How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy
Do you want to grow your online presence? Are you looking to find a cost-effective way to get in front of your target audience? Developing a content marketing strategy will help you meet your business goals. An effective content marketing strategy allows you to plan and create content that establishes you as an expert in your field, builds trust with your audience, and can lead to conversions.
Do you want to grow your online presence? Are you looking to find a cost-effective way to get in front of your target audience?
Developing a content marketing strategy will help you meet your business goals.
An effective content marketing strategy allows you to plan and create content that establishes you as an expert in your field, builds trust with your audience, and can lead to conversions.
Do you ever have trouble coming up with fresh ideas for content?
Download 👉 3 Ways to Constantly Come Up With Fresh Content Ideas
Set Goals
The first thing you want to do when creating a content strategy is to determine your goals. Without knowing what you want to achieve, it will be difficult to plan the rest of the strategy.
Ask yourself: why are you producing content and creating a content marketing strategy? What results do you want to see by publishing content? Is it to show your expertise and build trust or to add more subscribers to your email list?
Get specific and write your goals down so you will be able to come back to them.
Knowing your goals before you start planning, it will be easier to plan your overall strategy.
Get to know your audience
To create a successful strategy, you have to identify your target audience. You can’t create valuable content without knowing who you want to engage with and serve.
When determining your target audience consider their:
● Demographics- Gender, Age, Education
● Challenges- What are they struggling with?
● Motivations and Goals- What do they want to accomplish?
Whether you are new to content marketing or a seasoned expert, identifying your target audience helps you to create relevant and valuable content.
Content Audit
Before creating any new content, you want to perform a content audit. Content audits help keep track of your existing content.
To get started, you’ll want to gather all your content and categorize it in a spreadsheet. Some categories should include in your audit are content title, author(s), publication date, and the type of content.
An important category you'll also want to consider in your content audit is your metrics. You can view your metrics to see how well your content is performing using Google Analytics.
Performing a content audit will allow you to get a better idea of what content you need to create, update, or delete.
Create a Content Calendar
When creating a content calendar, start by writing down any holidays, launches, or other important dates you have planned. Keep these dates in mind to support your business goals and create relevant content.
Are there any dates you need to be aware of when planning your content?
Next, you need to decide how often you will publish your content. If you are just getting started, keep it simple, and publish content one time a week.
You will also want to consider what day of the week you’ll publish your content. Do you want to publish on Mondays so that you can promote it during the week?
Pro tip: Focus your strategy on 90 days at a time. By planning quarterly, you can focus more on your business goals.
Now, let’s say that you decided to publish one post per week for the quarter, which means you would need to plan 12 posts.
The key to a successful content marketing strategy is being consistent. You'll be able to grow a loyal audience by creating QUALITY content for them regularly.
Brainstorm ideas
After you have identified your existing content and how often you'll publish, it’s time to decide on new content to produce. Here are some tools to help you get started:
● Buzzsumo
● Answerthepublic.com
Create Content
Before you start creating content, take a look at your content audit. Do you have any content that you could repurpose? Repurposing content is a time-efficient way to create content without reinventing the wheel.
Whether you are repurposing or creating fresh content, you'll want to identify the content format you'll use. Popular content formats that you can use in your strategy include:
● Blog Posts
● Videos
● Ebooks
● Podcasts
● Case Studies
Remember to think about your audience when creating content- don’t waste your time creating content that isn’t relevant or valuable.
Publish and Promote Content
After creating your content, schedule your work to publish on your chosen day.
While you can publish your content in real-time, scheduling allows you to get ahead and show up consistently for your audience.
After publishing your content to your website, promoting it is an excellent way to get more eyes on the page. Social networks that business will often post on include:
● Youtube
If you are just getting started promoting your content, focus on only one or two platforms.
It is better to build a solid presence on one platform than to be sporadic on several platforms. You can always expand your promotion strategy to include more social media platforms later.
Analyze Content Performance
One of the most important steps in a marketing strategy is to analyze how well it performed. Remember those goals you set in the beginning? Did it meet your goals? How well did your content perform?
