A solid content strategy is essential for driving traffic, generating leads, and supporting business growth. This comprehensive guide provides a step-by-step framework along with templates and tools to help you develop an effective content strategy.
Why You Need a Content Strategy
A content strategy ensures your content efforts align to broader business goals and helps avoid common pitfalls like:
- Creating content that doesn’t resonate with your audience
- Failing to promote content effectively
- Having large content gaps or overlapping redundant content
- Lacking consistency in tone, formatting, keywords, etc.
With a documented content strategy, you can optimize the impact of your content to support key marketing objectives.
How to Build Your Content Strategy
Follow these steps to develop a high-level strategy, tactical content plan, and processes to activate your content.
Phase 1 – Strategic Foundations
This first phase focuses on aligning with business goals, defining your audience, analyzing competitors, and determining your content format mix.
Set Goals
- What specific business goals will your content support? (e.g. increase leads by 30%)
- Define success metrics and KPIs to track.
Understand Audience Needs
- Document your target buyer personas – pain points, behaviors, etc.
- Map out the buyer’s journey to identify key triggers and information needs.
Analyze Competitors and Industry
- Review competitors’ content – tone, topics, formats, and gaps.
- Research industry trends and topics resonating with your audience.
Determine Content Mix
- What formats will you leverage? (e.g. blogs, videos, ebooks)
- Define the ideal mix based on audience preferences.
Documenting your strategic foundations provides direction for your tactical plan.
Phase 2 – Tactical Content Plan
This phase involves mapping out the specific content you will create across channels and formats.
Audit Existing Content
- Inventory your existing content assets.
- Assess performance – traffic, engagement, conversions.
- Identify content gaps.
Map Out Content by Buyer Stage
- What content is needed at each stage – awareness, consideration, decision?
- Fill out a content calendar with topics and formats.
Define Promotional Strategy
- How will you promote and distribute content?
- What percentage of effort will go towards repurposing vs. creating new content?
Document Guidelines
- Content tone, voice, formatting, approvals, etc.
- Ensure consistency across content outputs.
Your tactical content plan provides a blueprint for what content to create and how to effectively promote it.
Phase 3 – Activation and Governance
This final phase focuses on executing your content plan and establishing processes to enable ongoing optimization.
Create Workflow and Roles
- Map out a detailed workflow from request to distribution.
- Define roles – who writes, approves, promotes, and measures performance?
Set Schedules
- Plan your content creation, approval, and promotional cadences.
- Factor in repurposing existing content as well.
Implement Technology and Tools
- CMS, collaboration tools, calendaring, analytics etc.
- Pick the right tech stack to support your strategy.
Measure and Optimize
- Put in place metrics and reporting to analyze content performance.
- Surface insights to help optimize your strategy and approach.
Strong governance ensures consistent, high-quality execution of your content strategy over time.
Content Strategy Toolkit
Leverage these templates and tools to accelerate developing your content strategy:
Goal Planning Worksheet
- Set objectives, success metrics, and strategic alignment
Buyer Persona Template
- Map out audience needs, behaviors, and content preferences
Content Audit Spreadsheet
- Inventory existing assets and analyze performance
Editorial Calendar Template
- Plan and schedule content across formats
Content Style Guide
- Document guidelines for tone, branding, keywords, etc.
Content Promotion Checklist
- Tactics to distribute and amplify content reach
Content Performance Dashboard
- Track KPIs and metrics to inform optimization
Team Roles & Responsibilities Matrix
- Clearly define content workflow and ownership
Request for Content Intake Form
- Streamline content ideation and request process
Leveraging these templates will help accelerate your content strategy development and remove guesswork through proven frameworks.
Key Takeaways and Next Steps
- Align content efforts to broader business goals.
- Map out the buyer’s journey and content needs for each stage.
- Conduct competitor analysis to identify content gaps.
- Create an editorial calendar and document content guidelines.
- Promote and distribute content across multiple channels.
- Measure performance and continuously optimize.
Developing a documented content strategy and tactical plan enables you to create high-impact content that resonates. Dedicate time upfront to research your audience, analyze competitors, and map out content. Utilize the templates provided to streamline strategy development. With a solid content strategy in place, you can effectively attract, engage, and convert your target audience.