More than half of businesses (63%) don’t have a documented content marketing strategy. If you’re one of the 37% that has yet to get it all down and documented, keep reading. We’re going to tell you why it’s essential your content production is recorded and how to do it.
Define Your Goals vs. Where You Are Now
Write your mission statement. This should include your target audience, the benefits your content will bring to that audience, and how you’re going to reach them. Of course, it’s also about your end goal, whether simply an awareness-raising exercise or boosting sales.
Compare this with what you currently have (blogs, social posts), auditing their success rates and finding the gaps.
Agree Your KPIs
Make these measurable. It’s easier if your KPIs are specific, such as increasing social media hits by 50% or hitting a particular revenue target, or improving your search rankings.
KPIs exist to make it easier for you to see if you’ve achieved your goals or not.
Know Your Audience
You may already know who your audience is, but it won’t hurt to gather data on their demographics and how they interact with you. If, however, your brand wants to newly interact with a younger audience (Gen Z or millennials), you’d be wise to dig deeper to familiarise yourself as much as possible with these non-homogeneous groups.
We’re lucky; we’ve got unfiltered access to 2,000+ global U30s who tell us exactly what they think about brands, cultural trends and help us shape our content production work.
Find Your Medium
No, not a seance, find which platforms work best for your audience, whether it’s social ones, web, video channels, face-to-face, print or a heady mix of all of these. Of course, you may already have an audience on these channels, in which case, focus on which channels give you the best engagement and why.
This is also when you decide the types of content that; cultureBut, of-driven next-generation you want to crate and where you hope to encourage users to shart to.
Ducks in a Row
By now, you should have a good picture of what your content production is going to look like. You know what you want to achieve, who you want to reach, and the type of content production you’re entering into, from ads and blogs to videos and stills.
It’s time to allocate some resources. It’s no good if you have a long shopping list and no one to take it on. It’s time to agree on who will take control of your content production, what tools they’re going to need (e.g. filming equipment, studio space, and so on) and what the schedule looks like.
Some brands appoint a content production agency like ZAK at this stage, and sometimes we’ve found ourselves working with brands right at step 1; it’s up to you.
Content Calendar
A standard error is forgetting this step. You and/or your agency need to build exactly when content will be put out and on which platforms. Some people use Google Calendar, which is great if the content isn’t too plentiful. Otherwise, many brands use project management software tools, where you can see, allocate and share tasks in real-time.
Create Your Content
Now the clever bit happens. It’s time to create content that accurately reflects your brand’s personality and values and speaks to your target audience. Whether it’s editorial content, ads or video, they have to resonate and tell a story if you want your audience to stay with you.
This is also when you do your background research before creating campaigns, so you’re not simply reinventing the wheel.
Distribution and Evaluation
Last but never least, it’s time to launch or distribute your content, e.g. videos on YouTube and social media, copy on Facebook and websites and so on. Use email marketing to let your audience know it’s out there, let your favourite influencers understand what’s out there and ensure all your social media messages are fully scheduled, so nothing is forgotten.
Then you get to measure your content production achievements. For example, is your content reaching its audience, are your KPIs being met and so on.
Are you ready to start setting your content production strategy and plan? ZAK is a next generation culture driven creative agency, we can help, hello@zakagency.com
