How to set up a content marketing strategy

This article is part of the Get Started series. Make sure you have read how to get started with content marketing to learn more about how content marketing can help your business. See all articles about SEO and content marketing in the Get Stared Hub.

You want to get started with content marketing, but where to begin? As with any good project, you have to start with a plan. IN this article we’ll go through the steps of setting up a content marketing strategy.

Define your audience.

While it’s true that you certainly want to attract as many eyes as possible, you can’t create content with the goal of appealing to everyone. You need to be able to imagine your perfect customer, and tailor your marketing strategy around them.

When creating content, it’s important to keep in mind:

What do they want?
What do they care about?
What are their dreams and aspirations?
How can you help them reach those aspirations with your product or service?

Make a list of goals.

Your goals should be realistic, but you shouldn’t be afraid to make them ambitious. Some examples of possible goals for your strategy include:

Create a content marketing plan
Build an email list by getting X number of subscribers who have opted in to receive emails from us
Get X% more traffic to our website through channels A, B & C
Send out X number of emails per month

These are just a few examples. The important thing is that you create goals that are measurable and specific. Make sure you’re being as detailed as possible!

Set a budget.

As with any business-based undertaking, it’s important to know what you’re willing to spend before you start. Once you get an idea of the services that will be best for your content marketing strategy, set a budget for yourself so that you don’t end up spending more money than you need. Having a budget in mind before speaking with suppliers will make them more likely to work with you and negotiate prices rather than give you a quote for the whole shebang without considering your financial limitations. Additionally, make sure that when setting your budget, you have enough money on hand to pay for the services that are most important to achieving your goals while also making room in your plan for any unexpected expenses that come up along the way.

If you don’t have a large budget available now, make sure your strategy focuses on more low cost versions while you get started with content marketing, and allow regular points to check in and revise the strategy as you go.

Establish measurable success criteria.

It’s time to nail down the key metrics that you want to track for success. Since this is a blog about setting up content marketing strategies, there are a few metrics that are absolutely critical to keep an eye on:

Number of unique page views
Time spent on page
Engagement rate (comments, shares, social likes)
Conversions (for example if you offer an email newsletter sign-up at the end of every post)

Now that you have some idea of what your success criteria will be and how they can be measured and tracked through your chosen analytics tool, it’s time to start creating content.

Determine what content to produce and when to publish it.

Next, you’ll need to determine the types of content you’ll produce and when each piece will be published. It’s important not to spread yourself too thin in this portion of your strategy—if you’re going to create multiple pieces of content every day, consider narrowing your focus so you have a chance of succeeding. For example, if video content is daunting for you or your team, focusing on smaller pieces such as blog posts may make more sense.

Every type of content has a different production process and timeline associated with it; live video might only require a few minutes’ prep time whereas a white paper might take days or weeks to write. Make sure you allow enough time for your team—or yourself—to complete the work before it needs to go online. Add extra padding if possible; setting aside extra production time for each piece can help prevent unnecessary stress and any last-minute scrambling that could cause errors or mistakes in the finished product.

Assign roles and responsibilities for content marketing strategy.

With the different parts of your content strategy in place, there’s one last step: assigning roles and responsibilities.

Make a list of every task you need to complete to execute your content strategy.
Assign each task to a team member on your marketing team (or freelancers if necessary).
Use project management tools like Trello or Asana to assign tasks and track their progress.
Use a content calendar like Google Calendar, or Excel/Google Sheets to keep track of which blog posts should be published when.

Look at your competitors’ content marketing strategies for inspiration.

If you haven’t already, take the time to check out what your competitors are up to on social media and other channels. They may be trying out some content marketing strategies that you hadn’t thought of before. Take a look at their content, their paid ads, and the way they interact with their audience. What do they seem to be doing right? What could they be doing better? Take note of these things as you compare them with your own business’s efforts.

Now that we’ve discussed why you need a content marketing strategy and how you can get started creating one, let’s look at some of the best tools available to help you along the way.

Create an editorial calendar to plan out your content.

An editorial calendar is a great way to visualize your content schedule and map out specific pieces of content for each month. This outline helps you schedule the creation process, identify gaps in your content strategy, and plan for any holidays or events throughout the year.

Creating an editorial calendar may sound daunting, but it can be as simple as setting up a Google spreadsheet. Dedicating time each week or month to planning upcoming content will help you create more cohesive blog posts and newsletters, stay on top of deadlines, and avoid scrambling last-minute for blog post topics.

Define what success looks like for your business and then plan how you can reach those goals with the resources you have.

Every business has different goals and success metrics. It’s up to you to define what success looks like for yourself, and then plan how you can reach those goals with the resources you have.

As Google has told us time and again, data is your best friend in this process. Your content strategy should be based on data, not conjecture or guesswork. You’ll be able to make much better decisions about what content to deliver if you really understand your audience. Gather all of the data you can about your customers, analyze it, and use that analysis to inform your content marketing strategy. And remember that the Internet is an ever-evolving landscape—your content strategy shouldn’t be static! Use data to learn from your mistakes as well as successes; it will help you do better next time around by constantly improving your approach over time.

There are many steps in creating a good content marketing strategy for you and your brand.

While it may sound like a lot of work, content marketing is one of the most cost-effective and efficient ways to build your business. By creating value for your audience and keeping their needs at the forefront, you can create a relationship that will help you grow.

Follow these steps to get started with content marketing:

Publish regularly. Instead of creating one piece of content and then walking away, stay consistent with posting new updates on a regular basis. Whether it’s once a week or every day, find out what works best for your audience and stick with it.
Create unique content that is specific to your brand. While you can use other people’s ideas as inspiration, make sure you put your own spin on everything you publish so that it remains fresh and relevant for your audience.
Use different types of content to keep things interesting for readers. This could include blog posts, videos, podcasts, quotes from industry influencers or guest posts from colleagues in your network.