Summer provides the perfect opportunity to take stock of your business and optimise it for peak performance. Why not start with your content marketing strategy?
Are you still content with your current strategy? Are you happy with the results? Is your content marketing plan effective?
Content marketing is an ever-evolving process that requires constant monitoring and evaluation of strategy, especially when you consider changing consumer trends, competition, and the impact of artificial intelligence (AI). It’s important to stay on top of trends and deep-dive into the numbers in order to stay successful as a company. Let’s look into what makes summer the most opportune moment for an audit of your content marketing strategy.
Your audience is more important than ever in your content marketing strategy
As summer kicks into gear, this is the perfect time to evaluate if your content marketing strategy still resonates with your target audience. When you started creating your content, whether that be social media posts, blog, videos, or EDMs, you likely had a very specific audience in mind. You probably knew a great deal about them, their needs, and what they wanted from you. However, your audience is bound to have changed with time, there will have been changes in trends, consumer behaviour, and preferences. You may notice that your readers are changing.
So, what do you do?
You reevaluate what content is important to your audience. It’s possible to track their attention and interests to ensure they are getting what they want. Your readers’ interests shift constantly, so you need to be prepared to try new things and transform your content based on what they want. Social listening is a great way to start.
Social listening is a type of exploratory research that is used to observe and monitor current trends, consumer opinions & feedback, identify keywords, and gain background information on the company’s brand, through varying channels such as social media, articles, and forums. This approach can provide insights to help formulate problem aids, develop hypotheses, and establish priorities for future content. The key lies in knowing more about your audience.
Take a look at your numbers
One of the best ways to revamp your content marketing strategy is to use data to build your new strategy. If you’ve been keeping track of what content performs well for your audience, it's now time to review those numbers.
You want to base your content marketing strategies on data. When you base your strategies on data, you are able to scale content and you are able to reach a wider audience. This means more traffic and more leads. It's important to analyse what your numbers are telling you and make it work for you. Having the bigger picture from aggregating both qualitative and quantitative data will effectively enable you to pinpoint which aspects of your editorial strategy need updating. Data-driven content is effective as it’s tailored for your audience. Utilising data provides context for your content and thus allows you to serve your audience with relevant and valuable substance. HubSpot, a marketing software company, delves further into detail on data-driven marketing and is a great resource for more information.
Staying relevant and top-of-mind
Whilst it’s also important to capitalise on what content marketing strategies are currently working for you. It is equally as important to take calculated risks and try new content. This could include publishing new types of posts, adding new formats, revising your social media strategy, or even adding visuals, editing content, or editing posts to make them more engaging. Exploring a combination of content styles can bring new life to your posts, increase engagement with your audience, and grow your following.
Summer time gives you the perfect opportunity to start exploring and preparing your content.
Content is the key to success in today’s digital world
Content marketing is a continuous process that requires a lot of time and effort. This is why it’s important to keep an eye on your strategy and make sure you are consistently re-evaluating and optimising it. In fact, you should be evaluating your strategy every six months. If you notice that your strategy isn’t working, that you aren’t getting the results that you want, or that your audience has changed, it’s time to revise the types of content you’re creating.
If you’re not sure where to start, RAW CREATIVE can help you understand your current strategy, find ways to improve it or develop an entirely new one.
Click here to find out more about RAW CREATIVE’s services.