10 Actionable Steps To Create Content Marketing Strategy
By Sriram
Updated on May 12, 2025 | 6 min read | 6.23K+ views
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Content marketing strategy is the management of written, visual, and downloadable content. Effective content marketing strategies help businesses demonstrate their expertise in the industry.
According to research from the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs, 63% of businesses don’t have a documented content strategy. In a recent survey by SEMrush, conducted across 39 countries and covering all major business sectors, 91% of respondents said they employ some kind of content marketing strategies. However, only 9% are satisfied with their results.
Let’s dive into the factors behind this contradiction and explore how to develop a successful strategy.
How to do Content Marketing?
Simply creating content isn’t enough; you need a well-thought-out plan to make an impact. Strong content marketing strategies help businesses connect with their audience, build trust, and drive real results.
By implementing the right content marketing strategies, brands can improve visibility, establish authority, and generate leads. Below are key steps to help you create and execute an effective content marketing plan.
1. Define your goals
Why are you creating this content marketing plan? What are you trying to achieve with this content marketing? What is the end result and how soon you want to achieve it? Defining your goals will help you to focus right on that direction. The goals include what you are planning to achieve in terms of traffic, purchase, revenue, etc.
Examples:
Reach 1 Million traffic within a year
Improve ranking of your product page to increase clicks
Increase email new subscribers by 50%
Increase your lead signups by X% within 3 months
2. Persona Research
Without knowing your end users, you can’t create an effective content marketing strategy. You know to know about their demographics, qualification, income, online behavior, etc to create relevant content to target their various buying cycle. Regularly updating your persona is crucial to growing your audience. With proper designed persona research, you will have an understanding of the type of content your audience likes, how it will help them, what will make them care about it.
Read: Future Scope of Content Marketing
3. Analyze the existing content
Before you create any content, analyse the type the content you have, what type of content works for you and what doesn’t. Do a little competitor research and identify what type of content works for your primary competitors. This will give you a idea about what type of content you want to create to attract your readers.
4. Brainstorm Content Ideas
There are a few ways you can brainstorm content ideas:
- Discuss with your team to come up with new content ideas.
- Use online tools such as Hubspot Blog Idea Generator to collect new ideas.
- Use online forums and QnA sites to identify users’ queries.
- Participate in relevant online communities to understand your target users’ questions.
5. Find out where you want to publish
Once you understand your target audience, you must be aware of where your audiences are roaming online. So, you have to make a plan for your primary channels to lure them to your website. For example, you have to find out the type of social media channels your audiences use, types of blogs they visit, etc.
Also Read: How to become an HR Specialist in 2025?
6. Find the type of content you want to make
Content is not limited to the blog post. It can be Video, Infographic, Gifographic, Images, Memes, E-Books, Podcasts, etc. You have to decide what type of content you are going to create based on your business, persona, and platforms you want to publish.
7. Allocating Resources
You have the strategy ready. You are ready to rock now. Now its time to allocate resource to execute the part. Execution is as important as planning as a bad execution can kill a very well strategy easily. You have to find out who is going to create the content, List of tools needed to complete the task, are you going to internally create and maintaining the content or outsourcing it?
8. Create a Realistic Calendar
If you don’t plan and create a realistic calendar, things will derail very easily. You need to understand the various steps, your resource, and publishing numbers and make a realistic calendar and once created, need to be followed religiously. Excel or Google sheet can be used to simply create a content calender or you can employ calendar tools.
9. Now, Create Content
By now, you know exactly what to create, how to create it in a way to create maximum engagement and where and when to distribute it. Do in-depth research to start creating a content, get more ideas, do some original research if applicable to create content that can benefit both your readers and yourself.
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10. Distribute Your Content & Measure Your Results
Distributing your content will get you the results you want if handled properly.
- Share the content on your social media channels – when your readers are available.
- Share the content through email marketing – implement email marketing best practices to get better results.
No. The work is not stopped here.
To understand how this content worked for you, you need to analyse the results you gained. You need to compare the results with the goal you created. By monitoring and measuring you can tweak your content regularly to get better results. Also, it will help you plan your future content.
