Cost-free marketing with a content strategy; fact or fiction?

The biggest challenge of a content strategy isn’t starting up, as setting up a ‘cost-free’ marketing channel is easily done. The difficulty lies in persisting. The slump always hits after realizing the time and effort required to initiate a dialogue. That’s why it’s crucial to start by setting achievable goals and expectations before diving in. But how do you ensure you set realistic goals, and what role does content strategy play within your online marketing strategy?

Successful content strategy implementation depends on gradually becoming ‘wiser’

Before an organization embarks on its own content strategy, there’s often a phase of (un)conscious orientation. The initiator might have heard a success story within their personal circle or noticed a customer or supplier engaging in meaningful dialogue with a significant number of contacts. Mentally, the process goes like this: action + content = x followers/dialogue. The effort required is usually underestimated. Consider the following (successful) example:

Astrid van Ballegoy, a communication professional for a group of companies, has 1,300 followers, many of whom are from her company’s industry. Her effective reach is something many trade magazines would envy. For you, this could mean spending less on advertisements. However, before you conclude that you can achieve the same, take a look at her number of tweets; 11,454. This indicates that over a long period, besides her own messages, she responds a lot to her followers and actively engages in conversation. She has developed a habit, the habit of checking her accounts several times a day and responding. But she too started without followers and had to find her way.

In addition to probably lacking this habit, you’re also not geared towards regularly producing unique content, and your organization’s positioning might not align with these new media. These three elements are the core of your challenge. The successful implementation of a content strategy, therefore, depends on gradually becoming ‘wiser’ about these matters and setting the right goals to keep the challenge manageable.

You’re building a reputation that ensures immediate market awareness when launching a new service

As you work step-by-step on the content strategy, it’s crucial that all your efforts also contribute to your organization’s marketing goals. On the right, you see the internet marketing tree (via Mainline Media), with your own website as the trunk. This is the most critical aspect of your strategy, as all efforts must ultimately lead to concrete and measurable results, such as website visits or sales. You’re building a reputation that ensures that when you launch a new service, you immediately generate market awareness, and your sales department performs better. Additionally, new media increasingly contribute to your website’s search engine visibility.

Getting started with social media in 4 steps

Research – Survey the field, see which channels your competitors use and what they share there. Which of your customers and contacts are active and where are they primarily? When searching for key terms, which pages or profiles come up? You can draw important conclusions regarding size, turnover rate, channel choice, etc., all of which you can incorporate into your strategy.

Branding – Discuss and concretely articulate the role your brand will play on new media. What behavior logically follows from your positioning, and can you give some concrete examples? What impact does this have on your brand? By consciously considering this, it’s easier to articulate the strategy, and above all, it ensures you don’t have to retrofit your positioning later.

Strategy – What exactly will you do, which topics will you cover, and which audience will you address? What goals do you set, and how will these evolve? By directly linking the ‘how’ to the desired result, you ensure focus, making it easier to persevere.

Content – Creating content is a learning process in itself. Maybe you enjoy writing, but perhaps you find joy in taking photos or making videos. In any case, it’s advisable to have an expert review your output initially. The primary thought behind this should be: which content is valuable to my target audience? Plan the content creation, for example, by month, so you can create coherence between topics and ensure broad representation of your positioning.

Whole books are written on this subject, but these initial thoughts at least offer a starting point.