The 5 Fundamentals of Building Your 2017 Content Strategy

by | Dec 12, 2016 | Content Strategy | 0 comments

The 5 Fundamentals of Building Your 2017 Content Strategy

Is one of your New Year’s resolutions to increase your online marketing abilities for your business?

If you want to develop an effective content marketing strategy for 2017 you aren’t alone.

Forbes reports only 37 percent of B2C marketers were on target in 2016 for their content strategies.

To help you become a part of the marketers headed in the right direction, here are five steps for creating a content strategy.

  1. Decide who your target audience is. This includes each user type you are marketing to for the year. Create user personas for each user; Usability.gov is a good place to start for developing personas.
  2. Define the ‘what’ of your existing content. What are you offering your target users, and what do you lack? The best way to figure this out is via a content audit. Be prepared to do a content inventory, organize it, and determine its success.
  3. Fill in the content gaps. Develop an editorial calendar of what you plan to publish content-wise in 2017. Determine which types of content, i.e. social media posts, blog articles, videos, etc., you’ll want to include on a regular basis. Pencil in dates, titles, SEO info, and your user personas for each piece of content.
  4. Leave space for growth. In addition to leaving room for growth, keep in mind restructuring, and the unpredictable world of social media within your strategy. While your 2017 content strategy needs to be well-planned, you also need to be able to roll with the unexpected. One way to remedy this is with content reach evaluations on a month-by-month basis.
  5. Call in the experts when needed. If you are feeling unsure of your content strategy hiring a content strategist can be your best move for 2017.

Take advantage of content marketing educational opportunities, such as the Content Marketing Conference 2017.

Held in Boston in April 2017, this conference timing is ideal for any content marketer who needs to ramp up their strategy for the rest of the year.

Miranda B is one our talented 6-star freelance writers here at WriterAccess. If you’re looking for top Marketing freelance writers and content strategists, learn more about how our platform works here.