Does Your Content Management Strategy Reflect Your Business Goals?

A strong content management strategy drives traffic to your website and shows the personality behind your brand. However, it is equally important to ensure your strategy matches your business’ goals. The last thing you want to do is put a message out there that goes against everything you stand for as a company.

Content marketing gets about three times as many leads per dollar spent as paid search. The average consumer is tired of blatant promotion, click-bait advertising and in-your-face urgent messaging. The reason content marketing does so much better is because it provides value to the consumer even if they choose not to buy from you.

To get the most value from your content, you must make sure it aligns with your goals as a company. Here are seven key ways you can make sure your content management strategy matches your business goals.

1. Target the Right Audience

If your goal is to attract younger readers, then the content needs to be geared to younger readers. Understand that millennials, for example, are very mobile-savvy and are most likely to access your site via a smartphone. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly.

The content itself should be fresh and engaging for the intended audience. Really study your current site visitors as well as new audiences you wish to reach. Make a list of the types of questions this person might have that you can answer with your content.

2. Add a Variety of Content

It’s important to offer a variety of content that encompasses all your business goals across a wide spectrum. Most businesses have stated goals, such as increasing revenue by a certain amount. However, they also have unstated goals, such as putting the customer first or being a “green company.”

When you add a wide variety of content, you have the opportunity to reflect all of those goals across different pieces of content. Long-form articles gets nine times the leads of shorter content, so adding longer pieces occasionally is a smart move. People share videos more on social media, so don’t overlook videos as an important type of content.

3. Update Old Content

A big part of your content management strategy should involve updating old content to keep it fresh and current. Only 55 percent of blogs bother to update older posts. However, updating increases the likelihood of results by 74 percent. From time to time, invest in updates to old posts. Work in new studies, refresh the language and add to the overall length of the post.

4. Check Your Tone

What is the overall personality of your brand? Does that match your goals as a business? For example, if you run a clothing label aimed at younger people, then your personality is likely lighter and more care-free than if you run a financial institution geared toward senior citizens. Make sure your tone matches your goals and personality as a brand. This applies to the tone of articles written for your site, videos and anything you put out on social media with your brand name behind it.

5. Publish Frequently

Hiring writers and consistently publishing content costs money. It’s tempting to get a collection of content in place and then stop. However, businesses that publish 16 or more posts a month get about three and a half times the exposure than those who publish four or fewer articles a month. If you want to drive traffic to your site and gain new leads, it’s important to publish new content and publish it often.

This is where your content management strategy comes into play. Create an editorial calendar that covers major holidays you can tie content into, brand news and seasonal topics you’d like to cover. For example, if you keep up your church’s website, then you should plan ahead for summer with articles about taking your kids to vacation bible school or summer fun for Christian families. If you own a bakery, plan ahead for June weddings and post content in the early spring about choosing the perfect wedding cake.

A good editorial calendar is flexible. You can easily move things around if some other type of content is urgent, but a calendar gives you a plan to work from.

6. Use Your USP

What is your brand’s unique selling proposition (USP)? What makes you stand out from the competition? Perhaps you offer free shipping and no one else does. Perhaps your customer service truly is the best. Perhaps you have yet to find a USP.

It’s important to define exactly what makes your brand unique and how it aligns with your goals as a business. If your goal is to offer the best customer service on the planet, then your USP should tie into that goal. In turn, your content should reflect that you have the best customer service on the planet.

Write a post about a customer service rep who went above and beyond for their customer or add a testimonial from that customer. Better yet, do a video interview with the customer and share it.

7. Hold Your Content up to Scrutiny

While 88 percent of businesses in the United States participate in content marketing, a mere 32 percent feel their strategy is effective. If you’re investing time and resources into producing content that reflects your goals as a brand, you need to also invest time into ensuring that content is working for your business.

Take the time to do an audit of your content marketing. Study the analytics to see what’s getting good results and what needs to go. Slash ruthlessly. If you thought adding funny memes to your social media feed would grab the attention of your target audience but those memes fell flat, put your time and energy elsewhere.

A good content strategy is one that gets results either quickly or over time. If something isn’t working, then it needs to go so you can make room for something that does.

Business Goals and Content

Figuring out the best way to mesh your business goals and your content strategy isn’t always easy. Look at everything you produce through the lens of what you want for your business. This means you may need to occasionally make tough decisions and cut content you like and feel has value, but simply isn’t performing the way you expected.

Be open to ideas from your customers and strive to show off who you are as a brand and why your customers should follow you for the long term. With that type of strategy in place, you’re sure to find success with your content marketing.