Marketers everywhere need to do more with less. Average budgets for 2023 have fallen, and 71% of CMOs believe they lack a sufficient budget to fully execute their strategies, according to Gartner. And CMOs still need to effectively contribute to their company’s growth in order to meet the expectations of their CEOs. 

Oh, and on top of that, CMOs still need to create content and run activity to successfully reach their target audiences since the business is still relying on them to generate revenue and awareness in the turbulent times ahead. Therefore, the question for every CMO around the world is: how can you do more, with less? 

Let me explain to you how a smart approach to content marketing can help you.  

Define and Create a Content Marketing Strategy 

Thinking about content intelligently begins with strategy: measure twice and cut once. 

Most businesses do not have unlimited resources when it comes to creating content, and, let’s face it, content can be pretty expensive and wasteful without a thoughtful approach to its creation. But a common mistake is to undermine the importance of having a well-structured and documented content marketing strategy in place, which according to the B2B Content Marketing 2022 survey report by the Content Marketing Institute, only 40% of marketeers have. 

A content marketing strategy is imperative to follow a specific process and ensure you are aligning your efforts to the business goals, targeting the right audience, and measuring the effectiveness of the content. Ultimately, it will help you to build trust and credibility with your audience and position the business as a thought leader in the industry. 

So, let’s get to it. 

Step 1: Identify and Define Your Why 

Every business has set goals and faces challenges along the way to achieve them, which is where content can help. Aligning what you are doing to the business goals must be your top priority when developing a strategy. 

You should focus on answering questions such as: 

What Are Your Business Goals for This Year? 

For example, if one of the business goals would be “Increase the total income of the company by 30% over the next year,” this would be something content could help by creating targeted content to generate leads and conversions. 

What Challenges Is Your Business Facing to Achieve Those Goals? 

Now, there will be challenges that are internal, and to which content may not be the answer, but if some of the challenges are, for example, “revenue decreasing by 20%,” this is something that content could help with. 

How Is the Marketing Budget Being Split? 

It is good practice to understand where all your marketing budget is being spent. You may be able to shift some budget around to support with your content or any other activity that will support the business goals. Understanding your marketing ROI is key. 

What Is the Differentiating Factor between You and Your Competition? 

Any business should know this, but writing down what sets you apart will help to start segment your ideas through the strategy. 

These are just a few examples of questions to answer. You should expand this list as you see fit with as much information about the business goals and challenges. Doing so will help you having an understanding what the needs and pain points are. 

Step 2: Create and Develop Personas 

To effectively reach your target audience, you need to understand who they are and what they are looking for. One way to do this is by creating personas (fictional representations of your ideal customers) which are basically niche groups within your targeted audience. Personas go beyond demographic information. Personas help you understand what your audience needs to do their jobs well, their pain points, how they consume content, and other details that will help you align your content with their interests and behaviours. 

Here’s what you should do: 

Review Existing Data 

Start by reviewing data that you already have on your customers, such as demographic information from Google Analytics, social media insights, and customer feedback. This can help you to get a baseline understanding of your target audience. 

Conduct Market Research 

Consider conducting market research to gather additional insights into your target audience. This can include focus groups, surveys, and other research methods. Here, you want to focus on psychographic information – really dig into their values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles. 

Create Detailed profiles 

Use the data you have gathered to create detailed profiles for each of your personas. Include information such as demographics, behaviours, values, attitudes, and needs. 

Validate Your Personas 

To ensure that your personas are accurate, it’s important to validate them with real customers. Consider reaching out to a sample of your target audience to confirm that your personas accurately represent them. 

Update Your Personas Regularly 

As your business and target audience evolve, it’s important to periodically review and update your personas to ensure that they remain accurate and relevant. Crafting detailed personas is your key to unlocking a “more with less” strategy. This involves creating fictional representations of your ideal customers, who essentially embody the niches within your targeted audience.  

Well-executed personas will inform your content marketing and help you to create targeted and personalised content for the specific needs and characteristics the audience. Having well-defined personas allows for a more focused and efficient approach to content creation. It enables the tailoring of content that resonates deeply, meeting specific needs and interests, thereby allowing you to optimize resources and get better results without spreading your efforts too thinly. 

Step 3: Define Your Content Pillars 

Once you have a clear understanding of your business goals and your target audience, it’s time to define three to six content pillars. Content pillars are the foundation on which where the rest of your content will be built or, in other words, the themes or topics of your strategy. For example, if you are a real estate developer, your pillars might focus on interior design, home decor and sustainability. These are driven by what you know of the business but also what needs and interests you have identified from your personas – don’t forget you are creating content for them. 

