Content is an essential part of any modern marketing strategy that can be published in many different ways. To figure out how often you should produce content, you need a comprehensive plan, known as a content strategy. Formulating a content strategy provides a detailed planning of your activities vision; Also, the first step to staying in the field of competition and engaging the audience is to have a basic strategy. Without a content strategy, you will spend a lot of money and time creating content that ultimately has no result other than not receiving proper feedback. Formulating a content strategy will help you achieve your goals and in addition to helping users by producing attractive content, you will also help strengthen your branding. In general, having a content strategy for any business is one of the obligations that must be done before doing anything.
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Why should we have a content strategy?
Let us explain to you the importance of developing a content strategy with an example; When you plan to travel, you must have enough information about your route. What are the weather conditions of the desired destination and how can you get there, are among the things that you should think about before traveling; Also, whether you want to travel by car or use other vehicles should also be determined before traveling. Formulating a content strategy is like traveling and you have to consider things before creating content suitable for different platforms. Otherwise, you will get lost in the middle of the path and need to spend more time to find the main path. On the other hand, having a content strategy is a good measure to measure the performance of your content. Developing a content strategy makes you choose the right way to reach the final goal and, if necessary, make the necessary changes to achieve success.
The main parts of developing a content strategy
No matter what your business is, developing a content strategy is one of the most important things you should do before doing anything else. It requires the least amount of money to formulate a content strategy, but you can get good results with its help. The main parts of developing a content strategy are divided into two parts, which include:
- Developing a general content strategy: Using this strategy, we consider a plan for our entire business and advance all the content that is going to be produced using this plan.
- Developing a content strategy for each content: In many businesses, it is necessary to have a more detailed strategy for each content we produce; This means that the sub-strategy is a subset of your macro-strategy.
All the parts you need to develop your content strategy should be written in a content strategy canvas or other tool. Pay attention to the fact that the content strategy is developed only once (unless the developed strategy cannot reach your goals) and you must always pay attention to it during the work. In general, a content strategy includes the following sections:
- Goal setting (short-term, medium-term, and long-term)
- Knowing customers and audience (audience persona)
- Competitor analysis
- Keyword research
- Brand description
- Description of business products or services
- Customer journey map
- Channels and how to distribute content
- Considering the right structure for content creation (appropriate tone, SEO, colors, etc.)
- Content calendar
Essential elements in content strategy
All well-known brands use a basic content strategy. Different types of content are produced on the sites; From blogs, and social media posts to YouTube videos. All businesses need a comprehensive plan to ensure what kind of content they produce and who their target audience is. In formulating a content strategy, various elements can help your business progress; We will get to know these elements in the following.
Create strong SEO in site content
The content you produce on the site, in addition to answering the frequently asked questions of the audience, must also be optimized for Google search engines because if the content you produce is not on the first page of Google, the audience will not be able to find your content. to study When formulating a strategy, you should produce SEO-oriented content by researching keywords to be sure of creating interaction with the audience.
A consistent tone for content creation
One of the most important issues when formulating a content strategy is a consistent tone. Having a consistent tone will help your audience not get confused and it will be easier for you to understand the content. It’s best to consider the tone of any text you produce, as having a consistent tone for any business can make it unique.
Providing solutions to customer challenges
Many businesses, when creating content, are only looking to create content that will help their site rank; This type of content production, which is only for ranking on the site, not only cannot answer the audience’s questions but also shows that you do not value your audience. It is suggested that in addition to complying with text content SEO, you should also look for answers to the needs of customers.
Planning is an essential element in content strategy
Having a content calendar can help you plan properly for content production. The content calendar should consider all aspects of your business.
Why should we have a content strategy canvas?
