Content Marketing Strategy Checklist

7 steps to create a solid content marketing strategy

You're just an alien from another planet until your content strikes a chord with your audience. So:

Collect data about your audience and analyze it
Create your target personas and content themes around the topics they're interested in

Here are some great tools to help you identify your audience and their interests:

Typeform and Survey Monkey are great for asking questions in fun ways.
Think With Google: Marketer's Almanac and AnswerThePublic help you with market research.
Google Analytics and Moz Analytics allow you to monitor your web traffic or other channels
CoSchedule's Headline Analyzer, BuzzSumo, and Feedly can help you to define topics and create killer headlines
Usepanda.com to find trending articles
Intercom's resources are a killer way to gain timely key insights.

RESEARCH

1. Know your target audience

Why are you bothering with a content marketing strategy to begin with?

For example, make sure your goals are:

Realistic: "I want to publish 1 piece of content daily." This is both specific and doable.
Measurable: "I want to increase our blog traffic by 5% by next month." There is a timeline and way to measure this.
Relevant: "I'll increase the quality of leads by providing valuable content that builds trust." This aligns with the business strategy.

Platforms like StoryChief help you meet your end goal, where you can create content and collaborate before distributing and tracking performance.

SET GOALS

2. Unearth your goals

"Who you are tomorrow begins with what you do today" - Tim Fargo

audit

3. Create an inventory

What do you have in-house already? Perform a content audit so you're not reinventing the proverbial wheels.

You can do this manually or use one of these great tools:

While you're at it, make sure to set your brand's tone and voice. Mailchimp's Content Style Guide and our Content Writing Checklist will help you level up your content marketing for sure.

Powering up your content marketing strategy is key. But before you blast off, make sure to...

1) Decide on your format:

For Brand Awareness: Social Media Posts, Blog Posts and Articles, Infographics, Videos
For Lead Generation: Ebooks, Case Studies, Templates, Webinars, Podcast

2) Decide on your publishing channels:

Social Networks: Hootsuite, Buffer, Zoho, Kontentino, StoryChief
Email Marketing: Mailchimp
Referral Marketing: Co-workers & Ambassadors
Content Syndication: StoryChief
Guest Blogging/Content Swaps
Promotion through ads and PR/Influencers Linkpizza.com

PLAN AHEAD

4. Get to planning it

manage

5. Document it all

A solid content marketing strategy yields documented and repeatable workflows. Get the right tools so you don't fall into the Black Hole of Content:

Visual Content and Workflow Diagramming:
- LucidChart
- Draw.io

Notes and List-Keeping:
- Evernote
- Microsoft OneNote
- Google Keep

Project Management:
- Trello
- Airtable
- Basecamp
- Asana
- Notion

You've got your content in place and you know where it's going. It's time to launch it.

But before you do:

Be sure your content is optimized for mobile.
Avoid duplicate content issues.
Prioritize using a Content Calendar.
Don't forget about SEO:
- Ubersuggest is super easy to use for keyword research
- StoryChief's very own SEO tool was ranked #2 of the day on Product Hunt. Make sure to take a look!

Now go and get your brand out there!

PUBLISH

6. Blast off and promote

Equally as important as the launch is nailing the landing.

You need to determine what works and what doesn't work, and where. The behavior of your visitors will dictate your future content plans:

Google's Campaign URL Builder is a gem for tracking where your visitors are coming from. The UTMs identify your flow of traffic.
Kissmetrics

Then you can go huddle with your team live or via Slack or Whereby and do it all over again!

IMPROVE

7. Measure your landings

Question:

How do I create content that generates leads?

Tips:

No worries, we've got you covered!

Good luck with your
content marketing strategy's lift-off!

Disclaimer: We don't have any affiliate connections with these tools. We just find them very useful and think you might think so too.