3 Things to Include in Your Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is effective, but it’s nothing new. Loads of people have been doing it, are doing it, and will probably do it in the future.

The way you make yourself and your brand shine with content marketing is by doing it differently.

You have to make a plan for it…

…and include the necessary stuff in that plan to make it all work.

And what is that necessary stuff?

Let’s take a look at it in this post.

What is a Content Marketing Strategy…Exactly?

We should clear this one up before we move on.

Content marketing, as you probably are very well aware, is the name of the marketing technique that involves the creation, curation, and sharing of different types of content for the purpose of promoting something. There are different methods and techniques included in this type of marketing.

Going along that same track, a content marketing strategy is defined as a plan that outlines the various activities you do during the course of your campaign.

For example, a content marketing strategy can outline how often you have to share/publish content and what sort of effort you have to make when creating it.

Of course, we won’t go into too many details here since discussing what you should include in your content marketing strategy is pretty much the crux of this post.

And that’s the cue for us to move back into the actual discussion…

What Things Should You Include in Your Content Marketing Strategy?

Here are some of the main ones that we could think of.

1. The “When” of the Whole Affair

Content marketing, like all other types of marketing, has to be executed at the right time(s) to get positive outputs. Publish a blog in the middle of the day, and you’ll get a lot of likes and shares. Publish it in the middle of the night, and perhaps you’ll be graced with a few Aussie visitors.

Get the idea?

A CM (we’re just going to call it that for now. Typing out “content marketing” every time is tiring) strategy is a standard set of steps/rules that apply to pretty much every CM activity you do. Be it blogging, emailing, creating infographics, etc., a strategy governs all of them.

Keeping that in mind, you have to include a schedule or a specific time table in your strategy. In other words, you have to chalk out the times that you have to carry out the different marketing activities.

There are a lot of different types of said activities, which is why we can’t provide you with a generalized set of guidelines for creating a time table, etc. But you should typically aim to carry out your marketing gimmicks at a time when they’d get maximum exposure.

2. Research

Research is an important part of CM that you can’t leave out, regardless of whichever technique/ method you choose.

For example…

If you’re writing blogs, you’ll need to research your topic.

If you’re writing emails, you’ll need to research your audience.

Well, technically, you need to do both in both, but we’re making a point.

You should make research a vital part of your CM strategy. Whenever you embark on any activity, you should do so only after extensive prior research.

There are quite a few rules that govern the way research is done itself. You should also include those in your strategy to ensure that you do it all properly every time around. Some of those rules include:

1. Conducting research from reliable sources
2. Using the researched material ethically
3. Properly timing the researching phases to avoid getting influenced by the tone and tenor of the sources (overly specific, I know, but this is a useful one)
4. Utilization of Online Tools

This is also a major element that you should incorporate into your strategy.

Content marketing is largely centered on creating quality content and the subsequent sharing of the same. For both of these processes, there are a lot of online tools and software available online that you can use to get help.

Utilizing these types of online tools for the various tasks involved in the content creation and sharing process can help you save a lot of time, effort and valuable resources.

Here are some of the tools that we recommend using:

1. Google Docs: In the context of CM, “content” involves a lot of written stuff. Google Docs (and other similar word processors like it) are one of the staple tools that every content marketer needs to be familiar with.
2. Canva: Other than written texts, visuals and graphics are also liberally used in content marketing. Just as Google Docs is used for the written stuff, Canva can be used for making graphics, etc.
3. Grammarly: For making sure that your written content is free from grammar and spelling errors as well as plagiarism.
4. Paraphraser:To ensure that your written content flows nicely and does not have clarity issues. It can also be used as a remedial measure for accidental plagiarism.

In the same tenor, you can find and use other online tools to make the content creation process easier and quicker.

You should include some of the general and basic tools in your CM strategy and use them whenever the need arises. That way, there will be standardization and uniformity in the processes.

Conclusion

There is a lot of other stuff that we could have gone on about, but we’re going to pull a stop here. Take the above stuff as expert tips for the next time you’re coming up with a content marketing strategy.

You may also like to read:

• Meaning and Features of Marketing

• Direct Marketing: Meaning, Features and Forms of Direct Marketing

• How a marketing firm can benefit from the adoption of the system approach?

• Relationship Marketing: Meaning, Levels and Approaches of Relationship Marketing

• Holistic Marketing Concept: an approach to recognize and reconcile the scope and complexities of marketing activities

• Direct Marketing: Meaning, Features and Forms of Direct Marketing

• Marketing Information System - Meaning, Features and Importance of Marketing Information System

• Marketing concept is a new way of thinking about the organization's entire activities.