Do you ever feel unsure about what content to create and share? Do you find it hard to keep a constant stream of ideas flowing? It can get difficult and exhausting when you constantly have to think about new content that your audience craves. Do not fret, we’ve all been there! There will come a time when we start running out of ideas, but it’s not the end of the world. Pause for a moment, take a step back, and re-evaluate your content marketing strategy before moving forward again.
Documenting your content strategy goes beyond the surface of what content you’re creating. You need to ask yourself why you’re creating it, who you’re creating it for, what channels you’ll use to support and how it will support your content marketing strategy. Did you know that only 42% of content marketers document their content marketing strategy?
If you’re feeling stuck, here are 4 tips for choosing the right topics for your content:
Define and understand your organizational goals
Choosing the right topics and setting the right goals for your content starts with setting a strong foundation and gaining a solid understanding of your organizational goals. Why do you have a content marketing strategy in the first place? For many B2B and B2C companies and brands, the leading organizational goals could be lead generation, increasing brand awareness, driving engagement, you name it. This is a good starting point, and depending on the goals and needs of your particular organization, various types of content marketing are available to choose from.
Use your analytics
After looking back at the organizational goals for your content marketing strategy, make use of your analytics to pinpoint what your audience likes. If you ever feel stuck choosing the right topics for your content, select your top-performing content pieces and try a new spin on an old favorite.
Analytics can help guide your decision making when it comes to your content marketing strategy. A useful tool that many businesses are exploring nowadays is a fully integrated content management system (CMS). For instance, Hubspot’s content management system allows content marketers to create and manage their content at ease, optimize their content to drive results, and track the performance of their content.
You can also access your social media insights and analytics to make informed decisions when brainstorming new content ideas. Once you’ve identified your top posts, see if there is a common topic among them. Does a particular content type (e.g. text, image, video) consistently perform better than others? You may also want to analyze the level of engagement (e.g. likes, comments) on these posts.
Ask your audience
Asking your audience is another tip to help you choose the right topics for your content. At the end of the day, your audience are the people engaging with your content, so it’s important to know what type of content they are craving want to see.
There are multiple ways you can go about this. It can be as simple as setting up a poll or posting a question on one of your social media channels. Ask your followers what type of content they want to see and leave room for open-ended replies.
You can also let your FAQs help create blog topics. Taking a look at your most frequently asked questions from your target audience can help you choose the right topics for your content marketing strategy. Even when you feel like you’re running out of ideas and content, FAQs tend to evolve with trends. As time passes, the FAQs will change, shining light on new trends, challenges, and topics you can potentially address.
The role of the customer is changing and it’s time to allow your audience to play a part in shaping your content marketing strategy.
Define a goal for each individual content piece
For each content piece you create, evaluate the topic and see how it stacks up to each of your organizational goals. This will also help you select the right key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and measure. For instance, if lead generation is your leading organizational goal, the content goal should be aimed at appealing to the customer at different stages of their buying journey. In this case, content types could include creating e-books, white papers, or case studies. If sales is also one of your top organizational goals, it’s import that the content you choose moves the sales needle. Good content that moves the sales needle doesn’t just inform, it builds trust.
Let’s say brand awareness is another one of your company’s organizational goals. In this instance, your content goal might be to generate referral traffic. Possible content types to consider are guest posts or influencer content. For example, collaborating with micro-influencers can help you cast a wider net to increase your brand visibility.
It’s important that the topics you choose align with your organizational goals in order to deliver an effective content marketing strategy.
Mapping out and choosing the right topics for your content marketing strategy takes strategic planning. Get to know what content performs well and what your audience engages with the most. Don’t forget to document your content marketing strategy and make tweaks along the way as content trends evolve. Choosing the right topics is fundamental to developing and driving an effective content marketing strategy.
WSI was founded in 1995 and is an innovative digital marketing agency with offices in over 80 countries. We’ve spent over 20 years helping more than 100,000 companies and large global brands unlock the full potential of their business by leveraging the Internet and its many unrecognized opportunities. We’d be happy to help do the same for you and consult on your digital marketing strategy. Simply give me a call or email me at rknutsen@wsiebizsolutions.net to learn more.