This information will show you what performed well and what did not. Using this data, you can make improvements to your strategy for the next quarter.
Creating a content marketing strategy requires organization, time, and creativity. Building your strategy from the ground up can be a daunting task. But if you follow this process, getting started will be easier than you think.
If this all sounds amazing but you think you’ll need some help putting it all together…
If you enjoyed this article, you may also like: Create A Year Of Content In One Day - A Step-By-Step Guide
~ Becky O’Neill, Author
Founder of Specialized Business Services LLC
Are you ready to make real progress in your business?
Working with an expert when making important decisions in your business is a powerful tool to create significant growth and lasting change. It really helps to see things from a fresh perspective and consider ideas and concepts that may not come to you on your own.
If you would like to explore working with me, I invite you to schedule a Discovery Call. 👇 Don’t wait. I only take a very limited number of clients at a time.
Keywords: content marketing, content, marketing strategy, content marketing strategy, goals, content calendar, business goals, small business, content strategy, blog posts, podcasts, target audience
12 Reasons You Need A Business Coach
Finding and hiring the right business coach who will meet you where you are and support you while helping you improve your mindset, your business operations, your profitability, and your LIFE so it all comes together with ease rather than with struggle is an absolute must-have. You can’t put a price on your sanity, but you will be able to measure the value your coach brings by watching your business growth and profit over time.
The purpose of having a business coach is to gain tactics, skills, and insight to achieve professional, financial, and personal success.
This is just the tip of the iceberg though. Having a coach on your team goes WAY beyond the nuts and bolts in ways you never knew how much you needed.
Imagine no longer having to blaze the trails alone. How much of a relief would it be no longer feeling out of your depth and overwhelmed. What if you no longer felt like you’re recreating the wheel… thinking there must be a better way. How comforting would it be not having to struggle and carry the weight alone? Wouldn’t it be amazing to be supported in the parts of your business that zap your energy and squelch your creativity??
The answer is NOT “go back to work for someone else” or “suck it up buttercup – this is the life of an entrepreneur”.
The answer IS – find a great business coach! Someone with loads of experience and whose personality and style feels comfortable and approachable to you.
Whether your business is facing challenges, or you want to take it to the next level, a business coach is an asset you absolutely need.
Still need convincing?
Here are 12 reasons why every business needs a great coach:
Accountability
A business coach helps you see your potential and teaches you how to leverage your talents and abilities and reach higher levels of success. They hold you accountable. Let’s face it - we all do better when we know we’ll be meeting with someone to discuss our progress. The coach you need is part sounding board, part advisor, and part cheerleader. Someone who fosters a safe, comfortable, no-shame environment, so you’ll actually get excited to talk about and work on your business. Doesn’t that sound amazing?? Knowing you’re in capable hands, you’ll be inspired to reach higher and stretch further in pursuit of your goals. You’ll feel safe because if you get sidetracked, your coach will help you get back on track and keep moving forward. Accountability is huge.
Clarity
The first thing you’ll do with an experienced business coach is have a strategy session to talk about where you currently are, where you see yourself in the future, and what you intend to accomplish in your business along the way. This is the foundation of your work together. Think about travelling; you need to know where you’re starting from and your intended destination so you can find the best route to get there. A business coach will help you find this level of clarity by looking at your business in a holistic manner, and then help you untangle all the thoughts, ideas, and plans you have for the future. Together you will create a clear roadmap to get you from here to there. It’s a collaborative process that will make you feel empowered and excited about your business again. Sounds great, right? The fact is most entrepreneurs aren’t as clear as they need to be and wander along trying to find their way which results in lost time, energy, money, and opportunities along the way. It’s absolutely common. If this feels like you, you’re not alone. It’s hard to figure it all out on your own. You really do need a sounding board and an expert who will ask the right questions, give you the right advice, and help you navigate around the otherwise inevitable costly and painful pitfalls.
