Good Content – It’s all about the Strategy

18 Jan 2020

Much like a good movie, content marketing requires a formula for success. If you don’t know it, your content could get lost in the digital shuffle. Audiences continue to migrate to their favorite platforms and have conversations when and where they want to, irrespective of your brand. So before you start brainstorming a bunch of content ideas for your brand, we recommend developing the strategy first, then create the content second.

1. S.W.O.T the competition

First and foremost, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Before you start creating content for your brand, it’s essential to identify your competitors and analyze what they’re doing across platforms. These insights should help DEFINE and REFINE your content strategy, understand external market conditions, reveal gaps in the market, and help prioritize where your target audience tends to congregate online. The best way to accomplish this is to execute a S.W.O.T. analysis, as painful as that sounds. It’s a laborious task, but it will help you get started, pivot, or make directional changes to your content strategy.

2. AUDIENCE ANALYSIS

Now that you have a better sense as to what your competitors are doing, you should clearly define your audience target. What do they want or need? What inspires or drives their behavior daily? Are their wants and needs seasonal? Whether it’s demographic, psychographic, or some combination thereof, you need to know who your customers are, what they love, and start to identify the problem your product or service solves in their lives. Most brands have a pretty good sense as to the age, gender and race of their target audience. But if you don’t know WHAT drives your consumer target to take action, then you could be missing the hook to get them to buy your product.

3. CONTENT WITH A KICK

Unlike American Idol, a voice isn’t created overnight. It comes with a lot of hard work, persistence and some talent, of course. Your content should be topical, relevant and meaningful to your audience. If you’re an established brand like Nike or Apple, you should know what’s authentic to your voice from the past, present and future. If you are new to the content game, like most small to medium businesses — this is where the fun starts. So, it’s smart to define your voice by figuring out the tone, look and feel of your brand across all platforms. Then get ready for tons of testing, learning and real-time optimization.

4. WHEN A CONTENT PLAN COMES TOGETHER

When you’re creating a content strategy, you need a plan of action. That means you should map out every single Holiday, themed days (e.g., National Donut Day!), key events, and anything on the PR front, which could draw more attention to your brand and create a viral surge of traffic. Start by building a year-long editorial calendar, then brainstorm organic content ideas ideas that align with the rest of your strategy. Your followers are sure to reward you with dopamine-inducing likes, comments and maybe even SHARES if you’re so lucky.

About the Author

Morgan Barclay is the VP of Digital Media at Lifted Solutions in Los Angeles, California. He has created and executed a variety of omnichannel media and marketing campaigns with iconic brands such as Disney, Microsoft and Ford Motor Company. Morgan actively serves on the Advisory Board for charity organization Step-Up Homesteading. During his spare time, he teaches Pickleball – the fastest growing sport in America.

Good Content – It’s all about the Strategy