Producing a content marketing strategy doesn't have to be hard. Follow these simple steps to get started. How-to guide to content marketing management and strategy.

2. Goals
Content Marketing is a long term strategy. It
often takes four, six, or more months to
make any sort impact and short term goals
need to reflect this.
Realistic/obtainable goals that
direct readers down the conversion
funnel

3. Audit Current Content
Increase email subscriptions by determining
if you need…
An infographic
An ebook
More visual content
Etc.
Auditing your existing content lets
you find holes and determine which
content can be re-purposed.

4. Determine Baselines
(Starting Point)
Record current size and engagement in your
community. This gives you something to
compare with when gauging the success of
your content marketing.
Benchmarks
Leaders in the industry?
Leaders for specific tasks/jobs?
How do they perform?
Allows you to develop concrete
metrics based on benchmark
competitors.

5. Target Audience
Segmentation – Splitting off the customers
most likely to need/want your product and
targeting communications toward this
segment.
Buyer personas
Tailored messaging

6. The Conversion Funnel
From awareness to conversion, create content
related to each stage of the customer journey
to ensure effective movement down the
conversion funnel.

7. Understand Your
Purpose
More nuanced than goal setting, this is the
overarching activity related to your content
marketing.
If your purpose is to create brand
awareness, you’ll likely focus on
creating content that performs well
in search to bring in more prospects.

8. Develop an
Editorial Calendar
This is the lifeblood of any content marketing
plan.
What it includes:
Headline
Planned social network
Writer/Editor
Due Date
Possible Links
Keywords/phrases
Images
Publicize plan
Topic

9. Develop Content
The purpose of content is to tell your brand’s
story in a way that attracts and engages your
audience… It’s marketing that doesn’t feel like
marketing.
Great content…
Uses short paragraphs
Varies in sentence length
Utilizes keywords & phrases
Uses the active voice
Is proofread

10. Promote Your Content
In essence, all you need to do is create lots and
lots of search optimized content and you’ll
eventually feature well within the search
rankings for your market. This works and is
content marketing in its truest form.
Promotion also means:
Building your social networks
Sharing content created by others

11. Track Results

12. Optimize
Now that you’re measuring results, you
should do more of what’s working and stop
what isn’t.

13. Rinse, Repeat
The fact is, everything eventually changes...
Personas change.
The Google Algorithm changes.
Facebook changes.
You must constantly measure and
adapt your content marketing to keep
up with today’s standards and trends.