[Important side note - If you interview a coach and they do not start with an in-depth 1-on-1 meeting – be very wary. Many coaches only offer ‘prepackaged generic coaching programs’ or ‘group coaching programs’ and they try to stuff you into them. Think ‘round peg – square hole’. This is NOT what you need at this stage. You need 1 on 1 business coaching that is personalized specifically for you. Group coaching programs have their place, but are generally suited best for people who have ‘graduated’ from 1:1 coaching and need or want the accountability piece and a community of similar business owners that comes with groups.]
Confidence
Once you have clarity, you will begin building confidence. This can be a tricky time in your growth though. When you’re actively working toward your objectives and goals, it’s common to feel that you're making less progress than you expected. It’s not unusual to feel like you’re taking one step forward and two steps back. This can be a confidence killer and cause you to spiral downward. This is the reason having a business coach continues to be necessary along your journey. They will help you see the bigger picture. Help you keep your eye on the prize, so to speak. They will encourage you and help you to stay in a positive frame of mind. Your coach will be able to show you how far you've come and what you've achieved at every turn. They'll provide the support you need to proceed and lead confidently even in the face of challenges. Having an expert in your corner reassuring and supporting you is vital to developing and maintaining confidence which will greatly increase your chances of success. Ask yourself - how much more could you accomplish if you had the confidence to stretch and reach, with the safety net of an expert business advisor to catch you if you start to fall? Trust me – It’s a game changer.
Goals Setting & Metrics to Reach Them
In addition to clarity and confidence, your business coach will help you set goals that are smart, specific, attainable, and measurable. They will also show you steps to take so you’re working methodically to achieve your goals. It’s not enough to have clarity and confidence. You also need a formula and a method to follow that leads directly to your vision of success. Specific methods and data driven objectives are critical to reaching your goals.
Efficiency
Everything from the large elements of your business such as evaluating the function of your entire operation, to the finer details of how you manage your time & prioritize tasks, can be assessed for the purpose of discovering and removing barriers, creating smarter and simpler systems, and developing strategies that will greatly improve the efficiency of everything you do. We all know time is money, and time is also your most precious resource, so becoming as efficient as possible in everything you do is vital. It reduces stress and frees up time you can use to continue growing your business, or to spend doing things you love most outside of work. Working at maximum efficiency also has the direct result of making your business more profitable. We all want that. This is where the decision to invest in a great business coach literally starts to pay for itself and make your business more profitable.
Organization
As a business owner, it's easy to get overwhelmed by day-to-day tasks and find yourself disorganized and running in circles. You find yourself VERY busy but not accomplishing anything significant. It’s beyond frustrating! A business coach with attention to detail will help you create the structure and organization needed to organize and run your business like a well-oiled machine. They will help you create, implement, and maintain systems and processes that radically improve organization. When your business operations and workflow are organized, there is room to tackle bigger, more important things that are all-too-often on the back burner for lack of time and energy.
Business Plan / Playbook
No matter what stage of business you're in, a technically skilled coach will assist you in crafting the perfect plan for your unique business starting from where you are and ending where you intend to be in some period of time (like a 3-year or a 5-year plan, for example). Some might say creating a business plan is unnecessary or obsolete. I’ve had people tell me they created a business plan at the beginning of their business and never looked at it again. That isn’t the type of business plan you want. A good business coach understands that a business plan needs to be a functional working document. A playbook of sorts. It’s the ‘what, why, and how’ of your business. While those things are likely to evolve over time, having a playbook for your business helps keep you focused and on track. From clear and specific objectives, goals, and metrics to strategic action steps to make; a working business plan is your guide.
Marketing Strategy & Branding
Marketing is an important function in every business. And yet, a marketing strategy is often lacking entirely, isn’t fully developed, isn’t cohesive, or it isn’t designed to work for you and your unique business. Whether you don't have the time to develop and implement an effective marketing plan or you're not sure how to, a savvy business coach will help you create a personalized, sustainable, easy-to-implement marketing strategy that works for your business and is (of course) effective. ‘Effective’ is the result of a winning marketing strategy but there is no one size fits all. Most coaches will recommend strategies that work effectively for other businesses – but it could be perfectly wrong for you and your business. If a marketing strategy is too complicated, too costly, too time consuming, is soul sucking, miserable or stressful… you won’t exercise it consistently or at all. An insightful coach understands this and will help you create an effective strategy based on what works FOR YOU. And if it works for you – it will be effective.
