Create a B2C content strategy
Create a B2C content strategy
1. Write down your business and marketing goals, and derive your content marketing goals from those.
Set clear KPIs by analyzing the past trends or based on the overall marketing targets.
2. Make an outline of your content marketing plan in broad lines, mentioning your target audiences, positioning, channels and budget.
Create an executive summary with the higher level information and detail each area in a separate section. If you offer multiple product categories, write down the target audience, positioning and channels per category.
3. Research your audience’s behavior, reasons to buy and barriers.
Organize interviews to get qualitative data on their personality, lifestyle, culture, financial situation, decision-making process, motivations and barriers to buying. Run surveys on your website using a tool like SurveyMonkey or Hotjar, to collect this data. Do desk research and collect information about your target audience’s buying decision process and consumer attitude. Read reports published by research companies, and check online communities and social media platforms where you plan to distribute your content.
4. Segment your audience and write down per segment the factors that influence the consumer’s attitude.
Look both at cognitive factors and emotional ones. Determine which segment takes a rational approach to buying and chooses products and services based on budget, and which segment takes an emotional approach.
5. Decide what your message will be for each segment and create a main storyline to highlight that message.
For the segment that makes rational decisions, you might want to create content around product features and benefits, while for the emotional segment, you might want to craft a story that triggers their emotions and connects with them on a deeper level. Present yourself and your business as a solution to whatever pain points your customers personally experience.
6. Decide through which channels you will reach each segment and what content formats you will use in each channel.
Use both paid and free channels to promote your content and brand. Include influencer marketing, referrals and affiliates into your distribution plan, if it makes sense for your niche. Set a budget per channel based on past spending, or work backwards from the goals you’ve set in step 1 and determine the budget needs.
7. Define your content marketing calendar and identify what content needs to be created, by whom, and when.
Create a spreadsheet to keep track of the needs for written content, graphics, video and audio content. You can use a tool like Airtable, Asana or Trello. Include important events in your planning, such as holidays, national day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day etc.
8. Create a measurement plan to know which metrics you will track per channel or content format, with which tool and how you will do the reporting.
9. Create content for all audience segments and optimize it for the distribution channels.
Break down your audience by searcher intent and create custom content designed for each segment. For content published on your website, perform keyword research and optimize for informative or commercial search intent, depending on the content piece. For social media content, identify hashtags that are relevant for each content piece.