyone on my list – trust me, I’ve been there. It’s a content rat race.
Roughly 60% of people find consistency to be one of the hardest parts of content creation. If you want to see more results from each piece of content you publish, make sure you know your audience.
The key to knowing others is to know yourself.
That isn’t just a philosophical-sounding word salad. It’s the foundation behind building a successful content marketing strategy framework.
How does your current audience view you? Where in the marketing lifecycle do most of your audience members land?
Remember, today’s “buyer journey” looks a lot different than the funnel of yesteryear. You can’t always predict what stage your buyer will be at. Their footsteps could lead backward, forward, up, down, and all around before they make a final decision.
A content marketing strategy is about making sure your content gets to the people who could benefit most from it.
They’re out there. They want to learn your knowledge, buy your products, and become ambassadors of your brand. The seven-figure question is, how do you reach them?
3. Understanding SEO: A Cornerstone of Content Marketing and Strategy
Content marketing and content strategy are forever intertwined – and search engine optimization (SEO) plays a major role in both.
From a strategic perspective, knowing what your target audience is inputting into search engines is a great way to help them find your content.
With the right keyword strategy, you can climb search rankings and get more traffic to your content. Good SEO practices involve having the right keywords – plus having them in the right frequency and the right places.
There’s an added benefit to understanding SEO. Not only will your content get more views, it will get quality views.
People won’t just find it by accident and think “what the heck is this?”
They’ll find it and think, “this is just what I was looking for.”
4. Build Authority for Your Content, Brand, and Website
The benefit of having good strategy is that people who are looking for your content can find it – and luckily for us content marketers, search engines pick up on that sort of thing.
When your content consistently gets good views, repeated engagement, and positive feedback, it gains authority. What does this mean? Your content will be viewed as more trustworthy, and therefore able to rank higher.
Authority also means search engines could give you priority in some cases – we don’t fully understand the inner-workings of Google, we do know they prioritize older sites with a lot of credible links. The more great content (backed by strategy) you have, the better you’ll do.
I like to explain the concept of building online authority like a content house. The stronger your website is (and remember, you need to build on your house – not someone else’s platform), the better and stronger your presence and house is. With good copy on your site, and a good user experience (speed, design), you create a welcoming house that is warm and vibrant, attracting the right people inside. With consistency of content creation and maintenance, you fix all the issues and maintain a strong house over time.
5. Combine Content Marketing Strategy with Content Creation
The entire point of developing a solid strategy is so you can implement it – and you do that by using it as a starting point for the creation process.
A good content marketing strategy and framework is the launchpad for any successful content piece. With the right strategy, you’ll know your audience, your keywords, your differentiating factor, and your overall goal.
Having these things in mind makes it much easier to write great content – it’s exponentially better than sitting down and trying to create a winning piece from a blank slate.
6. Keep Your Momentum by Auditing and Promoting Your Content
Once you’ve got the hang of strategy and how to use it in the content creation process, the next step is to stay consistent.
You’ll need to budget your expenses and your time carefully. Make sure you’re auditing your content – is it up to date? Is everything polished, and optimized for success? Content marketing strategy in 2019 may be vastly different than strategy from a few years back – or a few years from now.
Auditing and updating your content makes sure it is fit to be promoted regularly. You’ll be able to advertise it on your social channels, to your email mailing list, and anywhere else you feel will be effective.
P.S. I created a short video recap of these 6 steps on YouTube and published it here on the Write Blog, not too long ago.
You’ve Got the Basics – Now Master Content Marketing Strategy
A solid content marketing strategy is the foundation of successful content marketing. It’s the same as with anything – faulty foundations cause the most beautiful creations to crumble. Stable bases can be built on and trusted for years to come.
This six-step process to building and implementing a winning content marketing strategy can help anyone.
If you want more on this topic, sign up for my 100% FREE 60-minute content marketing masterclass. There are content strategy examples, guided tutorials, and much more – it’s a resource no marketer should miss.
And of course, if great content is something you need to fuel your content marketing strategy, we do that. Get in touch today!
