Inbound Marketing Strategy: What is Content Strategy?

How Inbound Marketing Strategy

Will Get You Where You Want To Go!

All too often, internet marketers confuse Content Marketing with Content Strategy.

While you may use multiple marketing techniques within a strategy, you do not have to have a strategy when conducting a content marketing campaign.? The two concepts are not interchangeable. ?However, any good Inbound Marketing Consultant will tell you, getting the maximum number and best quality of Inbound Leads?requires a strong Inbound Marketing Strategy.

Marketing without Content Strategy is like driving in a strange city. There are lots of ways to go, but unless you know where you want to end up, you don’t know which road to take.

So What is a Content Strategy?

In simplest terms, Content Strategy is the mindset with which you can achieve your overall marketing goals.? Don’t think about your Inbound Marketing Strategy as a single, finite deliverable product but rather a long term journey toward success.

This road towards success will be the path you take using your own individual road map to derive the outcome of your?choosing.?? Be prepared for detours and traffic jams along the way as you will need contingencies in place to meet unexpected challenges that will arise.

Look at the Big Picture
But Pay Attention to Road Signs

Whereas traditional Content Marketing tends to throw massive amounts of Content out into the world and hope for positive results, an Inbound Marketing Strategy is more focused and labor intensive upfront.? It requires some detailed insight into the overall goals of the individual or organization.

What Should Ultimately be Achieved??

For some, that may involve increasing the customer perception of the company.? Others may want to be considered leaders in a new and evolving field.? Still others, may seek to increase consumer awareness of a product or raise concern for a political issue.

Identify your goals and write those down. Strategy is the first step.

Focus on Best Practices

Once you know your specific goals,?analyze the best practices to incorporate them into your Inbound Marketing Strategy. Are you doing this now?

Best Practices may involve targeting content specifically crafted toward a particular topic or in-depth consumer training modules.? More often than not, your Inbound Marketing Strategy will contain several key elements designed to be implemented on a predetermined Marketing Calendar. ? Planned Content allows you to schedule important events in your field which need to be highlighted during the campaign.

Layer Your Marketing Strategy

Don’t be afraid to add multiple layers to your Inbound Marketing Strategy.? In order to be effective, an Inbound Marketing Strategy must address all the questions and concerns relevant to the goal.

That may mean subdividing each approach into layers.? For example, a?certified financial planner?may be interested gaining professional recognition to launch a writing career.? As a result, she wants to incorporate an aggressive Content Marketing campaign into her Inbound Marketing Strategy.? It wouldn’t be enough to only focus articles on financial management.

She should break that category down further to include:

• estate planning
  

• retirement planning
  

• saving for college
  

• budgeting

Each of these topics should then be broken down to address any subtopics which may be relevant, such as wills and trusts under estate planning.? Create the most detailed Inbound Content Strategy possible as this will be your?road map to a successful campaign.

Inbound Marketing Strategy: A Process?

Remember, an Inbound Marketing Strategy is a process not a single, predetermined activity.

Lay the initial groundwork carefully with goals & objectives. Then analyze the best strategy to meet your particular goals. ?Planning and flexibility will greatly increase your chance at success.

Would you like to find out if your digital marketing efforts and website need a stronger strategy? Try our ?Inbound Marketing Website Assessment.