Content marketing goes far beyond producing content for blogs, websites, and social media. You need to think about how best to distribute this content in order to increase your audience and be able to measure the results.

By focusing on achieving sustainable results and engaging business opportunities organically, a content strategy is a complex and in-depth process, made up of different tasks, edges and tactics.

In addition, it involves a number of fundamental content marketing practices and actions, such as SEO (optimization in search mechanisms) and constant measurement of results through metrics.

If you want to know, more accurately, what the dynamics of this kind of strategy are like, going through their planning, execution, and analysis, take a look at the rest of this material!

In itself, what is a content strategy?

As its name reflects, it is a strategy that groups everything related to the planning, management, development, and distribution of content, as well as the analysis of the impacts that these have and the results they provide.

It is important not to confuse this methodology with traditional corporate communications, which allow you to report on companies’ plans, promotions, and initiatives.

In fact, when it comes to content production in a Marketing plan, the focus is not business, but people. Yes, just as you read it!

The goal of this strategy is, first of all, to educate the market, showing you how they can solve your needs and solve your problems.

In order to ensure that this process, in addition to being educational, achieves the conversions of Digital Marketing in a sustainable and organic way, it must have the following stages:

• planning;
• definition of the Buyer Persona;
• creation and optimization of content;
• distribution of content;
• analysis and metrics of results.

But what are these phases and how do they develop correctly? We will immediately answer this fundamental question!

1. The ABC of planning a content strategy

As you know, a content strategy is much more than a process that seeks to inform what a company does or will do.

It is a comprehensive process, focused on improving brand positioning, building authority in a given market, educating it, and, of course, attracting users and generating business opportunities.

In addition to these purely Marketingobjectives, this strategy is a vehicle towards valuable goals for the business itself. Among them are:

• market expansion,
• expanding the supply of goods and services,
• increased sales,
• and even increasing the value of the brand.

Precisely, in the planning stage we have to capture all these objectives that we want to achieve, as well as the practices that will allow us to achieve them and the metrics and indicators that will help us to know how close or far we are from them.

Among the actions and tactics that we must specify and develop during planning stand out:

Positioning in keywords in a given market

Keywords are terms and sentences that users use to search engines like Google and Bing.

Logically, each market segment has keywords that represent a very good positioning opportunity in search engines and, consequently, guarantee the exposure and visibility necessary for any content strategy.

For example, if it’s universities, “studying a career,” “better careers” and “professional education” could be very good keywords.

Development of key market issues

The importance of educating the market lies mainly in the importance of brands gaining authority and reputation in doing so.

Explain how certain products are used, how certain areas and processes are optimized, and produce teaching content is ideal for generating leads, because users prefer to approach brands and organizations that project professionalism, knowledge, and experience.

That is, with the correct application of the principle of permission of Inbound Marketing, it is made that users have constructive reasons to engage with a brand, since it helps them to solve real problems and doubts.

Right content for the right people

To ensure a good return on investment (ROI) of Content Marketing, within the planning of the strategy it is necessary to prioritize the qualification.

In other words, it is essential that we can detect what are the key issues of the market segment and also what kind of people may be really interested in our products and services.

This immediately takes us to the definition of the Buyer Persona.

2. How to define the Buyer Persona?

The Buyer Persona is a fundamental resource in a content strategy, as this depends on the qualification, effectiveness of the different materials, and the impact they will have on users.

This term refers to the semi-fictional representation of the ideal customer, which goes far beyond the traditional concept of the target audience.

In fact, we could value the PR as an expanded concept of the target audience, which in addition to taking into account factors such as age, location, purchasing capacity and level of education, focuses on much more personal aspects, such as:

• preferences;
• worries and pains;
• short-, medium- and long-term goals;
• dreams;
• problems;
• how it unfolds on the Internet and social platforms;
• perspectives, ideas, reasoning, and thoughts regarding the environment and different topics.

