Creating and producing high-quality content on a regular basis without the desired effect may leave you feeling hopeless. However, there are steps you can take to ensure a better result. Creating your content strategy from scratch may be tedious, but it is not a one-and-done type of thing.
Your content strategy should be worked on and regularly updated—and not just when your tests and analyses prove so, but from time to time, in order to keep up with your competition and provide your audience with a fresh perspective.
In this article, we’ll show you how to upgrade your content strategy and find the best practices for your business.
Blog vs. video
Have you tried toying with different content formats? Since content marketing is centred around providing value to your audience, you could use these formats interchangeably. However, the question at hand is – when should you go for one rather than the other?
The two biggest reasons to choose blogs are—the fact that statistics show that 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages every month and the fact that consistent blogging and optimising for SEO leads to your content ranking better on search engines.
With such strong reasoning, it’s easy to see why so many companies choose blogs. However, video content also has its benefits. With more and more people turning to videos as their source of information, Hubspot’s 2020 marketing statistics show that 80 percent of video marketers claim that video has directly increased sales.
Source: Pixabay
While both formats are great for engaging your audience, choosing which one to use, or how often you should switch between them depends on your goals. That is your first step—defining your goals.
If you’re looking to work on your long-term goals, like improving your rank on search engines and having a greater return on your investment in the long run, you’ll surely choose blogging. If on the other hand, you’re looking to move product quickly or want to sell as many subscriptions to your new services as possible, you’ll want to create a series of “how-to” videos.
Know who you’re creating content for
Once you figure out your goals and the type of content format you want to go with, it’s time to revisit your audience and see what’s changed and what works best for you. The first thing you should do is collect as much data as you can about your audience.
Research them through Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn analytics (and any other social media you use) and use that data to flesh out your buyer persona. When collecting data, think beyond just age, gender and location and really get into your audience’s lifestyle.
Dig into their education, income, spending habits, industry and motivation. If you have a sizeable pool of customers, you can create surveys which focus on user experience as well as the user himself.
Once you gather such information and form your buyer persona, you’ll have a better grasp of the type of content your audience will respond to and what type of value they’re looking for in your content.
Are they beginners in the field looking for guided tutorials, or have they reached a certain level of experience and are looking for industry news and ways to upgrade their business in any way possible?
With your goals and target audience ready, you’ll easily create better-performing content and generate more leads. A well-written blog or interesting video paired with an intuitive website and social media will get you well on your way. The only thing left to do is to measure.
Test and modify
Once your upgraded content marketing strategy is in motion, make sure to closely follow your audience’s reaction. This goes beyond checking how your content is doing in Google Analytics.
Test out different headline styles, article and video lengths, posting on different days of the week and times in a day and make sure your content looks great on desktop, mobile and tablet.
Think about the design of your website and test how different cover photos help you grab your readers’ attention.
In conclusion
As many marketers will surely know, changing things up for the sake of change is a crucial step in one’s marketing efforts. Even if you’re not stagnating, your audience will expect your content to change with the industry.
Your 3 most crucial steps to take when upgrading your content marketing strategy are:
- Defining your goals and shaping your content accordingly
- Understanding your audience
- Testing and modifying your approach accordingly