As we mentioned above, the formulation of the content strategy and the programs you have in mind for yourself should be written by the tools you have in mind so that you will be aware of it during the project. Strategy canvases are used in many businesses that you may have seen but are not familiar with its name. The Content Strategy Canvas consists of a page with different divisions, in each of which you can write down the tasks to be done using colored paper. What content to produce to attract the audience on which platform and at what time to publish, are tasks that should be specified in the strategy canvas. To develop a content strategy, many questions must be answered, and sometimes these questions are related to different teams in the business. So it is better to put the summary and final result on the content strategy canvas after doing the necessary research by people in different departments.
To prepare a strategy canvas, you must answer the following questions and finally put the answers given to these questions in a summary in the strategy canvas. These questions are:
- Who is your audience and who reads your content? (Audience)
- What is your situation now and what feedback have you received with the publication of previous content? Audit
- What is your brand voice and what values does it reflect? (Brand)
- Who are your content producers and who is this team made up of? Production
- What kind of content can you produce? Format
- What is your content creation process and what tools do you use to organize this process? (Workflow)
- What platform will you use to promote and publish content? (Distribution)
- What do key business decision-makers think and what do they expect from the content team? (Stakeholders)
- What are your main goals for creating content and how do you evaluate the achievement of goals?
Types of content strategy
Up to this part of the article, we have learned about content strategy and its importance. It is better to know that producing quality content is one of the ways that grow your business. When you want to develop a strategy, you may encounter many parameters that play a role in your desired strategy, but it is better to know that there are several marketing formats, each of which has its unique advantages. Knowing about different types of content marketing will help you to have more options for producing quality content. In the following, we will get to know the types of content strategies.
Blogs
One of the ways to build a brand and increase website traffic is blog content. By formulating a strong strategy for content production and researching keywords and topics that are important to your target audience, it can meet the needs of the audience. Optimized blog posts can perform well in Google search engines and boost your site’s SEO. Another benefit of blogging is that it emphasizes your brand personality and gives you a unique personality for your site.
Podcasts, one type of content strategy
Audio content production or podcasts is becoming an effective form of content marketing and brand building. One of its advantages is that it allows you to provide long and valuable information without spending a lot of time; Podcasts also allow you to share your knowledge and expertise directly with your audience. Among the other advantages of podcasts is their portability, which means you can use them without time or place restrictions.
Webinars
Another content marketing tool is webinars that can help you educate your potential customers to help them better understand various topics. Another key benefit of webinars is the possibility of live interaction between the presenter and viewers; In webinars, viewers can ask questions and the presenter can answer them in real time, which leads to a more personal connection with the audience.
White papers and e-books
One of the best ways to build thought leadership, gain industry credibility, and generate leads is through white papers or e-books. This type of strategy, which is more specialized than blog posts, allows you to fully explore a specific topic and share more information than blog posts. In this type of content strategy, it is important to provide quality content that is worth your time. In white papers or e-books, it is better to present the solution to the audience; Also, the reason why you are superior to other competitors should be specified in this type of strategy.
User Generated Content
Another type of strategy is User Generated Content (UCG). UCG is content that is generated by users and will define your brand in some way; for example, when the audience uses They take pictures of your products or sends you a video, it’s a form of UCG. This type of content strategy is very effective, because both through word of mouth marketing (WOM) and social proof. uses that can lead to customer trust.
Website content strategy
Developing a content strategy is a plan that defines your business goals in the not-so-distant future, and ultimately you can use the content as a tool to achieve your goals. As we mentioned above, it is better to develop a content strategy for all platforms. To create content on the website, you must specify what content you intend to create on the site because you can use different types of content to create content on the website. In the following, we will get acquainted with the various methods that you can use to produce content.
Content strategy formulation model
By developing a content strategy, you can discover all the challenges facing your business and provide a solution for each of them. To have a powerful and principled strategy, you must consider many parameters according to the type of your business, because the content strategy has different stages, but in general, the content strategy formulation model is as follows:
- Introduction: In this section, you should specify what your goal is in creating content and what you have in mind.
- Preface: In this section, your main goal will be stated.
- Site content
- weblogs
- Off-Site Content: How your core strategy affects off-site activities
- The workflow
- The final part: implementing the planned strategies and evaluating the success