How to set up a content strategy

The main objective of content marketing is to offer useful information as well as entertainment to the reader, who could potentially become your client. Content marketing consists of a company or a brand developing a marketing strategy around content, whatever its form, in order to generate leads, gain new prospects and engage a community around a brand. Here are some pointers on how to set up a content strategy.

Set up a content strategy: Be smart

The first step in defining your content strategy is to think about the broad guidelines you want to set for the next six to twelve months. To do this, it is essential to set SMART objectives: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound.

Who is your audience?

Content is intended for an audience, and your goal is to target the right audience. In content marketing, a persona is the representation of your ideal customer, your target audience. It is to them that you must address first. Knowing your personas allows you to better develop your content. Indeed, if you know what their interests are, their habits, their challenges and their buying paths, creating content will be much more qualitative and you will engage the relationship more easily.

Set up a content strategy: Templates are your friends

It is often necessary to set up a permanent editorial circuit in the company to collect the information, shape it, possibly correct/translate it, and then put it online. Do not hesitate to produce content templates to be filled out by the appropriate departments and given to the editors.

Vary your formats

Diversifying formats allows you to attract new prospects and address different targets, if necessary. But you shouldn’t choose the format at random, or simply because it’s “shareable”. The chosen format must be relevant to the target: what type of content does the target consume? What type of content is more likely to convert the prospect?

Mind your indicators

These are some indicators you could track:

• The positioning of your articles on search engines
• The traffic of your website
• The number of reactions your content gets on social networks
• The conversion rate

When setting up your content strategy, remember: your goal is to publish relevant and important information that entertains and informs your reader. If you create quality, attractive, high value and relevant content it will sooner or later generate traffic on your website.