Content strategy

Picture the office of a football team’s coach. Drawing boards with team data, printed player statistics and nutrition plans, screens with tactics, competition performance insights – all this creative mess, culminating into a perfectly-crafted game plan. The end goal – to dominate the field and, one game at a time, to compete for the major trophies.

Just as a coach has a game plan for every match and the entire season, as a business owner, you need a perfectly-crafted content marketing strategy to dominate your field.

A content strategy is a plan for achieving business objectives, whether that’s increasing brand awareness, generating leads, boosting conversions, or enhancing customer loyalty. Like the football coach’s tactics, it’s the blueprint for how you’ll outplay your competitors and win over your target audience.

Crafting the perfect content strategy

Creating a perfectly-performing content marketing strategy isn’t as simple as piecing together data and setting goals. Just the opposite – it requires determining your product or service’s strengths and devising a comprehensive plan to effectively communicate your brand story. It commands a deep understanding of your target audience’s needs, interests and pain points. Furthermore, it requires a bird-eye view of the market, including an analysis of your niche and competition and a clear definition of your brand’s unique value proposition. It also calls for identifying the areas where your content can maximize ROI. Alternatively, where you can achieve the biggest impact with the least resources.

Like a coach’s playbook, your content marketing strategy should be comprehensive, covering every aspect of your content efforts. It should outline what types of content you’ll create, when and where you’ll publish them, and how you’ll promote them. It should establish clear metrics for measuring success and set realistic, attainable goals.

Based on your business goals and available resources, you can choose to focus on a top-of-funnel, bottom-of-funnel, or full-funnel content marketing strategy. Next, ensure your approach to it is holistic and long-term.

The Devil is in the details: Content strategy execution and adjustment 

As the coach’s job doesn’t end once they have created the game plan, neither does yours. Designing a content strategy is just the first step. Equally important is its execution.

And this is where it gets tricky.

Content strategy execution is a complex and demanding process, and to make the most out of it, you need input from a skilled and experienced content writer.

Whether it is a simple blog post, an SEO-first content piece, a high-level technical whitepaper, a newsletter, a website or social media copy – you should make each piece of content count. Like a coach who uses each match as an opportunity to test and enhance his game plan, use analytics to understand what resonates with your audience and what doesn’t.

If a blog post isn’t driving traffic, see why. Are the keywords still relevant? Has the difficulty increased? Does it need to be updated or expanded? Should you enhance it with a video or a podcast?

If your competitor has launched a new product, analyze the way it is communicated and highlight why yours is still the best choice.

Situations like these require being flexible and able to adjust your content marketing strategy on the spot.

You have probably heard Mike Tyson’s famous saying that everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

The digital landscape is very crowded, dynamic, and demanding, with different competitors making moves all the time. As a result, nothing remains static for long. Flying high today doesn’t mean you won’t be crawling tomorrow.

So, even if you get that punch, it doesn’t mean you should throw your content strategy out the window. Adjust – like the coach changes tactics mid-game to counter-act the opposition, you should always be willing to analyze further and adapt your content strategy.

Content strategy is a team sport 

The ownership and the board of a football club don’t create the game strategies. Instead, they have hired a coach, specialized in this. And so should your company. Furthermore, the coach isn’t working alone but has an entire coaching staff to assist.

So, remember that you can’t and don’t have to do it alone. Partnering with a seasoned content strategist can offer invaluable insights, expert guidance, and data-backed strategies to take your content marketing game to the next level.

So, are you ready for the whistle? It’s game on – let’s get that championship title.