The Surefire, No-BS Way to Formulate a Content Marketing Strategy

Do you know what would be nice for businesses right now? A content marketing strategy that works seamlessly. Knowing that it would work as perfectly intended can help you sit back and focus on making it more effective, especially during these unprecedented times.There are many marketing experts who can give you a fool-proof content marketing strategy, but it sometimes gets lost in the tedious process of setting things up. And so this got us thinking, is there a simple way to get a content marketing campaign off the launchpad?Believe it or not, there is, and it’s as simple as stripping all the extra stuff away and starting from the basics.In order to craft a surefire, no bullshit content marketing strategy, you only need to acquaint yourself with three of the most basic question in the English language—why, who, and how.If you clicked on this article hoping to find a simple strategy, we’re giving you just that.It seems like an oversimplification, but these guiding questions will help you make well-calculated decisions based on those three distinct areas.

WHY: What’s Are Your Business Goals & Intentions?

The very first step to creating an effective content marketing strategy is to define your goals for the campaign clearly. How do you want to approach each aspect? Why are you creating this type of content? How do you think it could help your business thrive?It’s good to define your singular goal so you’ll never lose sight of what the outcome of the campaign should be. But here’s the thing, then—you’re not sure what your goal should be right in the midst of a pandemic. That’s okay. We’ve got some tips to help you figure out the safest way to frame your marketing messaging on social media while COVID-19 is still going on.However, Content Marketing Institute provides a few guide questions to help you identify your content marketing goal and scale your plan accordingly:

• What current business needs are we struggling to achieve through current marketing initiatives?
• How big is this need?
• What is the differentiating value? Why is it more important to invest time and money in content marketing than other things in our marketing? What is our ideal outcome with this process? What will it do for our business if we succeed?

WHO: Determining Your Audience

After identifying your goals and laying out clear intentions to meet them, it’s time for you to define your audience and answer how this content marketing strategy will benefit them.A good way to figure this out is by creating audience personas. It helps you gather insight on the attributes that you’d need to hit from your target audience. This includes their demographic profiles, informational needs, and content engagement preferences.Defining your audience entails figuring out their key traits and online behavior. How do they go about their day online? What type of content do they resonate with?And since goal accomplishment is part of content marketing, you also have to find out the information your audience needs to accomplish their own goals/dilemmas. How can your business/product/service contribute to that need?

HOW: Telling Your Story

The story part of a content marketing strategy is obviously the strongest hook to reel in the engagement and results that you need for a campaign.So how do you tell a good story in a way that’s relevant to your audience? One thing that we always practice is to hit their emotional core. It’s a good way to keep them interested as authenticity partnered with an emotional touch generates genuine interest.If not, here are some guide questions to help you formulate a compelling story:

• What are the principles you adhere to as a business?
• What can you offer to the table? How can it help your audience?
• How will your content address the needs of your audience?
• What separates you from the competition?
• What do you want your audience to do after engaging with your content?

By having a detailed, three-part content marketing strategy, you are positioning yourself to bring all your plans and initiatives front and center. Content is the forefront of every marketing campaign, so it’s important to nail every aspect of these three questions. By doing so, you’re able to have a solid content marketing campaign that helps the business rise above the cluttered noise.