Creating a content marketing strategy can be an incredibly difficult process, especially if you’re unsure of you you’re targeting, or what you’re trying to achieve. An effective content strategy is an invaluable resource, helping to structure and drive your content campaign. In this video, James explains everything you need to know about creating a winning content marketing strategy, and how you can go about putting together a plan that works for your business. Target Audience Firstly, James explains the importance of understanding your target audience. Whilst there are countless methods of targeting the right audience, a few highlights James includes are creating buyer personas and utilising data from Google Analytics. You can use tools like YouGov Profiler: https://yougov.co.uk/profiler#/ to gain a clearer view of your audience’s interests, likes and habits, and apply this information to different stages throughout your buying cycle. You can also pull audience reports from Google Analytics, which provide valuable key demographic data, including location and the sites your audience are also visiting. Building Goals Now you understand who it is you’re going to be aiming your content towards, you can formulate worthwhile goals and objectives for your content marketing campaign. These goals will vary depending on your own business values and marketing plans, as well who you’re trying to reach with your work. Your content marketing goals could be targeted towards gaining more followers, increasing traffic, boosting social shares or driving conversions; it will all depend on your business’ needs. Whichever goal you select, you’ll then need to formulate objectives to help you achieve them. You goal is what you’re aiming for; your objective is how you’ll get there. The video above contains plenty of information on relevant objectives which you can set to help you achieve the goals you’ve set. Social Media James also explains the importance of establishing social profiles on popular social media platforms, in order to further build your brand, and boost your content promotion efforts. During this process, it’s also worthwhile searching for industry relevant websites, such as forums and blogs, which will allow you to gain an overview of current attitudes, opinions and issues related to your business. By engaging with key users and influencers on social and sites such as these, you can begin to build a loyal group of followers with an active interest in your brand. Content Audit Before you begin creating a new plan, it’s necessary to take a look back, and carry out an in depth content audit to determine what has worked, and what has failed, in the past. As part of this, you’ll also want to carry out a competitor content analysis on three or four of your key competitors, in order to get a better idea of what your competition are doing to gain traction. Details on how to perform both these audits are revealed at length in the video above, where James also explains how you can use tools like Google Trends https://www.google.com/trends/ and Google Analytics to get a better understanding of your previous campaigns. These techniques should provide you with enough information to formulate new ideas. Editorial Calendar An editorial calendar is paramount to your campaign’s success. It will allow you to plot what should be created when, and give you a better idea of the activities you need to carry out to stay relevant and up to date. Promotion and Measurement Finally, James explains how you can successfully promote your content using the contacts you’ve established, and measure this success against the goals you’ve set. Watch the video above for the full details, but for more information on planning winning content marketing campaigns, download our complete guide today: http://www.koozai.com/resources/whitepapers/the-complete-guide-to-content-marketing/ For more information visit http://www.koozai.com/seo/content-marketing/ For more information on our digital marketing services, please visit http://www.koozai.com/services/. Feel free to check out our other useful Digital Marketing posts at: http://www.koozai.com/blog/ https://www.facebook.com/koozai https://twitter.com/koozai