How to develop a content marketing strategy
Posted: Wed Jan 22, 2025 5:13 am
Whether you're just starting out with content marketing (if so, I recommend reading this post first) or have been working on it for a while, it never hurts to review your content strategy plan to make sure you're up to date.
1. Define your goal
What is the goal you are pursuing with your content strategy? Why do you want to produce content and create a plan for it? Invest time in answering these questions before you start, this will help you save a lot of time when it comes to knowing which strategy is best.
2. Find out who your potential customers are
In order to develop a successful strategy you first need to define who the audience is that you are going to address, that is, your buyer persona.
By knowing your buyer persona, you can create more relevant and valuable content that will undoubtedly generate interest and allow you to convert customers.
If you are already an experienced marketer, your target audience may have changed. Would you like to target a new audience or expand your current market? Reviewing your audience parameters through market research every year is crucial to growth.
3. Conduct a content audit
Most people would start with blog posts, but if you want to branch out and try creating other types of content, it's important to choose which ones you want to use. For example, if you've been posting weekly on your blog for the past year, creating an ebook that compiles all of your posts can lead to creating a definitive guide that provides great value to your customers (and in a different format). Later, we'll talk about other types of content that might be interesting to you.
If you’ve been in business for a while, I recommend reviewing your KPIs from last year. Figure out what you can do differently for next year and set new goals to achieve. (Pro tip: now is the perfect time to align your team’s goals with the rest of the organization.)
4. Choose a content management system
Having a tool with these features will help you cover vital aspects such as content creation, content publication, and even creating reports to analyze basic metrics.
5. Brainstorming
Now it's time to find the ideas/topics for your new content project. Below you buy democratic donor email database list will see some tools that are really useful:
HubSpot's Website Grader
HubSpot's Website Grader is a fantastic tool when you need to see where you stand in your strategy. It analyzes your blog, social media, and other vital parts of your marketing department and puts it into a report that will help you optimize each of the areas.
With this tool you can find out how to make your website more SEO-friendly or discover new content ideas.
Feedly
This popular tool helps you stay up to date on trending topics within your industry and also helps you find content ideas.
BuzzSumo
Great for finding popular content and ideas. This company offers a number of search tools, one of which uses social media shares to determine which piece of content is most popular or liked. This information will help you figure out which ideas will work best if you decide to create content around them.
6. What kind of content do you want to create?
There are a wide variety of formats you can use. Here are some of the most popular ones:
Blog posts
Posts are hosted on websites and must be published regularly in order to attract new visitors. Posts should provide valuable content for your audience to encourage them to share them on social networks or other websites. I recommend that posts be no less than 800 words but no more than 2,000.
Ebooks
Ebooks are one of the most popular lead-generation tools as users can download them by filling out a form with their contact information.
Ebooks are the next step in the inbound marketing process : once users have read a blog post, they may want more information. This is where what we call “calls to action” or CTAs come into play, which redirect readers to landing pages where they can leave their personal data and download the ebook.
Case studies or success stories
Also known as “testimonials,” these are your chance to tell the story of one of your customers whom you helped solve a problem.
Templates or templates
When you provide your audience with materials or tools that help them save time and help them solve a problem or need, they are more likely to connect with the content you create in the future.
Infographics
Infographics help you visualize and organize ideas in a clearer and simpler way than just using words. This type of content is perfect if you're trying to share a lot of information and need it to be understood perfectly. Below we show you one
Videos
Videos are one of the most engaging formats on social media or on websites. It is true that they require more investment, time and resources than written formats, but they are undoubtedly one of the most popular marketing formats today. After all, the probability of a video being shared is about 40 times higher than other types of content. In addition, it manages to capture people's attention more than any other format.
1. Define your goal
What is the goal you are pursuing with your content strategy? Why do you want to produce content and create a plan for it? Invest time in answering these questions before you start, this will help you save a lot of time when it comes to knowing which strategy is best.
2. Find out who your potential customers are
In order to develop a successful strategy you first need to define who the audience is that you are going to address, that is, your buyer persona.
By knowing your buyer persona, you can create more relevant and valuable content that will undoubtedly generate interest and allow you to convert customers.
If you are already an experienced marketer, your target audience may have changed. Would you like to target a new audience or expand your current market? Reviewing your audience parameters through market research every year is crucial to growth.
3. Conduct a content audit
Most people would start with blog posts, but if you want to branch out and try creating other types of content, it's important to choose which ones you want to use. For example, if you've been posting weekly on your blog for the past year, creating an ebook that compiles all of your posts can lead to creating a definitive guide that provides great value to your customers (and in a different format). Later, we'll talk about other types of content that might be interesting to you.
If you’ve been in business for a while, I recommend reviewing your KPIs from last year. Figure out what you can do differently for next year and set new goals to achieve. (Pro tip: now is the perfect time to align your team’s goals with the rest of the organization.)
4. Choose a content management system
Having a tool with these features will help you cover vital aspects such as content creation, content publication, and even creating reports to analyze basic metrics.
5. Brainstorming
Now it's time to find the ideas/topics for your new content project. Below you buy democratic donor email database list will see some tools that are really useful:
HubSpot's Website Grader
HubSpot's Website Grader is a fantastic tool when you need to see where you stand in your strategy. It analyzes your blog, social media, and other vital parts of your marketing department and puts it into a report that will help you optimize each of the areas.
With this tool you can find out how to make your website more SEO-friendly or discover new content ideas.
Feedly
This popular tool helps you stay up to date on trending topics within your industry and also helps you find content ideas.
BuzzSumo
Great for finding popular content and ideas. This company offers a number of search tools, one of which uses social media shares to determine which piece of content is most popular or liked. This information will help you figure out which ideas will work best if you decide to create content around them.
6. What kind of content do you want to create?
There are a wide variety of formats you can use. Here are some of the most popular ones:
Blog posts
Posts are hosted on websites and must be published regularly in order to attract new visitors. Posts should provide valuable content for your audience to encourage them to share them on social networks or other websites. I recommend that posts be no less than 800 words but no more than 2,000.
Ebooks
Ebooks are one of the most popular lead-generation tools as users can download them by filling out a form with their contact information.
Ebooks are the next step in the inbound marketing process : once users have read a blog post, they may want more information. This is where what we call “calls to action” or CTAs come into play, which redirect readers to landing pages where they can leave their personal data and download the ebook.
Case studies or success stories
Also known as “testimonials,” these are your chance to tell the story of one of your customers whom you helped solve a problem.
Templates or templates
When you provide your audience with materials or tools that help them save time and help them solve a problem or need, they are more likely to connect with the content you create in the future.
Infographics
Infographics help you visualize and organize ideas in a clearer and simpler way than just using words. This type of content is perfect if you're trying to share a lot of information and need it to be understood perfectly. Below we show you one
Videos
Videos are one of the most engaging formats on social media or on websites. It is true that they require more investment, time and resources than written formats, but they are undoubtedly one of the most popular marketing formats today. After all, the probability of a video being shared is about 40 times higher than other types of content. In addition, it manages to capture people's attention more than any other format.