HOW TO DEVELOP CONTENT STRATEGY THAT RESONATES WITH YOUR AUDIENCE?

HOW TO DEVELOP CONTENT STRATEGY THAT RESONATES WITH YOUR AUDIENCE?

Everyone loves to read a Good Content. 

A Content that’s good for you however need not necessarily be good for other people too.

To strike a chord with other people, your content needs to be genuinely good.

As per a research study, 87 percent of Google Search Users define good content as one that’s relevant to their interests, and benefits them.|

When asked about her idea of Good Content, acclaimed American autobiographer, poet, and storyteller simply said, a Good Content should not only aim to reach for the stars, but should also strive to reach hearts as well.

As a powerful marketing tool, Good Content connects with existing as well as potential customers. This is however not easy to achieve. To make it easy, it’s essential to have a results-driven, meaningful Content Strategy.

The importance of having such a strategy can be estimated from the fact around 73 percent marketers opt for a Content Marketing Strategy as part of their overall Marketing strategy.

A Content Strategy refers to a Plan outlining how you need to plan, share, and manage your content to realize your business goals, while simultaneously meeting your audience’s needs. 

HOW TO DEVELOP?

Creating and managing content can go wrong at times. A well-defined Content Strategy will help you to close the gaps and get the most from the content.

Here are steps to help you develop a strategy that works to bring results.

ENSURE EFFECTIVE CONTENT GOALS

Before looking to craft a strategy, it’s essential to have realistic strategy goals that are meaningful and measurable. 

Your goal could be to

• Educate your target-audience? Or 
• Aiming to improve customer-retention? Or 
• Focus on generating qualified leads; OR it could be something else?

Whatever your goal(s), they must be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, & Time-Bound); like setting a target from organic traffic to your website 50 qualified leads within three months. It’s a target that is realistic and achievable with proper planning and execution.

This will later make it easier to set-up KPIs aligned with your goals. 

Talking about KPIs, there are three major categories,

• AUTHORITY & LEADERSHIP KPIs: This metric includes Brand Mentions, Number of Backlinks, Social Shares, etc. They all guide you to know how well your content resonates with your target-audience and how well it has succeeded in setting-up your brand as a credible and reliable thought-leader in its line of industry. 
• CONVERSION KPIs: This metric includes maintaining track of your conversion rate, quantity of leads acquired, and sales made. They help you to know how successful has been your content in fueling business outcomes and improving your bottom line. 
• SEARCH VISIBILITY KPIs: This metric includes Page Visits, Average Keyword and Page Level Rankings, CTR, Search Impressions, etc. They all help you to measure the visibility of your content and how impactful it has been.

Your choice of KPIs should ideally be a KPI that is most relevant to your business goals. 

KNOW YOUR TARGET-AUDIENCE

An ideal content is one that synchronizes with audience’s expectations. 

To develop such a content, it’s important to know who your target-audience is.

To know who your target-audience is,  

• Leverage Analytical Tools. Like for instance, Google Analytics. You will get to know the audience’s demographics, location, and other relevant information.  
• Develop Buyer Personas. They make it easier for you to know and market to the right audience rather than an audience that’s not interested in what you have to offer. 
• Conduct Surveys by sending them to your email list and polls on social media platforms. You will get feedback of your content. Additionally, make sure to reply to comments and online reviews about your content. All of these will help you to engage directly with your audience. 
• Know what online platforms they use and stick around. There are many online forums today, like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc, all of which have groups. They provide useful information about your audience, what topic they’re engaging in, and what they’re talking about.

Then there is your support team. They interact with your audience directly and be able to provide insights gathered from them. You will get to know what type of issues or questions they commonly raise.

DEVELOP CONTENT MATCHING YOUR STRATEGY GOALS

By now you will have a clear picture on what type of content topics finds favor with your audience. 

