Behind a successful content marketing campaign is a carefully designed content strategy. The strategy or plan is the meat of this entire endeavour. It is what paves the way for the publishing of compelling content.

Without a content strategy, achieving your marketing goals is impossible. In fact, studies have shown that not having a plan may prove to be disastrous and costly. Yet, many still commit this mistake.

According to a survey, nearly 65% of B2B marketers say that they do not have a documented content strategy. This figure is just slightly higher than those in the B2C category wherein 60% admit to doing the same thing.

Please do not commit this mistake!

Developing a strategy should be first on your to-do list. Accomplishing this task is the only way to achieve content marketing success.

Admittedly, designing a content strategy is as challenging as implementing one. Truth be told, many find this task daunting. Their difficulty mainly lies in not knowing how to start or how to go about this task. In one survey, a significant percentage of marketers expressed their desire for a content strategy education to exist.

If you are in the same situation – having difficulties coming up with a content strategy, you can enlist the help of an SEO specialist. Alternatively, you can still go the DIY route, but you have to read up on how to do this task properly. Below are some tips on how to plan your content strategy for the next six months.

But first, you may be wondering why it’s a six-month plan. The common practice is to have a content strategy for the entire year. You should still do this. However, in terms of concrete plans, it is best to design one with a six-month timetable. Remember, Internet marketing rules and practices change quickly. Keeping up with these changes is necessary as they can determine the success of your marketing campaign.

Having a six-month strategy allows you to incorporate these changes and keep the plan up-to-date. Furthermore, this set-up allows you to re-evaluate things and make the necessary adjustments to improve your strategy. So, what are the things you need to keep in mind when developing an effective content strategy for six months?

Evaluate Your Goals

When creating a content strategy, you always start with your goals. If you’ve been doing online marketing, the targets you set should be based on the data you have for the past months. Here, you can use Google Analytics or other software to gather pertinent information about your content, especially which ones generated interest or traffic and those which didn’t do well.

Make the Necessary Adjustments

Based on the data, determine what your goals are for the next six months. What do you want to accomplish? What do you need to improve on? Also, make sure that when you recalibrate, take into consideration changes in Internet marketing and incorporate it in your new strategy.

Decide on What Content to Create

Planning early on what content to produce in the upcoming months can make content creation less taxing. Furthermore, it lets you ensure that you are taking the needed steps to hit your targets.

How do you decide on what content to make? Use analytics. Check out which content gained traction and earned you visitors. Find out why these articles generated buzz. Use this content as your guide for your future articles – perhaps, expound on the topic and/or follow the writing style.

Meanwhile, for new content, focus on customers, particularly questions that they may have. Create content to answer their queries. Here, your sales team as well as your blogs and social media pages can be good sources of this type of information. This is because it is not unusual these days for customers to leave comments on these pages.

Lastly, take into account any changes or events in the upcoming months. Will you be launching a new product? Is it going to be the holiday season? You can create content about and around these things, too.

Remember:

Your content needs to be relevant. So, even if you’ve determined what content to produce for the next six months, be ready to make changes. Just because you’ve pre-selected the topics already, it doesn’t mean you can’t change them.

Prepare a Content Calendar

After you’ve identified the topics you want to create, schedule them. If possible, create a calendar which is visible to your team. This way, everyone is in the loop as to when they’re assigned tasks are due. Also, if certain content may require more time to make, ask the person tasked to do it to work on it in advance.

When you have a strategy in place, creating content can be less stressful and more purposeful. You ensure that the content you create is truly going to help your marketing efforts.

Do you need help designing your content strategy for the next six months? Talk to our experienced SEO specialists today! Call us now at 019609023!

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Image by Werner Moser from Pixabay