Logically, to define a profile as accurate as this we must follow certain steps. These are:

Do interviews with clients and prospects

In order to develop a buying persona profile, assumptions and intuitions must be set aside. This process, like all research, demands the application of research techniques and effective methodologies, as is the case of the interview.

Among other things, it is necessary to ask about work routines, positions or segments, objectives, challenges, difficulties and shopping or consumption habits.

Of course, when interviewing customers and prospects it is important not to forget about asking questions about trajectory and personal data.

Collecting information with the sales team

A good content strategy is one that involves different departments and areas related to the commercial field, such as sales and marketing, mainly.

This teamwork must be present from the early stages, as is the case with the creation of the Buyer Persona profile.

Therefore, it is necessary to collect and group together the information that has arisen through the interview process.

In the end, sellers are in direct and constant contact with prospects and those who became customers, so they know for a reason what characteristics the Buyer Persona should have.

Raise data on ideal customer behavior

Here you should integrate and analyze all the data that shows how the user behaves within their market segment and, also, about how they move on the Internet.

Basically, it’s about condensing all the information that will let us know where to find the potential client and how to address it.

This can be done from surveys based on company contacts or point-in-time research, based on public domain data such as government-launched economic reports.

Organize the information obtained and create the profile

This step can be assessed as the embodiment of all the information obtained.

It consists of taking the data and putting it into a form or an editing document to start structuring the Buyer Persona.

In addition to meeting all of these steps to define the PR, before producing a content stream it is important to define at what stage of the funnel the ideal client is located.

The stage of attraction, which can be considered the entry stage, demands the education of the PR. Then, when you get to the consideration phase, it’s time to explain in detail how it is useful for a commercial alternative and how it helps or meets needs.

In the meantime, in the decision phase we can use content such as success stories, which end up convincing the user to make the purchase or subscription.

In these contents you will see the best practices of content production for each stage of the funnel:

• Funnel bottom;
• Half funnel;
• Funnel stop.

3. Key points of content creation and optimization

We’ve reached content production! Having done a solid and defined planning to the Buyer Persona, we might think that at this stage we are already very advanced, but there is still a lot of work to go!

The first point, when it comes to content planning, is to determine which formats will be used, and that’s when the relevance of the corporate blog comes into play.

The blog is the backbone of a content strategy, due to its flexibility, interactivity and because, logically, it is immediately associated with the brand itself.

Within it we can publish both traditional texts (blog posts, e-books) as well as infographics, videos, and even podcasts or audios.

Also, it allows you to work resources such as links to Landing Pages, quizzes, and different interactive content.

As for content formats, newsletter, segmented emails, nutrition flows and other email marketing materials should always be present.

Now that you know the main content formats, we’ll explain the key aspects to create and optimize them:

Keyword research

As already mentioned, this is a key step in ensuring the exposure of a content strategy.

Currently, search engines like Google are the channels that connect users with the products and services they need, so having a privileged position in their results lists is very important.

This research work can be done from platforms such as SEMRush and Answer the Public. These raise data on the search behavior of each keyword and report on the variations of each keyword in the different markets.

The basis for a good Keyword Research is the understanding of the market segment and, also, of the user’s intention, which we will expand immediately.

4.Content distribution: which channels to use?

Once content is produced following SEO best practices, it is important that it is distributed across the channels where the potential customer is located.

In addition, certain aspects related to distribution influence organic positioning, as they allow search engines to notice the relevance of the contents.

Without further ado, here are some of the most valuable channels for promoting content:

Email Marketing

Nutrition flows and newsletters are channels that allow you to establish a direct line of communication with the user and encourage personalized and close interaction.

Social media

It is more than clear that social networks are a valuable channel for any Content Marketing and Digital Marketing strategy in general.

Networks such as Facebook and Instagram bring together millions of users from different corners of the world, so making invitations and posts on them, regarding a certain content, can significantly increase the exposure of it.

