Content marketing strategy guide – 7 steps to success
7 steps to success with your content marketing to strategically support business growth
How will this content marketing strategy guide help me and my business?
A well-defined content marketing strategy delivers far more than improvements to individual channels such as SEO, social media, or email marketing. Instead, it provides a unified, multichannel approach that aligns all your digital communications to support customer acquisition, retention, and growth. By integrating activities across the full customer lifecycle, it reduces the need for separate, disconnected plans and ensures consistency of message and purpose. Crucially, a content strategy helps tackle one of today’s greatest marketing challenges, sustaining customer engagement across numerous channels and audiences with limited attention. Through relevant, optimized, and discoverable content, it enhances your brand’s visibility and authority wherever audiences are researching and making decisions.
In this guide, we explain how to use content marketing more strategically to support business growth. Through following a strategic content marketing process structured around our seven pillars of content marketing, your activities will be more closely aligned with your objectives to show demonstrable return on marketing investment (ROMI).
Who is this guide for?
This guide is designed for content marketers agencies, and business owners who want a clear, structured process for managing content marketing strategy. It’s ideal for anyone managing content directly or marketing managers looking to improve consistency, accountability, and performance in the results from all forms of content.
How is the guide structured?
This guide is structured using a tried, tested and trusted content marketing strategy planning process developed by Stephen Bateman. The methodology encompasses five stages, broken down into the seven steps in this guide:
- Step 1. Content marketing capability audit and setting goals
- Step 2. Define audiences and personas
- Step 3. Define your content marketing strategy
- Step 4. Editorial management
- Step 5. Create compelling content for your content hub
- Step 6. Content distribution
- Step 7. Evaluate and measure ROI
The guide also includes links to further guidance and templates, such as our content marketing playbook and editorial calendar, so you can apply your learnings directly for your own business activities.
Resource Details
- Authors: Dr. Dave Chaffey and Stephen Bateman
- Format: Downloadable PDF guide, 97 pages
About the authors
Dr. Dave Chaffey
Dave is co-founder of Smart Insights and creator of the Smart Insights RACE Planning Framework. He has consulted and trained for many businesses including large international B2B and B2C brands including 3M, BP, Barclaycard, Dell, Confused.com, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, M&G Investment, Rentokil Initial, O2, Royal Canin (Mars Group) plus many smaller businesses. For his full profile, or to connect on LinkedIn or other social networks, see the About Dave Chaffey profile page on Smart Insights. Dave is author of 5 bestselling books on digital marketing including Digital Marketing Excellence and Digital Marketing: Strategy, Implementation and Practice. He has been recognized by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as one of 50 marketing ‘gurus’ worldwide who have helped shape the future of marketing.
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