How to Plan Your Next Content Marketing Strategy

It’s a phrase digital marketers are familiar with: content is king.

While it was predicted that content might lose its top spot, this phrase still rings true, even going into 2019. Content is still reigning supreme, which means creating a marketing strategy is still crucial for every business.

Steve Olenski, content marketer, and contributor to Forbes, summed up the value of content perfectly when he said:

“[Content] centers around the customers rather than itself. It attracts people rather than interrupts them, and it’s more about them than it is about you.”

Content is the best way to attract new consumers by giving them something they want. Whether it’s a series of blog posts, backlinks on authority sites, dedicated social media updates, or even the new copy on your store, content offers something new and engaging.

Rather than shouting about your product, by discussing it in a way that consumers want, you persuade, instead of bullying.

It’s for this reason why your business needs to commit to content marketing.

It’s no good beginning and running out of steam within a couple of weeks. This plan must evolve and develop along with emerging trends. It must be flexible, but realistic. It must be thoroughly researched before undertaking any significant changes.

“Like any other function or department in your company, you can’t just sorta-kinda do something and expect results.” John Hall, CEO and co-founder of Calendar.com

So, what is the best way to do this?

Defining Your Business Objectives

How will you create a realistic and relevant strategy if you do not know the business objectives? Of course, this is something you should have defined when you began, but times change.

What was relevant to your marketing plan two years ago may not be applicable today. You need to align every marketing strategy with every business objective.

If your business objective is to raise awareness of a certain product on your Shopify e-commerce store, you need to focus your content marketing campaign on this objective.

However, rushing in with a strategy is a mistake. What you need to ensure you do is define your audience, along with your objectives. After all, your audience is the ones who truly matter. They are the people who will buy your product or service and boost your revenue.

• Defining Your Audience

Every business has a target audience. You need to define yours before creating a marketing plan. Ideally, you should already have a set customer persona.

Perhaps they are stay-at-home moms who are looking for gifts for their children. Alternatively, is it corporations who need your software?

While this information is vital, you need to define it further.

• Where are they based?
• Are they in the local area, or are they further afield?

For Shopify services, you can seek the help of a Shopify developer to collate the correct business data to increase your knowledge of your audience.

When you have this persona nailed down, you need to narrow down what is it about that one product which your audience will be so interested to learn.

• Will it boost their happiness?
• Will it change some aspect of their lifestyle?
• Where will the product be used, or when will it be used?

Decide upon this before getting down your first ideas on paper (or on screen). By defining this audience, you can tailor your content specifically, along with the form your content will take.

• Will it be primarily blog posts?
• Or will it feature across every one of your social media channels?

Where to Implement Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content applies to a variety of forms, including blog posts, social media statuses, video marketing, and more. Choosing one form is not enough.

Content marketing is multi-faceted and uses multi-channels. Not only should you post relevant, informative blog posts, but you also need to post engaging social media statuses, and produce how-to videos to gain further attention and keep your current consumer base interested.

What’s highly important is to test every channel, along with every format.

Only by doing so can you truly decide upon the correct strategy. Otherwise, you will end up wasting resources, money, and the valuable time of your marketing team.

• Blog posts: Try blog posts which are 500-words long before trialing blog posts which are over 1000-words. Your audience may engage more with blog posts which are 1,500-words, rather than blog posts which are 750-words.

It has been discovered that blog post length has increased by 41% since 2014. In 2014, the average length was 808 words. However, the average length in 2017 was 1142 words.

Implementing a blog into your Shopify e-commerce store is a highly worthwhile endeavor. Enlist the help of Shopify experts to create the ideal one for your brand.

• Social media: Rather than posting long, complicated status updates on your social media channels, test short, snappy statuses which will hook the attention of the reader.

Studies have shown that 82% of Twitter users will watch videos, so this is a vital channel for product demonstrations. Don’t forget Facebook, where an incredible 8 billion videos are vieweddaily.

• Additionally: For a B2B brand, why not utilize newsletters? You can send one newsletter a week, but ensure it is personalized for every consumer.

This level of attention to detail will build brand loyalty and consumer engagement, making every customer feel valued and appreciated.

Conclusion

Content marketing is not something you cannot decide upon overnight. It needs a dedicated, clear strategy, one which you take the time to plan and create.

Explore every avenue before you nail down one plan. Trial blog posts at various lengths on your e-commerceblog. Test different content formats on your social media channels.

Opt for video on Twitter and Facebook, where they are much more likely to be watched, rather than long-form statuses.

Above all, always be original and unique with every piece of content you create.

***

Thank you again for showing interest in our blog. Please be sure to check out our portfolio.

Additionally, You can learn more about who were are here. We also have other news blog posts that are relevant and helpful.

Questions? Let us know in the comments below or contact us.