First Impressions Matter: How to Implement the Best Content Marketing StrategyBy Angelica Malin

Content marketing used to be so easy you probably didn’t even need any form of training to be good at it. A lot of the initial successes were experienced by people who knew nothing about SEO, conversion rates and data-analytics. They were just people who were good at telling stories.

Nowadays, you need every tool in your arsenal because the competition is fierce. You are competing against millions of other websites (depending on your industry) and you can’t leave anything to chance.

You are competing against millions of other websites (depending on your industry) and you can’t leave anything to chance. There are many free tools like plagiarism checker, grammar checker, article rewriter. You can use these free tools for improve your skills in content writing.

Despite how intricate content marketing is, it is surprising that less than 70% of B2B marketers have a written strategy, even though it has been proven that having a solid content marketing strategy boosts success.

If you are new to the content marketing world and would like to make a good first impression, you need a strategy in place. Here is how to implement a winning content strategy:

Build it around your goals

The best content marketing strategies are those that meet predefined targets and then exceed them. A common problem we find is marketers pushing out content without a plan to measure growth, performance or objectives.

You need goals that will drive and define everything you do for both the long-term and short-term. These goals could be sales targets, revenue expectations, visitors per month, brand awareness or building an industry-leading blog.

There are no specific goals you must set, it depends on the brand and what you are trying to achieve. But as the saying goes, you can’t know where you are going unless you know where you’ve been.

Review your past performance

If you are stuck trying to set goals in terms of visitors per month and time spent on the website, for example, a good practice is to review previous performance.

As an example, you set a goal of 200,000 visitors per month in three months, but the past performance topped out at 5,000, that goal probably won’t be met, and you would’ve made a bad first impression.

Study the company’s performance over time across as many data-points as are available. This will give you an idea of what the company can achieve realistically, over the next few months.

Define your target audience

When you are reviewing past performance, you should also determine if the website was being visited by the right people. It is possible to build a following of people who will never buy your product.

To achieve success with content marketing, you need to define your buyers accurately. Your target audience or buyer personas will determine the type of content you publish, how frequently you post, and the language to use.

There will most likely be several buyer personas, so your strategy would need to appeal to each one. Over time you can review your buyer personas as the company develops.

Choose your content type

Now, you have all the primary ingredients you need to start creating content, but which ones?

The different types of content marketing are:

• Blog posts
• eBooks
• Case studies
• Templates
• Infographics
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Social media

Under each of these, there are different formats and different styles of implementing them. They also have different pros and cons. Your buyer personas will let you know which ones to utilise, as well as when, and how.

The great thing about having a content marketing strategy is that it helps you plan how to use a combination of the content types, instead of over-relying on one group as is often the case. This way, your audience will never be bored. It will also help you have a budget in place, as some content types are more expensive than others.

Get a team

Different content types require different skills. Those who write long, detailed blogs may not be the ones best suited to writing short, conversational social media posts. The same is true for infographic designers and video producers. You need to get a team of workers that can handle the different aspects.

This does not mean you have to hire all of them given the proliferation of freelancers specialising in diverse skills. Only 44% of B2B marketers handle every aspect of their content marketing. Content creation gets outsourced the most, leaving marketers to focus on strategy and implementation.

Use a content management system

Before you begin publishing your content, put a system in place to ensure your operations are seamless. Your methodology will help you manage your content creation, content calendar, and content review.

Without a content management system, you could soon forget your plans and end up not achieving any of your goals. The best content marketing strategy is one that is executed well, not one that looks good on paper.

This might seem complicated, but fortunately, there are many content marketing management templates and software available. Once you have this in place, your strategy is complete, and you are ready to make a great first impression.