How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy (+ Additional Tips)

Whether you're a seasoned marketer or just dipping your toes into the content pool as a content marketer, figuring out where to start can feel overwhelming. But don't worry — we've got you covered. This guide will break down the steps to creating a killer content marketing strategy that not only attracts and engages your audience but also drives meaningful business results. 

We'll walk you through setting clear content goals, understanding your audience, analyzing the competition and much more. We’ve also added a few bonus tips on leveraging AI tools and automation to take your strategy to the next level.  

Ready to transform your content game? Let's dive in!  

What is content marketing strategy? 

A content marketing strategy can be referred to as a core part of your marketing plan for creating and distributing valuable, relevant content to attract and engage a specific audience. In simple terms, it’s your roadmap to ensure all your content efforts are purposeful and aligned with your business goals. 

But why document your content marketing plans? Because 64% of successful B2B content marketers do so. Documenting your content marketing goals, content plans, metrics and learnings puts you on a solid footing and guides your next steps. 

With that sorted, let’s take a look at the steps involved in the creation of a robust content marketing strategy: 

Besides, your content marketing strategy should also include top tech trends and tools to attain higher productivity and lowered costs. Below, we will elaborate on all these steps, technology and tools to give you a solid head start in your content marketing journey. Read on. 

Steps to create a timeless content marketing strategy

These steps will help you create a content marketing strategy that not only meets your immediate goals but also adapts and evolves with your business. Let’s get started.  

Step 1: Define your goals 🎯

First things first, you need to know what you want to achieve. Be specific with your goals. Instead of just saying "increase traffic," aim for "increase website traffic by 20% in the next three months." This clarity helps in measuring success accurately. Next, ensure your content goals align with your overall business objectives. Let’s say, if your business goal is to increase sales, your content goal could be to generate 50 qualified leads per month.  

Next, map goals with specific and measurable metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure your success objectively.  

Example: If your goal is to increase website traffic by 20%, you might set the following KPIs: 

• Page views: Track the number of times your pages are viewed. 
• Unique visitors: Measure the number of distinct individuals visiting your site. 
• Bounce rate: Monitor the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page (a lower bounce rate indicates higher engagement). 

By regularly tracking these KPIs, you can see if you’re on track to meet your goal and make data-driven decisions to improve your content strategy. 

Explore More: How to Set Social Media Goals for Your Business 

Step 2: Know your audience 🔍

Understanding your audience is crucial for creating content that resonates with them. In fact, 47% of marketers believe thorough audience research is the secret sauce to successful content marketing campaigns. 

Here’s what you need to do if you want to create audience-centric content: 

Firstly, conduct in-depth audience research: Use surveys, social media insights and website analytics to gather detailed information about your audience. This includes demographics, preferences and pain points. For example, conduct a survey to understand your audience's biggest challenges within your industry and what type of content they find most valuable.  

Secondly, create buyer personas: Develop detailed profiles of your ideal customers. Include information such as age, job role, interests, and challenges. Example of a persona: "Sarah, a 30-year-old marketing manager, who loves reading blogs about digital marketing trends." Next, regularly update your buyer personas as your audience evolves. This ensures your content remains relevant and effective. 

Sprinklr offers Audience Manager to build holistic customer profiles, especially useful for advertisers keen to personalize their targeted ads. This happens by pulling first and third-party customer data from web, social, e-commerce and CRM.  

After creating an audience group, you can segment it by channel, device and region, to name a few parameters. Additionally, you can segment audiences by their engagement levels as well, such as active, at-risk, dormant and prospect. Tailored content will resonate with the audience, taking you closer to your marketing goals. 

Step 3: Do competitive benchmarking 📊

Analyzing your competitors helps you identify gaps and opportunities in your content strategy. Benchmarking the performance of your campaigns, content, emails, influencers and creatives against that of your competitors can serve as a reality check. You will uncover actionable insights to inform your own content marketing strategy. 

Now, there are two ways of conducting competitive benchmarking: 

1. Manually inspect all of your competitor’s content on all their channels to figure out their engagement rates, sentiment and publishing frequencies. This means combing through their blog, social pages, ads, emails and every other paid and organic content they put out, looking for red and green flags. 
   
2. Use competitive intelligence tools like Sprinklr to figure the above and how your brand stacks up. By leveraging AI and a unified architecture, Sprinklr is able to: 

• Monitor your competitors’ performance against KPIs like engagement, reach, followers, mentions and break down the share of voice between you and your competitors across 10+ social channels. 

• Identify their top-performing influencers so you can take a leaf for your own influencer marketing strategy. This way, you can learn from their fails and wins, risk-proofing your social media collaborations and locking in that social media ROI. 
    
• Uncover content ideas and themes that grab your target audience’s head and heart on overcrowded platforms. For example, if your competitor wrote a whitepaper that went viral, it’s safe to assume that their audience (which more or less overlaps your audience) loves research-backed content. Now, you can confidently jump on the same bandwagon and pour your resources into creating such content. Voila!   

Step 4: Audit your content 📃

A thorough content audit helps you evaluate the effectiveness of your existing content and identify areas for improvement. Here are a few steps you can consider while auditing your content: 

Inventory your content: List all your existing content, including blog posts, videos and social media posts. Categorize them by type, topic and performance. For example, use a spreadsheet to track each content piece's title, URL, publish date and performance metrics. Taking stock of social media content can be tricky owing to its sheer volume. Here’s a step-by-step approach to tackling social media audits.

Evaluate content performance: Analyze content performance metrics like page views, time on page, bounce rate and social shares to see what’s working and what’s not. That’s a lot of data to monitor, no doubt. Luckily, you have data-led content marketing tools like Sprinklr to do heavy lifting.  