Then, 

• Select a Content Topic. When doing so, make sure they align with your strategy goals. The content should not only speak about the issues faced by your audience at various stages of their purchase cycle but should also detail the solutions that makes their buying journey successful. Let us say, you’re aiming to create brand awareness and grow traffic, your strategy should speak about aspects that offers a solution to issues for those in the audience who may not even know there’s a answer to their issue.
• Brainstorm Content Ideas. Make use of dedicated tools to generate content ideas. Like for instance, MINDMISTER, it helps to organize your ideas; OR AnswerTheRepublic to visualize raw search insights. Additionally, use SEO tools that offer ample search metrics. Like SE Ranking’s Keyword Research Tool. 
• Take inspiration from competitors’ content. This will help to find out low-competition keywords that can be used to promote your content on search engines.
• Maintain a list of all meaningful Content Ideas you come in touch with. They will be useful when you’re looking to craft a content marketing plan.

SELECT THE RIGHT CONTENT FORMAT

When selecting the right Content Format Type, factor in your buyer personas’ content consumption pattern.

The most popular formats include,

• BLOG POSTS/LINKEDIN ARTICLES: Among the most popular choice, they are preferred as they take the least Choose a topic that resonates with your audience and can attract traffic leading to your website. Make sure the topic content is of a high quality and to the point.
• VIDEOS: If your intention is to educate and entertain your audience, Videos should be your choice. A staggering 91 percent of people, according to 2023 statistics, prefer to watch video content from brands. What makes them a popular option is they are interactive making it fun to view. A good example is one of GRAMMARLY’s YouTube Video which garnered 150 million views. To gain favor with your audience, ensure the video content is short, compact, and powerful.
• E-BOOKS AND WHITE PAPERS: They are a good option if you’re looking to educate your audience and establish thought leadership in your industry. What gives them an edge is they both are Gated Content. To gain access to the content, your audience must give their contact details. With contact details, you will be better placed to attract qualified leads or add to your email list.
• PODCASTS: In recent years, they have grown in popularity. They are a good option if you’re seeking to build a loyal audience and position your brand as a Thought Leader in its line of industry. Podcasts also offer options that vary from Interview-Style Shows to Storytelling and Analysis. 
• CASE STUDIES: If your intention is to present your brand or product/service’s success story, this should be your choice. Potential customers will get an idea of what your product or service can do and how it can benefit them. 
• INFOGRAPHICS: They make for a good selection if you’re looking to present your complex ideas in a simple, easy-to-follow style. Many in fact share them a lot which will help to spread brand awareness and fuel traffic flow to your website.

The many options available can make it difficult for you to select the best possible choice. To arrive at the appropriate choice, consider your goals, resources, budget, etc. Then select content format that your audience uses the most and are interested in.

SET PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS

The content you craft should be useful. It should help to realize your Content Strategy’s goal. 

To study and measure its overall or each content piece’s impact,

• Set performance benchmarks. Like for instance, if you’re looking to grow your traffic, set a target of traffic you expect to garner from each content piece or overall content.
• Calculate the sum arrived at against the performance benchmark. You will get to know whether you have breached the target or fallen short of it. 

The more data you’re able to gather over time, the more precise will be your forecast.  Data-driven insights that you gather will help to build an affective Content Strategy.

UNDERTAKE AUDIT OF YOUR CONTENT VERSUS COMPETITORS

It’s essential to know how your content has fared. This can be found out with the help of performance benchmarks. Similarly, it’s important to know how your content has performed against similar like competitor’s content.

• Check competitor’s social media accounts. Like for instance, their blogs, articles, ads, etc.
• Make a note of the topics they have covered and its tone and style, the formats they have used, and how the content has been promoted. 
• Do a comparison of your content against theirs’. This will help to identify gaps in content and the opportunities you can leverage.
• Gather insights and then use them to fine-tune your Content Strategy. This can be done by using top-performing keywords and phrases. Additionally, connect with your audience to understand their impressions of your content and how it can be bettered.
• Enhance your SEO ranking and visibility. By reviewing your competitors’ content, you will get to know for what topics and keywords they’re ranking for and wherefrom they’re gathering their backlinks. The inputs gathered can be used to improve your own content SEO and visibility.

A good Content Strategy will help you to develop content that gels with your audience. For an effective strategy, you need to have a clear vision of your idea of content with a clear plan of what needs to be done and how it needs to be developed. This way, you get a strategy that will help in crafting a content that gels with your audience.

 

Also Read – BUILDING BRAND LOYALTY THROUGH MULTIMEDIA