Content strategy has many definitions and interpretations. Kristina Halvorson’s composition in her book “Content Strategy for the Web” is my preferred meaning. Her definition of content strategy involves making preparations for the production, distribution, and direction of useful, reliable information. The most important element being to devise a plan.
Planning your content means knowing your audience.
Knowing your audience means listening to them.
Before developing any content, it is essential to comprehend who you are creating for, such as creating an editorial calendar or a single page of content. You must create content in order to demonstrate your awareness of their needs.
Below are steps to incorporate this listening principle into your content strategy and execution:
Step 1: Agree to Learn by Listening
Gaining insight into what your potential customers deem noteworthy requires that you first listen to them. Plain and simple. If you pay close attention and truly listen, you have the chance to discover information that might have otherwise gone unnoticed. Your material needs to demonstrate a comprehensive sympathy and comprehension of precisely what your clients or purchasers want and/or necessitate knowing. If you don’t take caution, you may end up talking about items and providing answers to questions your readers are not invested in.
Show Some Empathy: Levels of Listening
There are five different degrees of attentiveness when it comes to hearing someone else speak: tuning out, appearing to pay attention, choosing to only focus on certain aspects, being keenly aware, and having compassion for the speaker. Realizing that overlooking, feigning listening, and choosing to hear only certain things are not a good idea is easily comprehended without a lengthy elaboration. Pay attention to what other people are saying attentively, but also try to understand it from their perspective. Empathic listening provides you with the capability to envision the world from another person’s point of view.
Actively engaging in a conversation and going beyond hearing what the other person is saying to picturing yourself in the same situation. The goal of empathetic hearing is to comprehend somebody’s desires, preferences, and emotions. You closely recognize what they are trying to communicate.
As a content writer and/or digital marketer, you need to be sensitive and responsive to your audience, but in a world where you might never meet them in person, how can you achieve this?
Step 2: Use Listening Tools to Help You
One can practice empathetic listening to their target audience in order to tailor the content to them. (NOTE: I am not talking about Big Brother-type listening). Here are some recommended, non-intrusive approaches that will put you on the right track:
Social Media
I recently heard somebody state that social media offers insight into the thoughts of consumers similar to that of reading minds. It stayed in my mind, as there is a great deal of accuracy to it. We can gain a firsthand understanding of what people are focusing on and how they are describing their conditions. It enables us to recognize their emotions and beliefs, and in response we can be compassionate.
I got in touch with Bryan Eisenberg, a popular marketing keynote orator and author of numerous books that have made the New York Times bestseller list, to find out what his opinion was. As per Bryan, utilizing social media can facilitate an understanding of what persons interested in your industry are conversing about.
Surveys
Surveys are tremendous listening tools. By utilizing a survey, you can ask queries tailored to your target audience that can be supplemented by parties offering comments and responses. The aim is to gain input from your potential buyers or clients and to practice sympathetic listening.
Customer Service
The customer service department or whoever is in charge of the majority of the support tasks has a great chance to practice sympathetic listening. Discover what methods people are using to communicate their requirements or pose their inquiries. What seems to interest them the most? What seems to trouble them? Have they expressed a wish to gain knowledge in any certain areas? How do they view your business? Responding to these queries may assist in understanding the outlook of patrons and remove personal prejudices.
Market Research Company
Surveying the audience is an advantageous way to devise a content plan. By researching your target demographic, you can ascertain the features of your audience and get an idea of what opinion they have concerning the sorts of goods or services your business offers. Market research companies use a variety of tactics to obtain the information they need, such as holding focus groups and conducting extensive interviews.
Ask Loyal Customers
Trusted patrons can be a great help in providing knowledge regarding the consumers you are striving to reach. Gather information about your customers by using polls, emailing, or calling them. Hear what they are expressing in regard to their aims, wants, or apprehensions. What information do they need and how can your business enhance their wellbeing? Gain an extensive perspective of the psychological facets of your crowd, as well as an accurate comprehension of their thoughts.
Step 3: Apply What You Learned
Listening + Understanding = Great Content
After paying attention to what’s important to your target market, you should have a better understanding of what they are looking for or want. Once you evaluate the data, you can begin building your content approach. You should be competent to respond to queries like, “What do your audience need or require?” “What sort of expectations do they have?” “What assistance can your business offer them?” and “What is the aim of your material?”
It is important to comprehend your target group when devising your content plan, but you still require to decide upon your corporate objectives and work out how you will form and dispense these materials. The Content Marketing Institute does a marvelous job of providing in-depth analysis of creating a content plan, including the various steps of generation and the discrepancy between the plan, operational executions and output.
Step 4: Move from Strategy to Execution
Once you have gotten to this point, you should have figured out the recipients of your message, what matters to discuss and how to craft content that resonates for your ideal customers. It’s now time to start executing great content. Carrying out content is a completely different task, so I will only provide some basic tips.
