How can a small business create a content strategy with varied formats?

1 Define your objectives and audience

Before you start creating any content, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and who you want to reach. Your objectives and audience will guide your content choices and help you measure your results. For example, if your objective is to generate leads, you might want to create content that offers valuable information and encourages sign-ups, such as ebooks, webinars, or case studies. If your audience is mainly active on social media, you might want to create content that is easy to consume and share, such as videos, infographics, or quizzes.

2 Choose your content formats

Once you have defined your objectives and audience, you can choose the content formats that best suit your needs and resources. You do not need to use every format, but it is beneficial to have a mix of formats that can highlight your expertise, personality, and value proposition. Small businesses often use blog posts, videos, podcasts, ebooks, and infographics for their content. Blog posts are great for providing in-depth information, answering questions, and highlighting thought leadership. Videos are engaging and entertaining, allowing you to demonstrate products or services and connect with your audience on an emotional level. Podcasts offer convenience and interactivity, helping you share insights and experiences while building a loyal fan base. Ebooks are authoritative and persuasive, enabling you to educate your audience while generating leads. Lastly, infographics are visual and informative, allowing you to simplify complex data while attracting attention.

3 Plan your content calendar

Once you choose your content formats, you should plan your content calendar. This tool assists with organizing content creation and distribution across different channels and time frames. It can help you align your content with objectives, audience, and keywords, balance your content between different formats, topics, and stages of the buyer’s journey, schedule your content ahead of time to avoid last-minute stress, and track performance to optimize your strategy. You can use a simple spreadsheet, a project management software, or a dedicated content calendar tool to create the calendar. The information included for each piece of content should be title, format, channel, date, status, owner, and metrics.

4 Create and optimize your content

Now that you have planned your content calendar, it's time to start creating and optimizing your content. Depending on the format of your content, you may need to use different tools and techniques to produce and edit it. This could include a word processor, graphic design software, video editing software, or podcast recording software. Additionally, you should follow certain best practices to ensure your content is high-quality, relevant, and consistent. This includes researching your topic and audience, crafting a clear and catchy headline, writing in a simple and conversational tone, using visuals, examples, and stories to illustrate your points, including a clear call to action, and optimizing for SEO, readability, and accessibility.

5 Distribute and promote your content

The final step of creating a content strategy with varied formats is to distribute and promote your content. To ensure your content reaches your target audience and generates the desired results, you should use different channels and methods. Your website should be user-friendly, mobile-responsive, and fast-loading, with internal links, navigation menus, and search features to help visitors find your content. Utilize email marketing to nurture leads, build relationships, and drive conversions by segmenting your list, personalizing messages, and testing subject lines and content. Social media can be used to amplify reach, increase engagement, and grow following; choose the right platforms, formats, and frequencies for your content, as well as interact with your audience and influencers.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?