HOW TO BUILD AN EFFECTIVE DIGITAL CONTENT STRATEGY FOR 2022

HOW TO BUILD AN EFFECTIVE DIGITAL CONTENT STRATEGY FOR 2022

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 40 years, you would know that digital content has become the bedrock of all marketing endeavours. According to Statista, 59% of the global population—almost 4.4 billion people—are constantly seeking new and engaging content.

While this creates incredible opportunities for businesses to expand their reach and deliver their services, you also need to have a clear roadmap of where you’re heading. A well-defined and well-delivered content strategy builds on what is working for your business while adding focus and reducing waste.

Here’s how you can create a solid digital content strategy for this year:

(Re) Assess your audience

If you’ve already been running content marketing campaigns, a good place to start is by exploring and examining your content and whether it has been reaching your targeted audience. You may want to re-examine who you are creating the content for? (Hint: Not your own executives!) ?

You can employ different approaches to answer this question. Establishing customer personas is one way to define your demographic. Similarly, looking at web analytics and historical sales data is another way to research your audience to be sure you have it right.

A secondary approach is to view your target demographic from the perspective of the service you are providing. Why would someone view your social media activity? Why would they find your website content appealing? Considering your audience helps you create content that specifically addresses their needs to resonate more forcefully.

Set SMART goals

Now that you have an idea about who you are addressing, you can move ahead with planning what you want from your digital content strategy—do you want to catalyse lead generation to assist your sales team, or are you looking to increase search engine rankings?

Realistically, you are likely to have more than one goal. Outlining each of your digital content strategy aims can help you be more intentional about creating content that meets your objectives. If you still don’t know where to start, the S.M.A.R.T framework is a simple yet effective method to guide your goal-setting process. ?

S: Be clear and specific about what you want

M: Measurable, tangible goals can track progress

A: Actionable goals can ensure that the process is in control

R: Avoid unnecessary frustration by setting realistic objectives

T: A campaign end date helps in staying focused and motivated?

Content differentiating is key

What you are writing and creating as content is critical in getting through to your customers. It is the best way to inform them about what you do and why you are better at it than your competitors. Pushing out informative, relevant, appealing, and easily readable content helps you educate your audience to create a strong connection. Because the fact of the matter is that content is a key element of the user experience—when it’s unique, it builds brand attraction, retention, and loyalty. Well-written copy and on-point content provide clear and unique information in the right tone of voice, on the best formats and channels, so that a business can make an impact.?

Deciding your channels of communication

Businesses often opt to publish their content on their own official channels like websites or blogs. However, social media platforms have changed the rules of (customer) engagement. They have become a one-stop-shop for content marketing and purchase options. The focus has shifted towards building and maintaining online personas with a distinctive brand voice and positioning. A viable strategy, therefore, needs to evaluate which platform best serves your brand and devise content accordingly. If, for example, you are a clothing brand for teenagers and your audience is mainly found on Instagram, it’s best to develop specific, visual, and interactive content that works for the social platform. Similarly, if you have a more corporate TOV where you are looking to connect with visionaries and inspire future generations, Linkedin is a better place to publish thought-leadership articles and content.

Measuring results

A fundamental aspect of any content strategy is the campaign’s effectiveness. You do not want to invest time, knowledge, and money into something that does not deliver results. Customer engagement is one of the best ways to measure the success of a content marketing campaign. The metrics you need to track will depend on the campaign, the channels used, and your marketing objectives. These might be conversion rates, promotion scores, and session durations. It is also essential to define analysis methods, customize reports according to the goals you want to evaluate, and accordingly adjust your strategy to become more effective.

If you’re looking to build a content marketing strategy that takes you stronger and bolder into 2022, reach out to find out how we can help. Our team of writing experts is a master at creating unique content that resonates with audiences and delivers on ROI.