7 Easy Steps to Create an Effective Content Strategy

One of the primary goals of every content creator is to create an effective content that will reach a large audience, drive sales and turn in business growth.

Unfortunately, most content creators do not get to achieve this goal, despite the fact that a few others are actively creating content that sells.

So, the question is; which of these categories of content creators do you belong to?

Are you creating effective content that delivers expected results?

Are your content driving sells to reward your effort?

If your answer to any of the two questions is NO, then here’s your chance to fix your content, once and for all.

What is an effective content?

An effective content is a content that delivers a specific result for the content creator. That result could be driving sales, informing the target audience, creating brand awareness etc.

It doesn’t matter what it is, an effective content must achieve a specific set of outcome. Outside that, the content is said to be ineffective.

In my over half a decade experience as content creator, a handful of my content has generated sales in 6 figures.

The latest one led to a six figures sales in less than three months.

In all of these, i have observed that there are some specific elements that have stood out to make these content achieve the result it does.

And I’m going to share some of these important element of effective content writing with you in the following paragraphs below…

Know your Target Audience

From experience, if you want to create an effective content, you need to carry out some research that will help you to identify the right audience you want to target with your content.

This is what i did before creating the content that led to my first six figure sales. Knowing my audience clearly played a huge role in delivering that result.

Before writing your next blog post for instance, you’ll want to ask yourself, who’s my target audience?

Your answer to this question will reveal the people that will be consuming that content. And with this information you’ll be able to tailor the contents to fit in with the kind of content that appeals to this audience.

Going a bit further, as a content creator, knowing your audience helps you to clarify your objectives and position your content to target them in a way that they’ll respond to you.

If your business or content is targeted at a B2B company for instance, your objectives as a content marketer will be slightly different compared to a B2C company (Business marketing to consumers directly).

What this means is that your content marketing approach will be different. And you’ll know the right marketing approach to use per time.

Now before we proceed, there’s one thing I’ll want you to note here…

The kind of audience you have will certainly affect everything about the kind of content you’ll create.

It’s going to affect everything, from the tone you’ll use in communicating the content to the method of delivering it and the way it’s being delivered.

Identify your Outcomes

After understanding your audience, the next most important elements of effective content marketing strategy is to set out the objective of your content.

This is like the basis for creating the content in the first place. So, before creating your content strategy, you’ll want to ask yourself questions like, what do i want to achieve with these contents?

Remember, your content outcome does not have to be cut in stone. It can be anything from creating brand awareness, driving traffic, improving signups or increasing sales. Anything!

When you understand the motive behind your content, you’ll be able to measure its effectiveness or find out if the content has delivered on the result, after creating and sharing it.

Now let me quickly add this…

There’s a huge need to create a specific goal for each content strategy you create. This will help a lot in your final analysis of your content marketing effort.

It will also help you understand whether the content has been able to achieve the goal or not.

In a situation where you’re able to achieve your content marketing goals, you can find ways to consolidate on your results and create even better outcomes.

And if your content doesn’t achieve the expected goals according to your analysis, you can find out what got wrong, fix it and improve with future contents.

Address a Specific Customer

One of the biggest elements of a successful content marketing is that it strategically targets to solve the needs of a specific customer.

So before you get started, you’ll want to create a persona of the consumer of your content.

The results you got in step one above should help you. So if your target audience is a B2B company you’ll create a persona of a B2B consumer and tailor your content to be relatable to that specific audience.

Creating a persona will help you a lot in driving some better outcomes for your content.

This is because with the right persona, you’re not only going to understand the reality of your target audience, you’ll be able to speak their language and connect with them through your content, in a way that will make them Like, Trust and Relate with your brand deeply.

This can create a ripple effect that will deliver to you loyal fans that will support and spread your content.

And beyond that, they can also become paying clients, buy from your or recommend your product and or services to their friends and family.

Solve a problem

Another element of effective content marketing is that the content must solve a specific problem faced by the target audience.

Like I mentioned earlier, your content should be able to solve a specific problem if you really desire to create bubbles.

This is because highly valuable and problem solving content are the type of contents that draws attention

People go online to search for specific things. They ask questions on Google, based on what matters to them.

To get a sizeable number of these searchers over to your blog, you need to create content that addresses the things they search for.

Your content has to be made to answer some of this questions in a way that will make your audience to click through and read it.

Create Value with your Content

An effective content does not only address the need of its target audience, it addresses it in a way that adds exceptional value to the reader.

The reason behind this is simple. There’s a stiff competition out there in the content marketing world.

And for you to give your audience the chance to choose you over your competition, you have t create content that’s better than what your competition is creating.

So, go ahead research your competing creators. What are they doing wrongly and how can you improve on that?

Find out, are there areas they’ve not covered? And is there something you can do about that?

Taking a step to create an additional value in your content will drive far better result for you.

Be careful. While creating a valuable content, remember that some times, the value you create in a content is as important as its length.

Optimize SEO with the right Keywords

Optimizing your content for the search engine and using the right keywords throughout your content are some of the best ways to create an effective content.

Back then as a new content creator, one of the mistakes I made was creating content without search engine optimization or using any target keyword.

This mistake caused me a lot in terms of search traffic as most of the content I created at that time were usually not visible on the search engine, because they were not optimized.

So, it happened that no matter how good they were, a lot of these content were just sitting on my blog, driving zero traffic.

Now, that’s not the right way to create an effective content.

Optimizing your content with the right keywords allows you to include popular search terms used by your target audience while searching for items related to what you write about.

When done well, this strategy matches the keywords with the search term used by a search engine user, making your content more visible in the search result.

Demonstrate your Expertise

Readers do not just want to read content, they want to read content from experts. People who know their onions.

And one of the ways to create an effective content is to demonstrate to your audience that you know what you’re doing.

This demonstration can come by way of using case studies through your content. Sharing anecdotes based on a previous experience to buttress your point or sharing compelling stories through your content

Remember those days we read novels in school? How did you feel?

For me, whenever I read stories, it gets me glued to the screen. Distracts me from worries at the time. Makes me want to read to the end.

This is same with a content that’s filled with stories… Telling stories or sharing your case studies through your content is a great element of effective content marketing.

It captures attention. Makes your claims more plausible while bringing out the human element around the content.

As one of the most important elements of content marketing, telling stories ignites your consumers imaginations. Most times they begin to see themselves through your story and this increases their response and engagement with your content.

In a nutshell, your story should be able to capture the emotions of your audience. It should create both curiosity while positioning you as the expert that they should listen to.

Promote your Post

An effective content does not necessarily need to be promoted but promoting your content improves the effectiveness of the content.

It gets it across to many more people and this in turn improves the success rates of such content.

There are basic ways to promote your content which includes sharing across the social media, forums and niche based groups.

But beyond the very basics, you can also promote your content by collaborating with other creators, building back links, re-purposing the content for other platforms or getting guest posting opportunities.

The good thing about promoting your content is that it drives visibility. And i have noticed that for all my six figure content, in my experience in particular, increased visibility is one of the hall marks of content that sells.

Final Words

Creating a six figure content is possible. A lot of content creators are doing. And you can start getting this same results with your content.

But before you get started, you have to use the same elements of effective that’s worked for these creators.

Steps like; identifying your audience clearly, creating your outcomes, using the right keywords, creating exceptional value among others are some of the steps you can use to create an effective content strategy.

So, thee you have the 8 steps that can transform your content marketing forever. Are you going to take these steps?

Learn more about how to successful content that delivers expected outcomes by joining the Smart Content College here.

So, it’s over to you now! What’s the most effective content marketing strategy you’ve ever used? Lets hear you.