Unbiased Insight & Advice
A coach will give you unbiased, unemotional, constructive insights. Friends, family, partners, and employees naturally have biased opinions so listening to them and taking their advice won’t lead you to the place you envision. Even listening to or working with other entrepreneurs can mislead you because everyone has their own version of success and how to achieve it. When other peoples’ ideas intermingle with your own, your sense of clarity can become a real mess. This is another place where you can have a major spiral and spin out on your journey to success. The truth is, only YOU know what is best for you. When you work with an experienced business coach, your ideas are heard, understood, and supported. You’ll get unbiased expert insight and advice that supports your vision and moves you closer to your goals. You won’t be led astray.
Fresh Perspective
When you're deep in the weeds of your day-to-day, it’s easy to overlook the obvious. The fresh perspective a business coach brings is like a new set of eyes that helps you identify problems and create solutions that you wouldn’t have seen or thought of on your own. A coach will increase your self-awareness and illuminate blind spots, so every area of your business becomes clear. From this fresh perspective you can make better decisions and see what is REALLY going on. Think about that pile of papers that lives on your counter. It’s been there so long you don’t even notice it anymore. Your business is the same way. If you see and do the same things everyday you stop noticing things. It’s how our brains work. You need someone to help you see what you’re missing.
Business Growth
You may be just getting your business off the ground, or perhaps your income isn’t growing as quickly as you’d like. You might be established and trying to take your business to new levels, but you’re bumping your head on a ceiling. A growth focused business coach will see the things that need to be changed to eliminate the barriers and help you create a smart, strategic, business-boosting plan.
Balance
A holistic business coach will teach you how to balance your professional and personal life. It’s easy and very common to develop the habit of spending all your energy and time on work. This can really take a toll on your personal life and your loved ones. The right coach for you gets to know and understand you. They learn your personality, habits, and priorities. By knowing you they help you find ways to create harmony between the two halves of your life. They may even help you find time for a break to indulge in a much-needed vacation. Doesn’t that sound amazing?
In short, finding and hiring the right business coach who will meet you where you are and support you while helping you improve your mindset, your business operations, your profitability, and your LIFE so it all comes together with ease rather than with struggle is an absolute must-have. You can’t put a price on your sanity, but you will be able to measure the value your coach brings by watching your business growth and profit over time.
You’ll know you found the right business coach when they naturally become your most trusted advisor. They’ll feel like a parachute, a security blanket, and they’ll fit like an old shoe. You’ll feel comfortable and safe to show up as you are. You’ll be motivated to dig deep and enjoy the work that will make your business and your life a success. Success as YOU define it. They’ll become an invaluable partner to you, and in the long run, their presence in your world will more than pay for itself. You’ll always come away feeling empowered and motivated… every single time. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself wondering why you didn’t find them sooner!
Trust me - whether you're just starting out, are feeling stuck or overwhelmed, or are looking to scale your business, investing in a truly great business coach is one of the best decisions you will ever make.
If you are ready to meet a truly experienced, intuitive, growth focused, rockstar of a coach (if I do say so myself 😉) - Click the link below to schedule a consultation. This could very well be the first step of the most wise decision you’ve ever made.
~ Becky O’Neill, Author
Founder of Specialized Business Services LLC
Are you ready to make real progress in your business?
Working with an expert when making important decisions in your business is a powerful tool to create significant growth and lasting change. It really helps to see things from a fresh perspective and consider ideas and concepts that may not come to you on your own.
If you would like to explore working with me, I invite you to schedule a Discovery Call. 👇 Don’t wait. I only take a very limited number of clients at a time.