What role does content marketing play for start-ups?
Theresa Imre, Managing Director of the successful digital farmers’ market markta.at, reveals in the current podcast what digital content marketing has achieved for her start-up.
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Content marketing has to be one of the most important parts of your business. It can generate leads, increase sales and help you build up a loyal following of customers. Yet content marketing can seem complex and disorienting. Never fear! We’ll tell you everything you need to know about how to develop a content marketing strategy.
We’ve said it a million times but once more for good measure — the success of any campaign is down to your strategy. So let’s begin.
What are the goals for your campaign?
Before we start explaining anything about content marketing, you have to know what your goals are for your campaign. The idea is to craft a content marketing strategy around the goal you want to achieve.
Once you’ve made a note of what your main goal is, then it’s time to think about the audience connected to it.
Align your content creation strategy with your target audience’s needs
First thing’s first, your content marketing strategy needs to be based upon your audience. It’s really important to know who your audience is in order to get the best results.
Then you must ask yourself one of the most important questions — what is your niche? Niche audiences are far more likely to take action on your content and follow up on your website. The reason being the most focused and attuned your content is to the audience, the more likely they are to respond. A follow up to this question might be — where is my audience turning to find my company?
Craft your content marketing plan around a competitor analysis
If you thought that knowing your goal and audience was enough to get started, you might want to pull on the reigns a bit. You shouldn’t forget about your competitors. Once you know where your brand sits with its ideal audience and niche, you have to know who is already in this space making an impact.
It is not cheating to look at what your competitors are doing. It’s absolutely essential so you can see possible shortcomings where your brand can hop in, or trends going on within the community that your brand can join in on.
We recommend taking a look at your competitor’s blogs, websites and social media.
Hint: This will all come in handy for when you’re crafting your blog and social media posts.
Plan your platforms
Is it time for content creation yet? Almost! The third step is to plan out which social media platforms you’ll be interacting on.
Social media is an integral part of any content marketing strategy since this is where audiences live. You’ll need to consider which platforms are going to match your audience demographic, audience interests, and also the goals for your campaign. Think about where your ideal audience would be and how it helps you achieve your end goal.
For example, if you want to reach audiences between 20-25 to sell indoor plants, then consider Instagram. 75% of 18–24 year olds use Instagram, plus the app has a shop function that can be linked to your website.
When you’ve pinpointed the channels you’ll be using, do another competitor analysis here to see which posts your audience likes the most within your niche. You can do this by searching for the popular hashtags within your niche.
SEO is uber important to your content strategy — it informs what content you create! Yet it sounds overwhelming so we’re going to break it down for you.
SEO optimized content is really about creating content that people are already searching for. Since you’ve already identified your niche, all you have to do now is find the keywords that the people in your niche are already using in connection with your product or service.
There are free tools you can use like Ubersuggest that help you identify keywords. Use these keywords in your blog posts, across your website and in your social media posts.
You might be thinking “Is that really necessary for my campaign to perform?” and we would say yes. Most people don’t know this but the correlation between SEO rankings and social media is incredibly high. The more visible your social media content is, the more likely they are to engage and share your content which could lead to higher CTRs for your website.
So do your keyword research and get ready to rock your content.
Create your editorial calendar
It’s content time! Once you have all the information, all you have to do is get creative. An editorial calendar helps you plan out your blog and social media content.
Include everything in the editorial calendar, all the channels and formats so you have an overview. According to a recent survey, 18% of most company blogs are over 750 words as longform content is most effective. Longform blog content actually outperforms shortform content by 40%. Consider visual aids for your blogs like photos, graphics or video. The goal is to keep your audience engaged for as long as possible to get a higher session page time.
Your social media content can be included in your editorial calendar too. Remember to consider the functions and audiences for each platform as this will impact the content you create. For example, a 10 minute video on Youtube to promote your product won’t be appropriate to post on Instagram or TikTok. Segmenting by content type for each platform can take a while and a bit more effort, but you’ll be able to engage more with your audience and get better results.
The main goal of an editorial calendar is to create specialized content for each social media platform, plus blog content for your website that follows your strategy.
Keep your expectations in check
Don’t worry if your digital marketing campaign doesn’t reach all your desired goals at once. Increasing engagement rates and click through rates or decreasing cost per click or cost per acquisition take time. Measuring KPIs is your key to success! With their help you can clearly see what works and what doesn’t.
Work and refine your strategy towards the most effective activities and executions until you start getting the results you were expecting. And as there is always space for improvement, never stop measuring!
Need help with tackling your content marketing?
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