How to Develop a Good Content Strategy for Your Online Business

by Raul Harman, Guest Contributor

​Content marketing is one of the best ways to build your brand and establish a firm connection with your customers. It comes down to creating quality and interesting content related to your industry and posting it on your website and social networks. The content can be of literally any kind – blogs, vlogs, short videos, memes, infographics, etc. ​

Tips on how to develop good content strategy.

Good content is supposed to attract new people to your website and social media. Since those people are obviously interested in topics related to your branch, they are also your potential customers. Thus, your job is to get people to read or watch your content, and then turn regular consumers of your content into regular consumers of your products in the long run. This is a long process that demands a lot of patience and a carefully-developed strategy. Here are a few tips on how to do that.

Determine your target audience
What your content will look like, naturally, depends on your audience. First of all, you need to determine the topics you wish to cover. These need to be at least loosely related to your industry, so that you can attract as many potential customers as possible. These topics, as well as your products and your niche, are going to be interesting to certain groups of people and your job will be to determine who these people are as accurately as possible.

There are numerous ways to do so, from surveys and A/B testing to simply using digital tools and software at your disposal. After you figure out the traits and characteristics of your typical buying personas, it’s essential that you adapt your tone and your language to these people. If you want to build a true connection with them, you need to convince them that you’re one of them, and not just a salesman but an advisor or even a friend. This may be tricky for someone unskilled in the field of marketing and content creation in general. Thus, contacting experts from companies like Words By Nuance to help you establish the right style and tone for your posts is usually a good idea.

Make it about the content
Of course, even more important than the style and language you employ is how well you cover the topics you deal with and how well-informed you are about them. Again, try to be as subtle as you can – the salesman’s attitude is a completely wrong way to go. Your posts need to provide some value, to answer your audience’s questions and teach them something new and interesting.

Absolutely nobody is going to read your posts if all you do is brag about how good your product is. It’s ok to have a purely promotional post every now and then, but they should definitely not be your focus. Show that you’re knowledgeable and competent. If you do this and keep your content informative and intriguing, simple and subtle call-to-action buttons at the end of your posts are all the promotion you’ll need. It’s much more important that people who consume your content find it fresh and interesting, and that they are aware that your company is behind it. And, of course, that they are willing to share it with their friends. After that, conversions and sales will naturally follow.

Post regularly
It’s very important that you keep the new content coming regularly, for multiple reasons. You’ll seem more serious and devoted, keep the people who follow you interested and engaged, and you’ll increase your chances of reaching more people by creating more content and covering more topics. Although it’s very important to be up-to-date with current events, it’s also very useful to have some evergreen content that you can share from time to time, whenever it seems convenient. This can help you a lot since being constantly creative and innovative can be very challenging in the long run.

Always mind the feedback
Sometimes, in digital marketing, it seems that you have come up with a perfect plan, implemented it properly and still haven’t got the desired results. Surely, you have to be patient up to a certain point, but after a while, if the feedback is below par, you’ll need to reconsider your overall strategy. A tiny flaw in any of the above mentioned aspects of content marketing can ruin your whole plan. We live in an era where you can have instant access to the feedback with the help of social media analytics, media monitoring tools and online reviews, so you should take full advantage of that.

When it comes to content marketing, the most important thing to have in mind is that it’s a long, gradual process and that you’ll need to put in a lot of effort and have a lot of patience. But if you’re doing it right, it’s worth it. It’s a great way to build your brand and make it both visible and recognizable. You’ll have a chance to attract truly loyal customers, who will not just spend money on your products, but will also respect your brand and spread the good word about it.
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