So you started an online business, you have an idea of who your target customer is, and you’re working hard to achieve your profit goals, but there’s one piece of the puzzle that you seem to be missing: a content marketing strategy.
You create content, but it’s not really converting into sales, and you often feel overwhelmed about the whole content creation process, especially if you have multiple platforms to manage. So what is the problem? The problem is that you don’t have a content marketing strategy, which is a key component for the success of your business. In this blog post, I’ll be sharing with you why it’s important to have a content marketing strategy and how you can start to plan your own.
Why is a content marketing strategy important?
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I know everyone talks about having a content strategy in place and that it’s extremely important for your business, but have you ever questioned why it matters that much?
If you haven’t, I’m here to help you bring some clarity to that and understand why this is such an important piece of the puzzle for businesses in our day and age, particularly an online business.
Below I’m sharing with you 5 reasons why (in my opinion) your business needs a content marketing strategy.
You build your authority
Building a business today, especially online is not as easy as it could have been 10 years ago. Not that there weren’t enough challenges at the time, but the online world simply looked different, and it was definitely less crowded.
Now, if someone tells you that you can’t put your idea out there and make money because too many people are already doing it, that’s a lie. You absolutely can do that, but you have to differentiate yourself and stand out from the competition, which is why your content is essential for that because it will help you build your authority in the online space.
By sharing your expertise, skills and knowledge with your audience, you’re proving yourself to be an expert and it shows that you know what you’re talking about and people will be in good hands when working with you, so that seems like a very reasonable point to push you to have a content strategy.
2. You create more effective content
When you don’t have a content marketing strategy and you just post on the go based on what you think would be a good piece of content, chances are that that particular content won’t be very successful.
You see, when it comes to content and many other things in business (and life!), you can’t just wing it, but you need to think carefully about what you’re posting. Every piece of content that you put out there could potentially mean a sale or taking someone one step closer to making a purchase. Because of that, your content needs to be thought out and mapped out very carefully, which is not something that you can do at the last minute, but it needs to be strategized in advance to make sure that it’s effective and it takes you closer to your goals.
3. You build trust with your audience
Remember, when you’re doing business you’re selling to people, who have a brain, emotions, and sometimes trust issues! If you’re someone who ghosts their audience online, only posting once every couple of weeks with no clear strategy in place, a potential customer will be able to tell.
When I put myself in the customer’s shoes (which I have been a few times making my own investments), I always stalk someone online and I look at their content, what they post, how confident they sound and how confident they make me feel that they’d be able to solve my problems.
This is a process called relationship building, and it happens when you consistently put valuable content out there, which helps you build trust with your audience. Now, obviously, I’m not talking about posting 5 times a day if you can’t handle that, but I’d definitely recommend at least once a day consistently. And remember, there’s always someone watching and you never know when that someone could turn into a potential customer.
4. You avoid burnout and overwhelm
Another reason many entrepreneurs don’t show up consistently and don’t put amazing content out there is because they’re overwhelmed and burnout. The truth is that 90% of the time, that happens because they don’t have a content plan and strategy in place.
They’re trying to do all the things in their business AND post on their online platforms without clear direction, and that’s just a recipe for disaster.
By mapping out your content plan and strategy in advance, you’ll be able to ditch the overwhelm and burnout and serve your audience in the best possible way.
5. You optimise your business operations
Another key reason that makes having a content marketing strategy essential in my opinion, is because you optimise your business operations, aka you become more efficient.
If you’re trying to cut through the time wasters and become more productive in your business, you’ll need to start creating a content marketing strategy in advance so that you can be more efficient with your time, put amazing content out there, and focus on other needle moving activities within your business.
What are the 3 components of a content strategy?
In my humble opinion, and remember, everyone’s got their own opinion on everything, there are 3 key elements to creating a good content strategy.
- It’s essential to know who you’re talking to. If you’re not sure who your ideal customer is, you need to go back and do some work on it, because if you’re confused about your ICA, your message will also be confusing, meaning it won’t produce the results that you’re hoping to see.
2. You need to know what your goals are. Are you trying to build just a business or a personal brand too? Depending on your answer, the type of content that you put out there will look different than what you may have thought. Are you trying to place yourself as a leader in your industry? Sell different products? Grow your email list? Based on your short and long term goals, in accordance with your target customer’s needs, your content marketing strategy will look very unique to you
3. You need to take some time to plan your content and map out exactly how you plan to deliver your expertise via all the different platforms you use and using different types of content formats. Another key thing to do after the planning is to schedule all your content so it’s all taken care of, and you don’t need to worry about it on a daily basis. To find out what my top content scheduling tools are, read this blog post.
How do you plan a content marketing strategy?
So how do you plan a content strategy, step-by-step, and make sure that you achieve your goals and grow your business?
Well, friend, I’ve written a whole blog post about it here, where I share with you my tips to plan a great content strategy as a content creator.
If you want an even deeper insight into that and also learn about more tools that you can use for your content marketing strategy, then you can download my FREE guide, Content Planning Made Easy, which covers everything you need to know about content planning.
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Conclusion on why having a content marketing strategy is essential
If you’ve read up to here, just know that I’m proud of you and I’m sure that your content strategy is about to be incredible! Remember to use my free resources and truly make the most of them, and I hope I’ve made you realise how important having a content marketing strategy is for the success of your business!
