7 tips how to develop a thought-out content strategy

In today's online business world, your website is often the first point of contact between you and your potential customers. That's why it's so important your website isn’t only beautifully designed but also informative and engaging. Content marketing is your keyword here. The foundation for great content marketing is a solid content strategy. A content strategy is your plan to create, publish, and distribute content to achieve your goals.

What kind of content are you going to create? Who is your target audience? What are your business goals? Answering these questions helps you create a content strategy that is tailored to your specific needs and helps you achieve your desired goals.

Here are seven tips to help you develop a thought-out content strategy.

1. Set your goals

What is the goal you want to achieve with your business or project?

Before you start creating content, you need to know what you want to achieve with your content strategy. Do you want to increase brand awareness? Drive traffic to your website? Generate leads? Sell products or services?

This helps to keep you focused and create a content strategy that helps you achieve these goals.

2. Know your target audience

Who is the audience you are trying to reach with your content? What problem can you solve for them?

One of the most important aspects of developing a content strategy is understanding who your target audience is. Knowing them is essential for creating relevant and engaging content.

Take some time to research your target audience (demographics, interests, needs, etc.). What are their pain points? What are their interests? What language do they speak?

Answering these questions helps you create content that resonates with them and gives them a pleasant and personalised experience. And it helps you achieve your goals.

Ideally, your business or project should offer a solution for your audience’s problem. It should support those who are still figuring it out, and those who want to use your product or service to solve their problem.

3. Find your unique character 

What makes you stand out from the crowd?

Your offer is certainly great, but most likely you won’t be the only one offering it.

Therefore, it’s useful to check what your competitors are doing and how they are doing it.

In fact, check what they are not doing. This way, you can offer something to your audience that they cannot get anywhere else.

4. Choose your content formats

Which content formats do you want to use, and which formats does your audience enjoy the most?

You want to provide useful, educational, and meaningful content for your audience.

Identify what sort of format your audience enjoys and wants to consume. This can be videos or podcasts, long reads, or quick content. You don’t want to waste time on content formats your audience doesn’t enjoy.

Depending on which stage of the buyer's journey your customers are in, their behaviour, needs, and attitude change. Map out their buyer's journey and create content for each of the stages to meet them where they are.

Also, try to mix different formats to offer your audience a diverse range of content.

5. Create a content calendar

Who creates your content? Where is it published? And when is it going live?

Creating a content calendar around different topics and clusters is a useful tool to visualise your strategy. It helps keep you organised and stay on top of the things.

Decide how often you want to publish new content and map out what topics you want to cover. This ensures that you’re regularly publishing new, relevant content. But it also makes it easier for you to plan and takes stress off you.

6. Share your content via multiple channels

On which channels do you want to share your content and what channels does your audience use?

Once you've created great content, go out, share, and promote it so people can read, see, and enjoy it.

There are several ways to do this, including your website, social media, email marketing, and paid advertising.

Don’t limit yourself to just one channel but use multiple channels for maximum reach. You can experiment with different channels and tactics to see what works best for you.

And don’t forget about offline channels, such as print publications, events, fairs, or conferences. These channels also offer you the opportunity to share your content.

Also, make sure to identify where your audience is to share your content on the channels they use.

Tip: If you are just starting, choose only a few channels at first. This keeps you focused and organised. You don't have to be everywhere. Put your efforts into a few channels and do them well. It will result in a much more enjoyable experience for your audience.

7. Measure your results

Finally, don't forget to analyse and measure the performance of your content so you can see whether your strategy is working, and adjust.

Google Analytics or other similar platforms can help you track things like page views, unique visitors, time on site, conversion rates, bounce rate, social media shares, etc. This data gives you insight into what’s working well and what needs improvement so you can adjust accordingly. 

Developing a thoughtful content strategy is essential if you want to succeed online. By understanding your audience, setting clear goals, creating engaging and meaningful content, promoting your content, and analysing your results, you can develop a strong content strategy that helps you achieve your goals.

But remember: Focus on the value you want to give, not on selling your product or promoting yourself too hard. Be authentic and honest. Getting your audience to connect with you will lead to loyal followers.

If you’re not sure where to start, don’t worry! Öökull Creative can help. We specialise in content creation and marketing to help you create great content experiences for your audience.

Get in touch! We’re happy to support you.