The Basics of Content Strategy

3 Tips to Make Your Words Boost Sales via Content Strategy

According to the Content Marketing Institute’s “BtoB Content Marketing 2015 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends—North America,” “70% of B2B marketers are creating more content than they did one year ago.” And for good reason.

Good content increases online awareness, brings people to your site and boosts sales. But with all of the hype about “Content is King!” and using all of the mobile and social-media apps out there, the whole process can be overwhelming.

If you are a small business owner, you know you need to provide relevant, current content in various forms. But with all of your other, business responsibilities, content strategy may just be causing you added stress rather than increased revenues.

Well, don’t despair. Let’s make content strategy as simple as possible so you can start using it to your advantage. In a nutshell, a content strategy is simply a plan on what you are going to write about relevant to your company’s products and services, and trends, events and news pertinent to your customers… and the results you hope to accomplish from this content.

Content marketing is how you actually distribute and track that content to get the results you want.

With this, here are…

3 Tips to Create a Simple, Content Strategy You Can Start Using to Boost Sales

1.      What do your customers want?

This is where it all starts. Find out what your customers want to read or watch, and your content strategy will be a success. Check your Google Analytics to see what people are clicking on most on your site. Look at your social media applications to see what is trending. And check out your competitors to see what they are doing with social media. After you conduct your research and have a good idea what you want to write about, you are ready for the next step…

2.      How are you going to distribute the content?

Make a list of all the content you want to share with your audience. Then, add the dates you want to distribute the content and how you are going to share it. Will you post a blog, write an article, add comments to your social-media venues, create a video, or something else? Also, what results do you hope to obtain from each content piece? Add your goals next to the content items and indicate who is responsible for each. Put all of this information on a big spreadsheet, and now you have an editorial calendar.

3.      How will you know what’s working?

Once you start posting content, it’s important to track it. Look at your site analytics to see how many clicks you are getting on each piece of copy. Track your e-newsletters, social-media posts, video clicks, and more. This way, you’ll be able to tell which content is most valuable to your audience. Then, you remove or change content that does not bring the appropriate results and focus on what does!

It’s time to use content strategy to your advantage!

Yes, there is a lot of buzz about content strategy and content marketing techniques… because it works. But at the same time, there is so much information out there, you may be overwhelmed by the entire process. Instead, keep it simple. Follow the three steps above, and soon, you’ll have a content strategy in place that will boost sales and online awareness.

What tips do you have to share about your content strategy processes?

For more information and help with your content strategy, visit www.rembrandtwrites.com.

Author Melanie Rembrandt is the CEO of Rembrandt Communications, LLC. She helps small business owners boost sales, awareness and credibility via BtoB SEO content strategy and public relations. For help and free information, visit www.rembrandtwrites.com.