Sprinklr’s AI scours through all your digital content to identify best-performing content and why it clicks. By pulling in data from third-party CDPs like Google Analytics, it paints a comprehensive picture of your content’s real time performance on web and social media  

You will know exactly how the audience responds to your content and creatives based on themes, tones and visuals. This way, you know which content to keep, which to refresh and which to discard. 

Step 5: Develop your content plan 📆

Your content plan what type of content you’ll create, when and how often you’ll publish it. Decide on the types of content you’ll produce, such as blog posts, videos, infographics, eBooks, etc. Diversifying your content types can cater to different audience preferences. For example, Sprinklr creates diverse content formats for popular topics, like this YouTube explainer video that elaborates on content plan creation 👇. 

With content plans, you establish content themes that align with your audience's interests and your business goals. For example, if you’re a fitness brand, your themes might include workout tips, nutrition advice and success stories. 

Additionally, use a content calendar to plan your content in advance, ensuring consistency and organization. This helps in maintaining a steady flow of content.  [Showcase CTA for social media content calendar Excel template here]   

Step 6: Produce content 📝

Creating high-quality content that resonates with your audience is key to a successful content marketing strategy. Here's how to do it: 

Research and brainstorm 

Start by conducting thorough research and brainstorming ideas that align with your content plan. This means understanding what topics are currently trending, what your audience cares about, and which keywords are relevant to your industry.  Use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush to find popular search terms related to your content themes. For instance, if you're a fitness brand, you might find that "home workout routines" is a highly searched keyword. 

Create engaging content 

Focus on creating content that is informative, engaging and valuable to your audience. Engaging content keeps your audience coming back for more, increases their interaction with your brand, and helps build a loyal following.  

Use a mix of formats such as blog posts, videos, infographics and podcasts to keep your audience interested. You can also use storytelling techniques to make your content more relatable and engaging. If you're writing about fitness, share personal stories of transformation or success stories from your clients.  

Optimize for SEO 

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) helps your organic content get discovered by people searching for topics related to your business. Higher rankings in search results mean more visibility and traffic. Use tools like Yoast SEO for on-page optimization. This involves using relevant keywords naturally in your content, writing compelling meta descriptions and including internal links to other relevant content on your site. 

Step 7: Content distribution 🌐

Determine where your audience spends their time and distribute your content accordingly. This could include social media platforms, email newsletters, or your website. For example: If your audience is active on LinkedIn, focus on sharing content there.  

Next, tailor your content to fit the format and style of each platform. Each platform has its own best practices, so customize accordingly. Use visually appealing images and concise captions for Instagram, while detailed articles work better on LinkedIn. 

Use scheduling tools to plan and automate your content distribution. This ensures your content is published consistently. Tools like Sprinklr social media scheduler and publisher can help you schedule posts across 10+ social platforms from one dashboard in AI-recommended best posting times to maximize your reach and engagement. 

Step 8: Evaluate your strategy 📈

Evaluate your content’s performance against your goals and KPIs. This helps you understand if you’re on track to meet your objectives. Let’s say, if your goal was to increase website traffic by 30%, check your analytics to see if you’ve achieved it. 

Based on your analysis, make data-driven adjustments to your content strategy. This ensures your strategy remains effective and aligned with your goals. So, if a particular type of content performs well, consider creating more of it. 

Deep Dive: Social Media Analytics Tracking: How It’s Done 

Step 9: Refine and optimize ⭐

Your content marketing strategy should be dynamic and responsive to changing trends in consumer behavior and market dynamics. It’s quite possible that a strategy or content type that is getting traction today may tank tomorrow. Continuous performance monitoring keeps you on top of trends and ahead of the pack.  

Refine and optimize

Read More

Additional content marketing strategies 

As promised, we will be delving into advanced tools and trends to elevate your content marketing strategy. Among top tools that smart marketers are using to scale and automate their content marketing, generative AI rules the roost. Here are some ways to use GenAI for your content: 

Leverage AI for personalized content recommendations 

AI can analyze user behavior and preferences and recommend personalized content to your audience. This can be implemented on your website, email newsletters and social media platforms. Netflix and Amazon use AI to recommend shows and products to their users. In fact, Amazon’s 35% of revenue is from personalized recommendations! That’s how powerful this tool is. 

Read More: Top Advantages of Using AI for Content Marketing 

Sprinklr has integrated with top generative AI models including OpenAI and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI to bring hyper-personalized content suggestions for different audience groups, themes and channels. Go, check it out 👉  

Use GenAI to repurpose and reutilize content 

An always-on strategy for content marketing means you need a pipeline brimming with content for varied platforms, themes, campaigns and objectives. With generative AI, you can easily repurpose your top-performing pieces into different formats for different channels. In addition,  In addition, GenAI helps with: 

• Language translation 
• Content summarization 
• Style adaptation 
• Content expansion 
• Idea generation 

Sprinklr AI+ — Your trusty GenAI sidekick for stellar content marketing 

Sprinklr AI+ is powered by Sprinklr AI, Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and OpenAI’s GPT models can help you create high-quality content quickly. This advanced Generative AI-enriched tool can generate entire campaign ideas, content briefs, hashtags and even channel-specific content. But remember, human oversight is vital when it comes to editing and reviewing AI-generated content to align it with your brand voice and ensure factual accuracy.    

Final thoughts 

And there you have it! The secret to a successful content marketing strategy is staying flexible and adaptive to the ever-changing digital world. Keep revisiting your goals, audience preferences and performance metrics to make sure your content stays fresh and impactful. By following the steps we’ve covered and embracing new tools and innovations, you’ll be on the right track to creating content that not only captivates your audience but also delivers real business results. 

Ready to put this plan into action and start creating amazing content? Take a tour of Sprinklr’s content marketing platform and kickstart your journey today!