When it comes to creating your own content marketing strategy there are a lot of factors to consider.

Where I work, planning and running a content marketing strategy really requires an clear understanding of what available resources and assets are already in place as well as how existing functions already engage with and build relationships with potential partners and consumers.
Understand where to go

Once I know what and which tools are at my disposal as well as understanding my limitations, especially budgetary concerns, it will become easier to move onto the next phase of establishing a coherent content marketing strategy allowing me the a clearer view of the ‘bigger picture’ to focus efforts on exploiting gaps and opportunities where I see fit.

Explore

Recently, one of the first questions I asked myself whilst thinking about my content marketing strategy was what demographic am I focusing on? Working in the igaming and bingo affiliate market I focused on our specific segmentation of that market. Having worked on social media campaigns as well as various blogging and outreach projects in this niche I new the areas to explore such as the type of social media they frequent, their times of activity on them and the trends they like to follow. With this sort of targeting you can develop a deeper understanding of your audience. This will prove key later on.
Understand your audience

I would recommend that you focus on the things that seem to matter to them (your audience) and then focus on how they receive and consume that content. At this point it is vitally important to record this as you may discover later on, at great expense, that your specific target audience may not be receptive to content marketing. From experience I am much less likely to find Bingo players on say ‘Vine’ or ‘Snapchat’ than I would on Facebook. But, that’s not to say that trend wouldn’t change in the near future.

Experiment

Once that information is acquired and processed, it’s time to find the platforms that will work best for you to outreach your content with, yI recommend that you experiment with different types of content on different platforms. Make sure you keep up with trends and consistently monitor your targets behaviour as this does have a tendency to change dramatically, although having said that, bingo players know what they like, and I would argue that they tend to shift less.

To surmise my points:

Understand your existing business practices in relation to content creation and evaluate their effectiveness.
Work out the best Return of Investment practice from the above – test, test, test!
Audit the rest, find gaps in your strategy – this will be an ongoing process…
Ensure the content is focused towards your core audience -vital, but often overlooked.Establish your position – at what point does your expertise and the consumer’s requirements meet?

So, once you have that information you can move on to asking the next set of questions.

Understand the your audience
What do they buy?
What do they care about?
How do they receive their content?

Understand the demographic.
Create a workable plan
Ensure you are able to receive constant comments and feedback.
Keep an eye on your results.
Adapt and change to keep your finger on the pulse.
Schedule work consistently – think about using an editorial calendar?

Of course, my approach may be different to yours and I’d be more than happy to hear from you if it is? Maybe you work in a similar field as me and have a few tips and tricks of your own…I’d love to hear from you.

In the mean time let me know how you get on below.

This post was originally featured in thesocbox.