When you have a clear idea of what those pillars are, you can then think about what clusters go under each of them and brainstorm ideas for each of them – see illustration below. 

You need to leverage data to define these. You should have plenty of it from your persona research, but you also have content marketing tools such as SEMRush or Buzzsumo, which can help you identify key trends and ideas. During this process, you should also identify your best and worst content on your website, as it will also give you an steer on your pillars and avoid you wasting resources in content that your audience is clearly not engaging with. 

(Don’t forget to look at what your competitors are doing, too.) 

Step 4: Create Quality Content  

Now, while the previous step helps you to segment and organise your content ideas, you still must balance your quality vs. quantity. You will probably come up with tons of clusters and lots of ideas within each, but remember, we’re trying to do more with less. 

According to HootSuite, a good engagement rate for content shared on social media is anywhere from 1 percent to 5 percent. How can you make your content as engaging as it can be – and even exceed what is considered to be good? The answer: publish quality content. Rather than churning out a constant stream of low-quality content, take the time to create high-quality, valuable content that your audience will find useful. This could include in-depth blog posts, infographics, or educational videos. By prioritising quality, you will not only attract and retain more readers, but you will also save time and resources in the long run. 

Step 5: Choose the Right Channels 

This is key. Many businesses think they must be in all the social media channels that are available to be successful in marketing, but the truth is that they do not. This is one of the biggest mistakes which most times waste resources. 

For example, if you are aiming to target a B2C audience, LinkedIn will most likely not be your channel or if your target audience is 55+ years old, you should probably not primarily focus on TikTok. Both these channels require optimised content that will take money and resources away from you – definitely not what we want when trying to do more with less. 

To find out the right channels do this: 

• Ask your audience what their preferred social media are. 
• Look at Google Analytics to identify where your social traffic comes from. 
• Review the current social media channels you have and identify the ones with the most engagement. 

In sum, shift your focus and resources to the channels were your audience needs you to be. 

Step 6: Plan with a Calendar 

Organising your content effectively is essential when resources are tight and the goal is to achieve more with less. A content calendar is your ally in this quest. A content calendar (also called editorial calendar) outlines your content themes, channels you will use, and when each piece of content will go live. 

A content calendar ensures that your efforts are planned, well-aligned with business goals, and that resources are optimised. By planning meticulously, you can avoid reactive approaches that often lead to resource drainage and ensure that every piece of content is created and released with purpose and precision. 

Of course, there will always be reactive content that you will need to prioritise (would it not be great if we could see the future?), but a content calendar will keep you focused while allowing for times when you need to react to events that arise. 

As a result, your content will consistent, aligned with your business goals, and on budget.  

At Investis Digital (IDX), we have created a content calendar template to help you get started. rel=”noreferrer noopener” target=”_blank”>https://resources.investisdigital.com/editorial-calendar-template/ 

 

Step 7: Track and Analyse Your Performance 

Once you have implemented your content marketing strategy and created your content, it is important to track and analyse the results to see how well it is performing and whether it is achieving your business goals. This will allow you to make any necessary adjustments to your strategy and optimise it. 

To track and analyse your content marketing efforts, you can use tools such as Google Analytics, social media analytics, and marketing automation software. These tools can provide valuable insights into metrics such as website traffic, engagement, and conversions. 

Additionally, it is important to regularly review and report on your content marketing results to your stakeholders. This can help to demonstrate the value and ROI of your content marketing efforts and provide valuable insights for future planning. You can also use tools like Looker Studio by Google to help you with data visualisation. 

Adjust Your Strategy as Needed 

To wrap things up: it is crucial to have a well-thought-out content marketing strategy – always, but especially when CMOs are doing more with less. By prioritising strategy and investing in high-quality and targeted content, businesses can get the most out of their content marketing efforts, even with limited resources, resulting in benefits such as: 

• Increasing brand awareness with a smaller budget 
• Generating leads with less effort 
• Driving sales with more efficiency 
• Building customer loyalty with fewer resources 
• Improving website traffic with less investment 

 

Regularly reviewing and updating the strategy will ensure that the business is making the most of its content, maximising the return on investment, and achieving its goals during lean times. 

Now, content marketing is trial and error, especially in the beginning. So do not feel defeated when you do not see your content getting super high levels of engagement in the beginning – the key is to try different types and adjust the strategy as you go. 

Learn More  

At Investis Digital [IDX], we can help you create a content marketing strategy aligned to your business goals and audience needs by applying our Connected Content approach. https://www.investisdigital.com/company/contact Speak with one of our experts to find out how we can support you. 

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