What are the most important factors to develop a content marketing strategy? Our guide outlines the key aspects, and adds tips to improve your content.
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Content has always been king. Why did you buy a magazine at the kiosk? Because of the content (the articles) or the advertising (the ads)? Because of the content, of course!
The reason why this saying has been used more and more in recent years is mainly due to the spread and mechanisms of the Internet. Google in particular has massively upgraded content, i.e. good and well-founded content. Nowadays, high-quality content is a prerequisite for being at the forefront of many search terms.
Furthermore, the difference between publishers (who used to publish magazines, for example) and companies (with company brochures and product information) on the Internet is becoming more and more blurred, because the websites very often offer both at the same time – be it the company websites that also do content marketing or the publishing websites on which a shop is directly integrated. In addition to websites, the same applies to social media (such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Co.) as well as video content such as YouTube.
In short: Content is king because it is loved by people online and is also prioritized by the search algorithms.
Key factors to develop a content marketing strategy
Does every company need a content manager or does it make sense to buy content? That depends somewhat on the size of the company, the scope of its planned activities and of course the goals it wants to achieve.
Whether it has to be a content manager in the company or at least a person from online marketing fulfills this role with part of their working time is not decisive. The only important thing is: You need a responsible person who follows a sensible strategy, keeps track of the activities and has sufficient know-how and understanding of good content marketing (and of course has sufficient working time available for the topic).
In principle, there is nothing against buying external articles (or other content). Since it is the quality and not just the amount of content that matters, a person responsible in the company should always set the briefings and monitor the quality of the content delivered. In this respect, external purchases are certainly feasible as a supplement, but not a substitute for a responsible person in the company.
Tips for good content
The most important thing to develop a content marketing strategy: look at the target audience! The quality of content stands or falls with how well the interest of potential customers is met.
Use tools like search to research which questions people are asking Google about the topic that your products or your brand provide. And think about what a print magazine should look like in terms of content (which topics should appear in it and how) so that people at the kiosk would spend money on it – if you can describe that, you are on the right track, whether your content is going to be in print or online! Do not forget the principles that are summarized under the catchphrase storytelling .
It may also be worthwhile to hire your own journalists if you are pursuing a more extensive content strategy. This professional group has learned very well to research, to question and to prepare content in such a way that it meets the interests of a target group.
And finally: don’t just think about texts! Pictures, a series of images (“the 10 best …”), videos, checklists, how-to instructions, case studies or white papers, stories in social media and much more are suitable for bringing good content to women and men.
