You may create thousands of posts for your website or blog, but then you may wonder why with 100,000 views per month, you business fails to get conversions, expected monetization, or ad revenue. The answer is simple. Your content is not strategic. In other words, it does not target the right reader or buyer with the right keyword in the right form and with the right product or service. You should achieve a perfect match between all these elements. That is why, you should learn how to develop a content strategy for your business growth following these steps with a template.
1. What Steps to Take for a Perfect Content Strategy?
Use these steps as a checklist for developing your strategy and start approaching your business strategically.
Step 1. Analyze the Audience
It is important to research your audience to identify what content can match their interests. Start with drawing your buyer persona.
| Buyer Persona | Demographic Characteristics | Psychographic Characteristics | Behavioral Characteristics |
| Age: Income: Gender: Education: Occupation: | Lifestyle: Interests: Values: Pain points or challenges: | Purchasing habits: Payment methods: Decision-making: Marketing channel: | |
| Audience for Generational Marketing | 1. Baby Boomers – 1946-1964 2. Generation X – 1965-1980 3. Millennials or Gen Y – Born 1981-1996 4. Gen Z or Zoomers – 1997-2012 5. Gen Alpha – from 2013 | 1. Hard work, orientation on results 2. Adaptability, flexibility, independence 3. Purpose-driven, team players, focus on life-work balance and diversity 4. Tech-savvy, entrepreneurial, socially responsible, focus on inclusion 5. Value personalized attitude and immersive experiences | 1. Brand value and customer service 2. Fast service, easy-to-se products 3. Decide based on peer recommendations and experiences 4. Need for product research before making the buying decision 5. Influenced by parents and in-person experiences |
Understanding characteristics of your audience can guide you in the choice of:
- Platform for publishing content
- Content form, length, and style
- Strategic focus
Step 2: Define the Purpose for Your Content and Strategic Focus
At this stage, it is time to use the marketing funnel that can help you define the purpose of your content:
- Top of funnel (TOFU) – drive awareness
- Middle of funnel (MOFU) – generate leads
- Bottom of funnel (BOFU) – get conversions
Be specific by formulating a content strategy in a SMART format. For example:
- Write 5 posts for the content pillar within 1 month to generate 20% more leads,
- Create 10 pins to publish within a week to get more followers,
- Send 10 emails to existing subscribers to increase conversions with a month.
Step 3: Create a Semantic Core for Your Content with Content Pillars and Clusters
If you start your business website or want to improve its performance, work on its proper structure by researching and writing down all keywords for each of these categories:
- Content pillar or cornerstone content – it is one of the pages for your main content, which will serve as a hub for clusters or posts: start with planning at least 3-5 pillars,
- Clusters – these are posts which should link to the main content pillar page: start with planning the first 10 posts for each pillar,
- Categories and tags – these are topics and subtopics that will help to categorize your posts; do not use categories as content pillars.
When you publish each content piece, always link posts to pages (that is, clusters to pillars) and pages to posts. Interlink each pillar and some posts.
Step 4: Plan Types of Content Based on the Goal and Interests of Your Audience
Depending on characteristics of of your target audience, consider creating the following different content types for implementing a successful content strategy:
- Blog post
- Case study
- Infographics and social media posts
- Evergreen content vs. trendy posts at a particular moment
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