In the era of digital marketing, a stellar online content strategy is important for business. With 81% of internet users searching for products or services online, the right content is the best way to attract your target audience.
While high-quality and valuable content is undoubtedly key, it may never become visible without the right strategy. Knowing when, where, and how to publish your content can help improve website rankings, boost brand awareness, and establish credibility in your field.
Let's take a closer look at the benefits of an online content strategy and how to make it an integral part of your marketing campaign.
A content strategy is a plan to develop and share valuable content for your target audience. It determines the type of content your business needs at a particular time.
Content strategy is the process planning, creating, delivering, and maintaining content across multiple marketing channels, including:
By serving up high-quality content to your audience in the right place and at the right time, you can significantly improve the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
The key benefits of an online content strategy include:
Overall, the purpose of an online content strategy is to improve your marketing ROI, increase the company's profitability, and help build your credibility in your chosen field.
With the content strategy being an important part of your marketing plan, you need to consider the following aspects before diving into the details.
Whom are you designing your content for? You probably already have a buyer persona created for the rest of your marketing tactics. Use it to understand what type of content they are looking for.
Besides the general information about the persona (demographics, pain points), you can also consider buying patterns and history of interaction with your brand. This can help you understand what type of content each segment of your target audience needs at a given time.
For example, you would create different types of content for:
Your content should address pain points and provide informational or actionable solutions to each part of your target audience. Then you can use different channels to deliver the content to specific segments.
Your business and marketing goals should dictate your content strategy. For example:
While it's possible to build a content strategy around all the above goals, it would require a formidable budget. The best approach is to take it one goal at a time. Many pieces of content you create to achieve one goal can be suitable for the rest.
Even the highest quality content may not help achieve your business goals if you use the wrong format or publish it in the wrong place. Depending on the parameters of the target audience and your marketing and business goals, you can choose the format. For example,
To optimise your marketing budget, don't try to publish your content on all possible social media channels. After putting it up on your website, choose one or two channels where the target audience spends the majority of its time on.
Pro tip: Millennials spend more time on Instagram and YouTube while Generation X prefers Facebook.
Creating a content calendar helps you optimise your creation and publishing schedule to avoid the stress associated with urgent deadlines.
You can create a monthly theme and build each content piece around it. The majority of social media platforms allows you to schedule posts so you don't have to worry about missing them.
Consistency is the key to your content strategy. As soon as you stop publishing your content regularly, your entire marketing campaign could suffer. While there is no magic formula for how often you should serve up the content on social media, you should keep the content consistent.
The frequency of the posts depends on the niche. For example, a clothing store could publish five posts a day on Instagram, promoting different products. Meanwhile, a healthcare service provider like an expertise-focused complementary therapist would only need to post once a day. According to Coschedule, the best time for healthcare providers to publish social media posts is in the mornings.
Now is a great time to set time aside to work on a plan for the year ahead. A comprehensive content strategy can help you achieve a variety of business goals. To develop a high-quality strategy, you need to know the audience, understand your immediate business and marketing needs, and implement efficient content planning tactics.
Once you have your content strategy in place, make sure that any advertising you do to promote your business complies with the general code of conduct requirements, if appropriate. Click here to view the Advertising General Code of Conduct to ensure that the advertising you're doing (whether through television, radio, internet, print or any other form of media), complies with the law.
Get support for your natural therapy business in 2021 with IICT's membership and insurance. We help members save time and money on expenses and also provide tools and support to stay abreast of changing industry regulations and compliance requirements. Find out how to join IICT here or contact us on +61 2 5629 7777 Monday - Friday 10am - 4pm NSW, Australia to speak with one of our friendly and helpful Member Services team.