Content is still king in 2020.
People love businesses that can provide them with quality content that is valuable and entertaining.
In fact, Hubspot reports that content marketing gets 3 times more leads than paid search advertising. Additionally, 72% of marketers said that having a good content strategy was a major key to their success in 2018.
Having said that, how can you create a content strategy across multiple channels? How can you attract more customers through killer content? Here’s what you need to know.
Step 1: Understand your audience
The first step is to develop a buyer persona.
Think about the ideal customers who will likely buy your products and services.
To get started, here are some questions that you need to answer:
What’s their background (gender, age, income, location)?
- How would you describe their personality and interests?
- What are their buying habits? Why will they purchase your products?
- What are their reading and social media habits?
- Will they read long and in-depth blog posts? Will they prefer short and entertaining posts?
- What is the best way to communicate with your audience?
Step 2: Choose your KPIs
Next, choose key performance indicators (KPIs) that will help you assess the results of your content marketing strategy.
The metrics you choose should be based on the goals and objectives of your campaign. Hence, think about what you can achieve in the multiple channels that you use.
For example, here are some goals that can be measured through KPIs.
- Increase the number of followers by XYZ on social media.
- Get XYZ downloads for your ebook, case studies and whitepaper to boost lead generation.
- Increase social media conversion rates by XYZ through creating shoppable posts.
- Improve keyword ranking for business name or long-tail keywords associated with your service.
- Get XYZ customers to subscribe to your email newsletters.
While having more content is always better, don’t forget to keep an eye on your marketing expenses. Track marketing spend on SEO, social media, blog content and more. Invest in content types that will get your users across the sales funnel.
Step 3: Choose your channels
There are multiple channels that your team can use to communicate with your audience.
To help you make a decision, this infographic highlights the specialty of each social media channel so you can decide where to establish your brand presence.
Step 4: Choose your content type
Afterward, choose the types of content that you will create.
Most businesses have a blog post on their website. Posts can be updated and republished to maximize its use.
For instance, Hubspot publishes 200 posts per month. However, they noticed that 76% of their monthly blog views and 92% of our monthly blog leads were a result of “old” posts. So, they updated and optimized older updates.
The end result? They boosted the number of monthly organic search views by an average of 106% for older posts.
If you’re in the B2C industry – such as food, fashion, and travel – then you can also consider advertising on Instagram and Pinterest. Create pictures, videos, and GIFs that will make viewers stop and stare.
A study found that 32% of marketers consider visual images as the most important form of content for their businesses. Meanwhile, 45% of B2C marketers believe visual content is the most important type of content.
For example, The MAC cosmetics’ Instagram page features makeup products and beautiful models using their creations.
You may also consider other content types for lead generation such as ebooks, whitepapers and case studies. These are ideal for those selling complex products such as software and SaaS solutions.
You may need to educate your prospects about the benefit of choosing your product before they can be persuaded to make a purchase.
Step 5: Create a content calendar
At this stage, we bet you already have a plan to attract valuable customers.
Having said that, the next phase is to create a content calendar that shows the pre-launch, launch phase, and post-launch of your marketing campaigns. This ensures that the content that you create will boost publicity for your product, whether it’s an ebook video or article.
Hubspot offers an easy-to-use social media content calendar template where you can plan a bulk of social media posts for Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Place your marketing plans in your content calendar with your team. Be clear about the deadlines and the people assigned so there is accountability for each task.
Some tasks may need to be rescheduled if team members have appointments, take vacations or have to handle high-priority tasks first. As a result, schedule meetings regularly and modify the calendar to align with your team’s priorities and schedules.
Step 6: Monitor results
Finally, modify your marketing strategy based on your data.
Look at the most popular blog posts or social media content. You can also determine the types of content that you need to scale your business and boost loyalty. Think about why people were drawn to your posts and attempt to replicate your success.
A/B test landing pages to improve conversions Experiment with Shopify apps that can improve your customer’s ecommerce experience. This way, you can distinguish what works from what doesn’t.
How will you create a successful content marketing strategy?
Let’s recap.
Creating a content strategy across multiple channels involves the following steps:
- Understand your audience
- Choose your KPIs
- Choose your channels
- Choose your content type
- Create a content calendar
- Monitor results
Maximize content that you publish and use research-backed data to get your desired results. We hope that this information helps you create an effective content marketing strategy for your business.
What is your content strategy across multiple channels? Let us know in the comments.
Author Bio
Monique Danao is a freelance writer and content creator for ReferralCandy and Candybar. You may view her work on her website moniquedanao.com.