When you don’t have time to waste, here’s how to build an A+ content marketing strategy fast.
Key takeaways:
- Great results take time, but sometimes you need to move fast on your content marketing strategy.
- It’s possible to bang out a great content marketing strategy fast without sacrificing quality – it just takes some careful thought and planning.
- Once your content strategy is in place, don’t forget to follow up with excellent content!
It’s no secret that good results take time – but what if you have to move fast? When time is of the essence, you can still break out an A+ content marketing strategy that works.
Getting your content marketing roadmap up and running fast means you’re that much closer to getting the kickass results you want… but you have to think through your plan just as much as you would on any timeline. Putting together a haphazard strategy won’t do anything but put you behind.
When you move fast, it’s even more important to have a structure in place for how you’ll build your strategy from the ground up. Having a plan lets you move quickly without leaving any of the important details in the dust.
The truth is you can get a kickass content marketing strategy on the road in just 24 hours without sacrificing quality. Here’s how to get started.
6 tips for creating a content marketing strategy fast
According to Review 42, only 1 in 5 marketers know the best way to run a content marketing campaign. That means 4 in 5 marketers are winging it!
It’s no secret that winging it is generally not the best way to get results, even if you’re moving fast. (Especially if you’re moving fast!)
You can put yourself in a better position to succeed without investing too much time by following these 6 easy steps:
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Know your audience
You can’t have an effective content marketing plan without knowing your target audience, plain and simple. That’s why your very first step is to define who should be encountering your content.
Every product and service fills a need, and you have to know who’s looking for what you have. Otherwise, you’re blindly throwing out content and hoping it sticks.
Buyer personas are a great way to define who your audience is. A buyer persona is a profile of your ideal buyer, including their demographics, interests, and pain points.
Then, think about where they’re hanging out. If you’re targeting a B2B audience, you’ll have more luck finding them on LinkedIn and Medium compared to Facebook and Twitter, for instance.
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Organize your plan
Before you go any further, figure out how you’re going to organize your content marketing strategy and keep it all in one place.
Excel isn’t the way to do this anymore (unless you’re secretly a time traveler from 2002). There are tons of great project management software options out there; it all depends on your personal preference and needs.
For instance:
- Trello has a free option for starting out and is great for Kanban-style organization
- Asana works great for small to medium teams and has plenty of integrations
- Airtable is super customizable and appeals to spreadsheet lovers because of its database-style format
That’s only a tiny cross-section of the dozens of options available. You might need to try a few options before you find the perfect project management system for you.
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Brainstorm content ideas
Once you’ve got your organizational system in place, it’s time to start coming up with ideas for your content. At this stage, don’t worry about fleshing out anything perfect. Right now, you just want the bones of some great ideas so you have some direction when you come back to this part later.
There are two easy ways to do that:
- Get content ideas from tools: You can generate content ideas using tools that suggest keywords and topics. Some favorites include Ahrefs, SEMrush, Buzzsumo, and Answer the Public. This method gives you a leg up by ensuring you’re writing what people actually want to read.
- Look at the competition’s content: Looking at what everyone else is doing can give insight into what works and what doesn’t. For instance, try searching for a variation of your topic or keyword on Google or YouTube and see what kind of content comes up on the first page.
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Build out your keyword strategy
Now it’s time to take those content ideas and figure out how to make them perform. If your brainstorm didn’t yield keywords, then you’ll want to assign keywords now. If you do have keywords already, do some research to figure out if those keywords are ones that will perform well.
Hint: You want to target low-competition keywords. These are usually called long-tailed keywords – they get their name from the fact that they’re usually short phrases instead of single words.
For instance, “marketing” is a short-tailed keyword (and high-competition), but “content marketing strategy” is a long-tailed keyword that’s a better target.
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Don’t forget images
Part of your strategy should include a process for editing and creating images for all your content, from ads to blogs and beyond. Audiences respond better to content that has graphics, and you should be taking advantage of anything that can keep their attention on your content.
Your process can be as simple as downloading a premium image from iStock, or it can be as complicated as creating design instructions and assigning custom image work out to a designer.
Either way, you should know ahead of time how you’re going to handle images (including organization – will you attach graphics to a Trello card or download them to a Drive folder?).
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Stick to a calendar
You need to know when you’re going to publish your content to have a timely process for everything that comes before publication.
For instance, before you post a blog, that piece of content has to go through:
- Research
- Drafting
- Editing
- Graphic design
- Final review
By assigning publication dates in a content calendar (you can do this on your project management platform, like Trello or Asana), you can work backward to decide when each other step needs to take place.
Pro tip: Your strategy depends on kickass content quality
Of course, a kickass content strategy needs content that can live up to your expectations. If you put all the effort into strategic planning and don’t actually make sure your content is fabulous, then your strategy is as good as useless.
After all, the best strategy in the world goes nowhere without the content to back it up. You can have the world’s best content strategy and still struggle to get results if your actual content is mediocre.
On the other hand, fabulous content can propel your results to new heights … but how do you build great content fast when you’re already juggling strategy?
That’s where ContentBacon can help. Our team of expert writers, editors, and content strategists works together to create sizzling content that speaks your truth and tells your story in your voice.
Need a hand? Here's a free DIY Content Strategy Workbook to learn how tasty content can propel your strategy to success!