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Conclusion
By now, you have a clear understanding of how to create content marketing strategies that drive results. Follow these actionable steps to build an effective content marketing plan tailored to your goals.
Have any thoughts or questions? Drop them in the comments! If there’s a specific topic you’d like to learn more about, let us know.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. How to create a content marketing strategy?
To create a successful content marketing strategy, follow these steps:
- Define your goals and target audience.
- Conduct keyword research and competitor analysis.
- Plan and create high-quality, relevant content.
- Choose the right distribution channels.
- Track performance and optimize based on insights.
2. What are the 5 P’s of content marketing?
The 5 P’s of content marketing strategies are:
- Plan – Set clear objectives and create a roadmap.
- Produce – Develop engaging and valuable content.
- Publish – Share content on the right platforms.
- Promote – Amplify reach through SEO, social media, and ads.
- Perfect – Analyze and refine your strategy over time.
3. What is digital marketing and its objectives?
Digital marketing refers to promoting products or services using online channels like social media, SEO, email marketing, and paid ads. The main objectives include:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Driving website traffic
- Generating leads and conversions
- Enhancing customer engagement
- Boosting revenue and business growth
4. What are the 4 steps of content marketing?
The four essential steps of strategies for content marketing are:
- Planning – Identify audience needs and set goals.
- Creation – Develop valuable and engaging content.
- Distribution – Share content across relevant platforms.
- Analysis – Measure performance and optimize strategies.
5. Why is content marketing important for businesses?
Content marketing is essential because it helps businesses attract and engage their target audience, establish authority, and drive conversions. Unlike traditional advertising, it focuses on providing value through informative and engaging content, which builds long-term relationships with customers and improves brand credibility.
6. How often should I update my content marketing strategy?
It’s important to review and update your content marketing strategies regularly, ideally every quarter. This helps businesses adapt to changing audience preferences, industry trends, and search engine algorithms. Additionally, monitoring performance metrics can help identify areas for improvement and ensure content remains relevant and effective.
7. What are the biggest challenges in content marketing?
Some of the major challenges businesses face in content marketing include:
- Creating high-quality content consistently – Maintaining a steady flow of engaging content can be resource-intensive.
- Selecting the right distribution channels – Finding where your audience spends time online is key to effective content promotion.
- Measuring ROI and performance – Tracking engagement, conversions, and impact can be complex without proper tools.
- Keeping up with industry trends – Search engine algorithms and consumer behavior constantly evolve, requiring continuous adaptation.
8. How can I measure the success of my content marketing efforts?
To measure the effectiveness of content marketing strategies, businesses should track:
- Website Traffic – Analyze page views, unique visitors, and bounce rates.
- Engagement Metrics – Monitor likes, shares, comments, and time spent on content.
- Lead Generation – Track how many visitors convert into leads or customers.
- SEO Performance – Check keyword rankings, organic traffic, and backlinks.
- Revenue Impact – Measure how content contributes to sales and business growth.
9. What types of content work best for content marketing?
Different types of content perform well depending on the audience and platform. Some of the most effective formats include:
- Blog posts – Great for SEO and driving website traffic.
- Videos – Highly engaging and shareable, ideal for social media.
- Infographics – Visually appealing and easy to understand.
- Case studies – Showcase real-world success stories to build trust.
- E-books & Whitepapers – Provide in-depth insights and generate leads.
10. How can small businesses compete with larger brands in content marketing?
Small businesses can create impactful strategies for content marketing by focusing on niche topics, offering personalized content, and engaging directly with their audience. Key tactics include:
- Leveraging local SEO and community engagement
- Creating unique, high-value content that resonates with a specific audience
- Using cost-effective content formats like blogs, social media, and email marketing
- Building authentic relationships with customers through storytelling
11. How long does it take to see results from content marketing?
Content marketing is a long-term strategy, and results can take anywhere from a few months to a year, depending on factors like industry competition, content consistency, and SEO optimization. Businesses typically start seeing increased traffic and engagement within 3-6 months, with lead generation and revenue impact becoming more noticeable over time.
183 articles published
Sriram K is a Senior SEO Executive with a B.Tech in Information Technology from Dr. M.G.R. Educational and Research Institute, Chennai. With over a decade of experience in digital marketing, he specia...
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