Analysis of user intent

It is merely to evaluate in detail how the user interacts on the Internet and the digital world in general.

In the case of search engines, analyzing the user’s intent means, among other things, determining what type of keywords they use frequently and for what purpose they search.

To evaluate this, free tools like Google Search Console are helpful, as they present data about the queries that users make on Google to reach a website.

Writing and publishing content according to SEO criteria

It consists of the production of the content taking into account all those factors that search engines value to position a page.

Its elaboration and release is much more than clicking the “publish entry” button of a given CMSplatform.

If your blog is hosted on WordPress, you need to install the Yoast SEO plugin, which gives you information about the optimizations you need to do to make your content friendly in the eyes of the search engine.

Backlinks

Inserting external or internal links within a certain content contributes to your authority and adds value to the user.

But even more important is to get the content we publish quoted and linked by other portals, which at the same time will become distribution channels.

Do not forget that these are also especially important for SEO, because our articles and materials are taken into account by other portals is a reflection that they are informative, educational, and quality, which quickly detect search engines.

Imagine how good it would be if your website received a link from a large newspaper in your country, for example. This is a powerful resource to generate authority in Google’s eyes and have your website positioned at the top.

Other types of external links that bring great benefits to web positioning are those of educational and governmental institutions, so you should achieve them.

The number of backlinks your website has can be monitored in tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs, which show which website sends the link to your website and which specific page it is targeting.

5.Analysis, metrics and results: the keys to a scalable content strategy

From the beginning of planning a content strategy, those metrics should be established that will be useful for evaluating the results.

And it is that these indicators depend on scalability, that is, the capacity that the strategy grows and constantly leads us to new goals and objectives.

Roi

Logically, this is the fundamental indicator. Knowing how long the money spent on the strategy will be recovered and how positive the investment will be is the basic step in determining profitability and, if necessary, making adjustments.

Traffic generation

Traffic is all those visits to the blog, both organically and through paid ads, as well as the opening rate of emails, direct message views, and even referrals.

This data can be analyzed in-depth with Google Analytics, a free company tool to monitor websites.

This lets you know which are the best sources of traffic in your blog, which raises valuable data to guide your actions in the content strategy.

If your direct traffic is too high, that indicates that you already have a consolidated audience, because the user searches for your domain immediately.

However, if your Social traffic is low, it’s a sign that your content strategy should focus on generating materials aimed at increasing your social media presence.

The truth is that a well-made content strategy has a positive impact on all channels, as there is a chain of impulses to the digital positioning of a brand.

Engagement

Engagement is a metric that really determines the scope of the strategy, beyond visits or clicks, which can sometimes be “artificial”.

This concept refers to the penetration and connection generated by the contents of users. To determine this, it is necessary to evaluate mainly the interactions, comments, and reactions.

Social media is an ideal thermometer for measuring engagement, because they are the platforms on which people are more open to communicating, sharing opinions, and exposing their perspectives.

This indicator can be accompanied by tools such as Buzzsumo, which raises data on brand mentions and the types of interaction of social media users with posts.

SEO positioning

This is a set of metrics that span indexed keywords, the best-placed pages in search engines, and the query classes that bring traffic to the web (CTR).

For CTR or Click Through Rate, it refers to the click-through rate generated by both a paid ad and an organically positioned page.

Because Google is the most popular and used search engine, to evaluate everything related to SEO positioning it is advisable to use its tools, such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

The main factors to analyze are:

• number of keywords positioned on Google;
• Organic CTR pages;
• terms used by users to find a page;
• search volume for each keyword.

Conclusion

Perfect! If you got here you know what a content strategy is and how it’s convenient to develop and carry it out.

Remember that these types of strategies focus on achieving sustainable results, so fulfilling each of these stages to the letter is essential.

On the other hand, by integrating multiple task flows and demanding continuous monitoring, it is advisable to develop the planning, production, and dissemination of content through a centralized platform, on which the specialists involved and the team, in general, can work.