Create Personas
In order to form a comprehensive overview of your content’s intended audience, you must assemble all the elements. Utilize the knowledge you obtained while tuning in to your viewers and begin organizing the data. It is necessary to identify the preferences, activities, and opinions of the individual you will be crafting content for in order to gain an understanding of them. It’s possible that you will come across multiple personalities in your target group. It is a regular occurrence that necessitates you to create content that is appropriate to every individual’s needs.
Determine Content Delivery
Which types of materials will you generate, and where will you disseminate them? Will you use your blog or newsletter? What about email? It is essential to be aware of the times and methods for sending out your material, as well as to whom it is going.
Step 5: Find Your Authentic Angle
The only way to make yourself noticed in a throng of people is to be yourself. Your rivals likely present similar services or goods, and likely share the same information to their viewers.
So, why would people choose you over your competition?
Identifying and emphasizing what makes you unique is essential to creating a successful personal brand. Uncovering your special perspective and quality that cannot be found in any other place is a great place to start.
Discover a factor which will provide you superior status vis-a-vis your rivals, whether it be a set of principles or the style in which your company operates.
Discover a way of giving yourself an image which sets you apart from the crowd, like if you are a health coach, perhaps you could explain yourself as a Buddhist vegan health trainer. It immediately increases your reputation as people who are involved in the practices of Buddhism or following a vegan lifestyle will be drawn towards you rather than a typical wellness consultant.
Aso, always be authentic to yourself. Folks can discern if you are being false and will not be fooled; lying can ruin any trust that may have been present.
Step 6: Listen to Your Audience and Their Feedback
Having put your content strategy into action and launched your marketing campaign, you need to consider what comes next.
It’s unlikely that you’ll get a sudden rush of resources right away since content marketing requires a considerable time investment, however, you can start making contact with your audience and paying attention to the reaction they have to your approach.
Are they asking questions?
Are they looking for specific services?
Maybe they’re looking for products?
What feedback are they giving you on your content? Is it helpful to them?
These are the questions you should be asking yourself. By carefully observing your audience, you will be able to determine their needs and evaluate the effectiveness of your content plan. So, don’t be afraid to receive feedback.
It is essential to bear in mind that your audience might not always express feedback verbally. Monitor your KPIs, analyze the data, and observe the behavior of your followers.
If the amount of time people spend reading the content you produce on your blog is short, there is clearly a message in that. Examine the blog post and investigate the cause of people departing. Adjust your content and see how people react then.
The same goes for social media analytics. If you are active on Instagram, it is advisable to monitor the posts that are most successful and then modify your content by sharing more of what your followers like.
This endeavor presents the toughest challenge, because it requires that you welcome constructive feedback and make alterations. It may take some time to achieve the desired result, and to comprehend what your viewers are telling you.
Once you have the expertise, you will find your content policies effective and you will start witnessing positive changes in a short time.
Step 7: Brainstorm Ideas and Do Keyword Research
It is the moment for you to get joyous; now that you have upgraded your ambitions, studied your designated viewers and chosen your mediums or some of them, it is time to engage in the exciting task – thinking up concepts.
If you have worked diligently up to this moment, generating ideas for your content should be a simple task.
After ascertaining the essential predicaments experienced by your spectators, you worked out ways to provide them with resolutions; hence, it is now the perfect moment to compile a list.
It is essential to strategize when designing your content plan to ensure its success.
Let me explain:
When coming up with concepts and forming your content plan, consider the overall objective. Do not solely concentrate on material for the blog and then content for social media. Consider changing your content to suit different platforms whilst maintaining its interconnectedness.
This is a crucial part. In order for your content strategy to be successful, it must be consistent.
It’s important to factor in critical milestones when forming your content plan. It’s important to produce content that revolves around your product launch. Outline what sorts of content you want to generate before the launch, and how this content should be designed to be persuasive in welcoming people to purchase the item.
Also, don’t be shy to re-purpose content. Think of ideas for your blog and then use them on social media.
It is not certain that everybody will keep track of all your online platforms, thus, it is a good idea to maximize your content strategy by utilizing all the available mediums.
Once you have arranged your schemes, you should have a sense of the material you intend to employ for each platform, and all of the essential launches should be prearranged. Now you are ready to delve into exploring keywords.
This is an activity that is not particularly enjoyable and can be tough to start with. If you lack experience in marketing and SEO, a course by Google on digital marketing may be beneficial to you. The free material provides comprehensive knowledge on utilizing these strategies for your business.
The simplest method of investigating appropriate search terms is to utilize an internet search engine such as Google to search for keywords that people might utilize in their search queries. Construct a spreadsheet with the keywords and assess their suitability for use via the Google Keyword Planner.
You should target keywords with popular search volume, but that have less competition so that you have more of an opportunity to rank on Google.
When it comes to optimizing Youtube for search engine purposes and looking into keyword phrases, there is much to consider. I suggest that you look into Cathrin Manning since she covers all of the topics related to keyword studies on Youtube and even more.
