Your Quick Guide to a Winning Content Creation Strategy

Posted by Jazelle Handoush

One part book dragon, a dash of wordsmith wit, a lot of parts coffee, and a double dose of full-force nerd, Jazelle Handoush is the Digital Content Creator at Fable Heart Media.

Every day new emails, fun-filled Instagram stories, attention-grabbing graphics, and wit-brimming blog posts fill our screens. Though the format, platform, and companies continuously change, one thing remains the same: we experience brands through content that pulls us in and engages us. The most successful B2B companies spend 40% of their total marketing budget on content creation. Meanwhile, B2C companies spend 26%.

With valuable, high-quality content and a plan, you can attract relevant website visitors, stay top-of-mind with customers, and increase your company’s sales. Keep reading to learn how to create a successful content creation marketing strategy.

7 Tips to Step Up Your Content Creation

1. Know Your Value

Before you start creating content, let’s talk about your business. What sets you apart from everyone else? What makes you better than anyone else?

Your prospects are looking for that competitive advantage—the reason to choose you. To determine your value, know your niche. What problem are they experiencing, that only you can solve? Once you recognize your importance, creating quality content that your audience wants to read becomes a lot easier.

2. Consider Your Customers

Question: Who are you creating content for?

Answer: Living, Breathing, Unique People.

Get to know your audience on a personal level. What makes them tick, and what stresses them out? Audience research will help you determine the questions they’re asking and the content they need.

Your target audience is made up of people with distinct questions and needs, so break that bigger group into smaller customer profiles. Segmenting your audience can help you find different topics to cover in your content.

34% of consumers will make an unplanned purchase if the content is personalized, so get that personal element in there while you’re at it. Try to talk to your customers one-on-one. That way, each of your different customers can find the answers they need from a resource they trust.

3. Audit Existing Content

The most effective marketing strategies rely on research.

Review the content you’ve already created and make a list of:

The topics you’ve covered
The types of content you’ve posted: blogs, infographics, videos, polls, etc.
The content with the highest engagement: likes, comments, shares, etc.
The way you distributed the content: social media, email, website landing pages, etc.

Reviewing your existing content can help you identify gaps and new opportunities.

4. Brainstorm & Organize

Planning can make content creation feel like less of a chore in the future. Start with a list of main topics. Then, break those broader topics down into more focused ideas. The topic cluster strategy can help you brainstorm new ideas and keep your website’s blog content organized. You can always refer back to the list of questions your customers are asking and the problems they’re facing during this step.

Don’t forget to keep SEO in mind! Once you know what your customers are searching for, make a list of those keywords and phrases. Can you rework their searches into a blog post or video?

As you’re brainstorming ideas, remember to focus on educating readers about your product, service, or industry. Your content is meant to inform, educate, or entertain, rather than sell. Delivering content that helps your audience will encourage them to rely on you as a future resource.

5. Create New Content

Now it’s time for the fun stuff: the actual content creation! Make a list of the different content formats you’re interested in. Consider the channels you want to use for distribution, too.

One piece of content offers numerous opportunities for you to reach your audience. Consider creating a content calendar to keep you organized. Instead of shouting into the void and hoping someone hears, use a content calendar to maximize your impact and reach.

A Content Calendar Can Help You:

6. Optimize It

Optimizing your content for search engines can expand your reach online. SEO best practices are constantly changing, however, so it’s essential to remain up-to-date with the trends.

To start, write content based on your list of keywords. Then, strategically place the keyword throughout your content.

Be careful, though—keyword stuffing can hurt your SEO and give competitors the advantage.

7. Make Content Creation a Commitment

For your content to make an impact, you need to keep it consistent and fresh. Maintain your strategy by posting new content on a schedule. If content starts to feel stale, update it! Current information and data will remind readers you’re up-to-date with what’s going on in your industry.

Compared to outbound marketing, content marketing generates over three times as many leads while costing 62% less. Using content creation as a long-term strategy can help your company save while producing ongoing results.

Check on your content regularly. Analyze the results by checking key performance indicators, such as:

Website traffic
Unique visitors
Engagement (likes, comments, clicks, page views, shares)

This data can tell you what your audience is responding to, so you can make more of it in the future.

Is Content Creation Worthwhile?

It’s easy to get so caught up in day-to-day operations that blogging and social media fall on the wayside. However, planning a content creation marketing strategy can support and accelerate your business growth. Who doesn’t want that?

Here are a few more reasons why content creation is worthwhile:

Fresh, branded content can increase your company’s brand awareness and recognition
Informative, engaging content can improve your brand perception and position your company as an industry thought-leader
Unique content supports your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and attracts quality traffic to your website
Attracting the right kind of website traffic can increase leads
High-quality leads can turn into sales

By planning out your content creation strategy, you can align your content to achieve bigger business goals.

Fable Heart Media is Here For You.

Whether you own a small company or lead a marketing team, Fable Heart Media can help you achieve your business goals. Our process focuses on driving measurable growth and obtaining results. Of course, we love creating beautiful websites and writing awesome blogs, but for us, nothing tops the feeling of seeing our customers grow online due to our partnership.

Let’s Talk About Growing Your Business!