The number one rule for a successful content strategy
The first rule of a successful content strategy is to create the content that your customers want to read or view. “No shit?” you mutter - and I get it, it sounds obvious - but believe me, there’s a helluva lot of content marketers out there who don’t. Instead, like some delusional, self-obsessed bore at a dinner party, they bang on without a thought to how relevant, useful or interesting what they are saying is to the person on the receiving end. Serving the right content to the right customer (one that needs or wants your product or service) is key, because unlike the dinner party scenario, your customers can escape your boring content with one click, their opinion of your brand diminished in the process. The foundation of you content strategy should be the question “how does this content serve our customer?”.
Get laser focused on who your content is for
They only way you can truly know whether your content is serving your customer is to get super clear on who your ideal customer is. Hopefully, you will have this information already as part of your brand strategy but even if you don’t it is important not to miss this step. It can be tempting to try and create content for ‘anyone’ hoping to attract a wider audience but more often than not this broad-brush tactic fails. The content ends up being too generic and by trying to appeal to everyone you end up resonating with no one.
Avoid falling into the trap of just using hard data or just relying on insights
The data tells you what your customers clicked on, bought and all that good stuff, but the insights (or anecdotes) are the secret sauce that tell you why they do and, as importantly, why not. Using one without the other will give you a skewed picture. Even Jeff Bezos CEO of Amazon, one of the most data-driven companies on the planet, has been quoted as saying "The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right”.
Make understanding your customer a habit
Getting to understand your customers is not a quick one-and-done action. It should be an ongoing endeavour in learning what makes them tick, what types of content they respond to (and what turns them off), what are the problems they have that your business could solve. Staying curious and listening to your customers will keep your content fresh and relevant as your business evolves.
What if you have no data?
If your business is a start-up, don’t let a lack of meaningful data or insights derail you from having a clear customer focus for your content. Start with broad assumptions and analyse your competition to come up with a few starting point target audience, then as you build a bank of data and have a clearer picture, you can narrow down to a target customer segment. Gather data by creating content to appeal to the starting point target audiences, then test what works and what doesn’t, course correcting as you go. Over time you will be able to overlay the results from your content with sales data and customer insights to really get to know who you are talking to. At this point you will be in prime position to create content laser focused on your target group - the people most likely to engage with and buy from your business. Your content will serve them and resonate with them resulting in strengthening brand affinity, increased traffic to your site and ultimately driving sales.