How to Develop a Winning Multimedia Content Strategy
Depending on what industry your business operates within, you might feel hard-pressed to determine a successful approach to content marketing. But the real secret to crafting a favorable content strategy has nothing to do with whatever products, services, or solutions your company provides. Rather, exceptional content is created by following a specific formula that’s intended to bolster your brand, message, ideas, and every other aspect that makes your business unique and imperative to your customers.
Whether you’re a small startup operating out of a garage or one of the largest local general contractors in town, every business has the opportunity to produce a successful, well rounded multimedia content strategy that’s designed to generate more leads, traffic, and interest surrounding your brand and website.
So what’s the secret, you ask?
Here are a few tips to remember when it comes to building a better content marketing strategy from scratch!
Step 1 | Establish Your Goals
The only way to measure success is to define what exactly you consider “success”! That’s especially important when creating a content marketing strategy because producing content for the sake of producing content is essentially a waste of everyone’s time.
The easiest way to establish your content marketing goals is to ask yourself the right questions:
- Do you want to increase your long term lead generation?
- Are you trying to grow and nurture your email subscriber list?
- Are you interested in increasing your social media followers?
- Can you do a better job at improving customer retention rates?
- Are your website traffic numbers where you want them to be?
- How would you assess your overall customer satisfaction and loyalty?
- Could your retargeting capabilities be better?
Answering these questions and more will help you better understand and outline what you wish to achieve with your multimedia content strategy.
Step 2 | Define and Locate Your Audience
Every business owner appreciates their customer base, but can they say they truly know who they are? What makes them tick? What draws them to your brand?
Defining your target audience will not only allow you to create more engaging, relevant content for them, but also help your business better reach these existing and potential customers.
Let’s say you’re the owner of a health and wellness company that’s looking to attract more female clients who are aged 50 or older. According to the Pew Research Center, 73% of people between the ages of 50 and 64 are on Facebook, as opposed to 29% on Instagram and 33% on LinkedIn. On top of that, 77% of women in general use Facebook, over 30% higher than the next social media platform.
So what does this tell you exactly?
It's safe to say that creating and sharing content through Facebook has a higher probability of reaching your target audience than other social media platforms.
Once you understand your target audience’s location, you need to determine what types of content they are most likely to consume. If you find out that most of your preferred demographics are active on YouTube, creating tutorials or “how to” videos relevant to your industry can be an effective way to appeal to consumers and establish your brand.
If your SEO research reveals the top FAQs related to your products or services, incorporating those questions into your blog topics will make your website more visible online.
To truly create a successful content marketing strategy, you need to know what questions your clientele needs to be answered, what specific solutions they are searching for, and where and how they are trying to obtain all of these clarifications.
Step 3 | Construct Your Tone and Message
Boring. Useless. Uninspiring.
These are essentially the worst traits of any piece of content! To avoid falling victim to any of these common content flaws, you need to develop your brand’s tone and message from the get-go to construct a voice that truly speaks to your customers’ needs and interests.
You can seek inspiration for finding your tone and message through other examples of successful advertising campaigns. Taco Bell has a target audience of seemingly “alternative” younger adults, which is why their commercials generally feature comedy, absurdity, or talking dogs as the root of its content.
On the flip side, AARP only wants to speak to people aged 50 or older and typically inject more of a serious, comforting tone into its content when referring to more somber subject matters such as health or retirement.
You know your customers better than anyone, which is why the tone and message of your content need to be on par with how your business interacts with people in person or directly.
Do you want to come off as distinguished experts in your field or establish your company as a relatable, neighborly brand that would fit right in at a backyard barbecue?
Is humor an essential trait of any of your sales pitches, or do you value sophistication over being ebullient or jolly?
Crafting the voice of your content is another crucial step in implementing a successful content marketing strategy.
Step 4 | Analyze Your Competition
As the saying goes, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. The ways your competition creates and shares content will grant you keen insight as to what’s applicable to your own content marketing strategy, as well as what to avoid.
Let’s say you have a competitor who’s absolutely crushing it when it comes to their social media presence. Take notes on what exactly they’re doing that’s contributing to their marketing success.
- What types of content are they posting?
- What types of content generate the most engagement (likes, shares, comments, etc.)?
- How are they responding or interacting with social media followers?
- How often are they posting or sharing content?
- How do they incorporate hashtags, images, or other contributing marketing factors?
You can also apply these questions to competitors who are seemingly doing the complete opposite of ‘crushing it’ on social media, so you can understand what tactics or strategies to steer clear from. Applying successful content marketing strategies to your own unique, engaging content will only work toward improving your overall multimedia content strategy.
Step 5 | Stay Consistent With Production And Posting
Everything you’ve read up to this point will be completely irrelevant if you fail to produce and promote your content consistently. Whether you’re writing and posting blogs, producing tutorial videos, emailing newsletters, or all of the above, consistency is king when it comes to measuring the success of your content marketing efforts.
This is where creating a content calendar comes in handy, as you can continuously stay on top of how often you’re posting, what topics you’re covering, and what platforms you’re posting on to ensure you’re sharing consistent, well rounded mixtures of content. The more consistent you produce and share your content, the more engaged your followers and target audience will become.
Step 6 | Measure Results And Adjust When Necessary
The last step to developing a winning multimedia content strategy comes after you’ve already been producing and posting content for at least a few months. Just like any business strategy, analyzing data, measuring results, and adjusting wherever necessary is an essential component of creating a successful content marketing plan.
Be sure to take advantage of various reporting and analytic tools, such as Google Analytics to help you view and manage your content performance.
Some Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to always track and measure with your content include:
- Followers or audience growth rates
- Tracking likes, shares, comments, etc.
- Analyzing bounce and click-through rates
- Calculate website traffic, page views, or average time on page
- Examining sales metrics and ROI figures
The more insightful data you have at your disposal, the better you can analyze which aspects of your content marketing strategy are successful or could use improvement.
Complete Your Content Marketing With Triton Commerce
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will developing a successful multimedia content marketing strategy. At Triton Commerce, we work with clients from all industries to create and implement customized content marketing solutions that are designed to achieve the performance results you’re looking for.
If you’re interested in experiencing what a winning multimedia content strategy can do for your business, contact us today to get started on creating your free Digital Marketing Plan!