How to Create an Effective Content Strategy?

With a well-crafted content strategy, you can:

1. Broadcast your expertise and strengthen your brand.
   
   
2. Attract new audiences.
   
   
3. Create business collaborations.
   
   
4. Enhance SEO promotion.
   
   
5. Build long-lasting loyal relationships with your audience.
   
   
6. Stand out from competitors and create your own identity.
   
   
7. Increase conversion to inquiries and, consequently, to purchases.
   

Further, in the article, you will find a clear checklist with the necessary steps for building a content strategy:

An asset refers to the features of your company that set you apart from competitors and give you an advantage in creating content.

For example, you have:

• a large community of experts, allowing you to cover a wider range of topics than your competitors;
• customers love to give feedback, a folder with reviews collected over all these years is gathering dust somewhere, but they were never published;
• a solid niche, enabling you to showcase client results before and after;
• charismatic employees or a recognizable brand face;

a company product that can be talked about for a long time, etc.



Write down all the features of the company that you will use to build a long-term strategy.



Important: list not only big and obvious features – try to write down even small details, as this will help create your own unique and distinctive style.

Return to your company's strategic goals and incorporate them into your content strategy: content should always help achieve the overall goals of the company, along with other tools.

Don't waste your time and money creating something just for ticking; always think strategically.

After defining main goals, divide them into long-term and short-term goals.

Long-term goals will help you maintain focus and be effective over long distances (1-3 years), while short-term goals (up to a year) will allow you not to lose motivation, as you can see the results of your work each month.

For example:

• Long-term goal for a year
  Receive 10% of inquiries from the company blog

• Short-term goal — every month

— Grow subscriber base by базы +10 000 new followers

And, of course, each month, assess the results to ensure you're on the right track.

A mistake many companies make is often thinking in the following way: "We are already clear to our audience, and there's nothing more to say about ourselves." But trust us — you can improve the own communication anytime.

To convey your company's positioning to clients through content, you need to draw up a brand portrait and Tone of voice.

A brand portrait, in addition to its familiar components such as the name, logo, positioning, strengths, etc., consists of the concept of meanings — these are the values you want to convey through your content. Choose 3 values that reflect your activities and personality, how you want your business to be seen.

For example:

• your company is related to products for children — one of your values may be "family value";
• your company serves other small businesses — one of your values may be "adherence to agreements";
• your company is engaged in transportation — one of your values may be "valuing time".

determine the 3 main meanings for your business and regularly broadcast them in the content you create. They will help achieve the set goals.

Tone of voice is the format in which you will communicate with clients.

Decide whether to address clients informally or formally, to use humour in your messages or, on the contrary, to maintain boundaries. Imagine your brand as a person and describe it.

Sometimes a business creates useful, relevant content, but publishes it on an unsuitable platform.
The result is wasted time, money, and effort.

To avoid making this mistake, refer to the list of your assets: look at what you're good at and transfer that
to your internal and external communication platforms.

For example:

• if you have a charismatic brand face, it would be much more effective to showcase it on Instagram than to run a blog on your website;
  
  
• or you spend a lot of effort and money on production for a YouTube channel because it seems like a "must-have", but at the same time, you have great copywriters who could run a blog or regular columns in the media but are not involved in any way.

Important: don't be afraid to abandon platforms that don't lead you to your goals or don't give you the desired results. However, keep in mind that not all platforms need to bring clients directly: some may work for your brand recognition.

In addition, when choosing platforms, we also base our decision on analysing our TA —their age, which platform they spend the most time on, and what content format they prefer.

The formula for picking communication platforms with your audience will look like this:
TA analysis + the amount of effort and company assets.

A content plan, in simple terms, is a publication schedule with topics in which we wisely distribute formats, placement locations, meanings, and contexts to achieve our goals.

How to write a content plan read the following article. But here's an example:

A well-structured content plan should contain clear deadlines for writing materials (monthly, weekly, or daily), as well as the names of resources where you plan to post publications.

1. Assets
   
   Company features that we can use
   
   
2. Goals
   
   What we want to achieve through content creation
   
   
3. Meanings [values] — company positioning
   
   What we need to show or tell achieving our goals
   
   
4. Communication platforms
   
   Where is our TA located, where can we generate content most effectively
   In what format and ratio will we create content
   
   
5. Content plan
   
   In what format and ratio will we create content