Crafting a 10-Step Strategy for Your Content Marketing Plan

As a marketer, you’re probably familiar with content marketing, but have you fully grasped its potential throughout the entire customer journey?

Though many marketers diligently craft blogs, landing pages, and social media posts, exceptional content marketing involves a comprehensive, strategically layered approach—it hinges on your deep understanding of your audience.

In this article, we’ll dissect content marketing and guide you through ten pivotal steps to cultivate a triumphant strategy.

1. Define Your Goals
2. Know Your Audience
3. Stay Relevant
4. Leverage the Marketing Funnel
5. Identify Your Core Topics
6. Adopt a Push-and-Pull Strategy
7. Implement a Hub-and-Spoke Model
8. Generate Lead-Capturing Content
9. Boost Your Brand Through Advocacy
10. Establish KPIs and Track Success

Let’s dive in!

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing methodology focused on creating and sharing valuable content to attract and retain a defined audience, ultimately driving profitable customer action.

“The essence of content marketing lies in its relevance and consistency. It aims to attract and engage a defined audience by providing valuable information, entertainment, or usefulness without directly selling a product or service. That’s the crux of content marketing,” shares Mischa McInerney, Chief Marketing Officer at the Digital Marketing Institute.

1. Define Your Goals

To effectively craft your strategy, begin by outlining your goals across the marketing funnel. This will clarify the audience’s motivation at each phase and identify the necessary content to guide them further.

Set stage-specific KPIs that align with your business objectives. Here’s a framework to structure your goals:

1. Enhancing Brand Visibility and Engagement

• Boost spontaneous brand recognition from x to y
• Increase engagement and reach on social platforms from x to y

2. Consideration Phase Goals

• Enhance organic traffic (excluding blogs) from x to y
• Boost blog readership from x to y

3. Conversion Targets

• Lift organic sales from x to y
• Enhance lead generation from blog activities from x to y

4. Fostering Advocacy

• Amplify social shares from x to y
• Boost backlink count to your site from x to y
• Enhance customer testimonials from x to y

Insider Tip from DMI: Start simple with one or two objectives per stage (reach and engagement, consideration, conversion, and advocacy) to avoid complications.

2. Know Your Audience

Prior to creating any content, gain a profound understanding of your audience and their needs. This involves creating detailed buyer personas.

Use tools like Google Analytics (GA4) to analyze your audience demographics, behaviors, and preferences.

Insider Tip from DMI: Observing users browsing career sites indicates they’re seeking career changes or value shopping, which should influence the messaging on your landing pages.

Upon discerning your target personas, delve into their emotive, social, or logical needs, thus crafting content that resonates deeply with them.

3. Stay Relevant

Relevance is the golden ticket in content creation – it’s all about aligning your messages with your audience’s interests and needs.

Ensure relevance by:

• Conducting keyword research
• Engaging in social listening
• Optimizing for SEO
• Reviewing internal data
• Experimenting and testing content variations
• Seeking direct feedback from customers
• Keeping an eye on competitors

Insider Tip from DMI: Utilize social channels for direct customer insights, and don’t overlook the importance of monitoring competitors and industry trends.

4. Leverage the Marketing Funnel

Thoughtfully crafted content marketing can significantly influence the customer decision-making process. By attuning your content strategy to the McKinsey model’s four stages, you can more effectively guide potential customers toward making a purchase.

Aim to tailor content and channels for each stage:

• Consideration: Enhance brand visibility and interaction through engaging SEO-optimized content.
• Evaluation: Cultivate brand loyalty through authentic testimonials and influencer partnerships.
• Purchase: Increase brand-driven searches, improve clickthrough rates, and lower cost-per-click metrics with heightened brand awareness.
• Post-Purchase: Boost upselling and renewals by aligning your messaging with customer needs at precisely the right moment.

Insider Tip from DMI: Creating content that’s both meaningful and relevant will lead to more shares and keep your brand top-of-mind during the customer evaluation phase.

5. Identify Your Core Topics

Your core topics, or content pillars, should represent a healthy mix of brand storytelling and commercial objectives. Employing a hub-and-spoke model allows for focused traffic growth and improved metrics across your digital ecosystem.

Insider Tip from DMI: Settle on up to four core business themes that balance brand and commercial content, ensuring all your outputs align with these pillars.

Here is our example of establishing content pillars for strategic guidance:

Bonus Tip: For fresh ideas on pillar content, explore tools like ChatGPT for prompt suggestions.

6. Adopt a Push-and-Pull Strategy

A balanced push-and-pull approach aids in maintaining effective communication with your audience, enhancing the likelihood of purchase decisions in your favor.

Strategize by:

Push: Proactively promote your content and brand across various digital platforms to generate leads or grow your community.

Pull: Attract your target audience to your offerings and create loyal advocates through SEO and referrals.

7. Implement a Hub-and-Spoke Model

This model organizes your content creation efforts around a central theme, facilitating better authority and relevance on the subject, thus boosting rankings, traffic, and conversion metrics.

Insider Tip from DMI: For instance, center your content on a broad, high-traffic keyword, then branch out into specific, long-tail keyword topics to capture a wider audience.

8. Generate Lead-Capturing Content

Focused on converting visitors to leads, lead-capturing content entices users to share their information in exchange for valuable resources or information.

Effective types include:

• Ebooks
• Infographics
• Original research
• Webinars
• And more

Insider Tip from DMI: The key to successful lead capture lies in offering irresistible value that matches the interests of your target audience.

9. Boost Your Brand Through Advocacy

In an era where ad avoidance is common, turning to advocates for brand promotion offers a genuine, trustworthy means to engage your audience.

Three groups can amplify your brand’s message:

• Influencers: Focus on micro-influencers or subject matter experts for authentic, high-engagement collaborations.
• Loyal Customers: Encourage loyal customers to share their experiences through reviews or testimonials.
• Referrals: Implement a referral program to reward customers for introducing friends to your brand.

Insider Tip from DMI: Identify and nurture relationships with key brand advocates and influencers who already engage with your content or represent thought leaders in your industry.

10. Establish KPIs and Track Success

Defining clear Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy, allowing you to adjust and optimize for better results over time.

Key metrics may include:

• Site traffic
• Engagement rates
• Lead generation metrics
• And others

Monitor Your Progress with Our KPI Tracker

To methodically gauge your strategy’s success, employing a comprehensive KPI dashboard is essential. Secure your copy of our Content Marketing Dashboard tool now.

“Proving ROI is fundamental if you intend for a business to invest in your content marketing efforts. This necessitates setting precise KPIs and diligently measuring outcomes.”
Mischa McInerney, CMO at the Digital Marketing Institute

Explore More

• Diverse Types of Content and Their Applications
• Your Guide to an Effective Content Calendar
• Emerging Trends in Content Marketing
• Audit Your Content: Tools and Best Practices

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