No business wants a brand to go the way of smelly, stagnant water, but an unchanging content strategy is one in danger of becoming quickly outdated (if it isn’t already). If your content strategy still talks in mostly grunts, sometimes walks on all fours, and has yet to discover clothes, then it’s time to evolve. Read on to learn how you can update your strategy to the latest bipedal model without shaking your audience and shattering your brand perception.
5 Ways to Evolve Your Content Strategy without Triggering the Next Ice Age (in Sales)
1. Take a Critical Eye to Your Messaging
Regardless of your topics, every piece of text and bit of video or audio attached to your brand should work to convey your brand personality, voice, and values. If you want to seem as if you are at the forefront of the industry, then calibrate your lexicon accordingly. If you want to sound friendly, energetic, and upbeat, then toss out bouncy remarks. If you want to create a polite, respectable brand personality and can grunt cordially, then go ahead and say “Ugh!” with a smile! It’s what you convey — not how you say it — that matters.
If not all your messaging is truly on-message for your brand, then try using this simple tool to align your messaging with your brand.
2. Revisit Your Target Audience
If you’re in the music biz, hawking fresh singles to whippersnappers at the disco, and you’re still burning compact discs, then you need to check in with your target audience. You see, everyone’s streaming music these days — unless they’re really hip; then they’re into vinyl (and they no longer call them L.P.s).
The point is, if your audience has grown up or the market demands have shifted, you need to pivot your strategy, too. Do some market research, get some customer feedback, and draw up new buyer personas and customer journey maps.
3. Let Data Inform Future Change
If you’re not sure whether it’s time for your brand to evolve or how to evolve your brand, then look at your data for direction. When it comes to determining which parts or your strategy work and which don’t, the numbers won’t lie. Figure out the sort of content that generates a response from your audience, what drives conversions, which channels and media are most effective, and what slows traffic. Then make adjustments accordingly.
4. Are You Using Tools from the Stone Age?
How well do the content planning tools you have work for you? Do you use them regularly? Do you struggle with them? Do they have the features and capabilities you need? When did you last upgrade?
The content marketing industry is growing fast and so is its technological toolbox. Take a look at some of the latest content planning tools to decide whether what you’re using can actually help you accomplish everything you need to do. If not, it’s time to enter the Information Age and update your content tools.
5. Is Your Old Content Buried in a Stack of Moldy Newspapers?
Okay, maybe your content isn’t fading away in some basement storage room in actual print format, but if it hasn’t been revisited for a while, then you should give it a gander. A wealth of content marketing treasure awaits you in previously published content. Update it for publication on new platforms and convert it to contemporary, popular formats — think podcasts, videos, and infographics.
By evolving well-worn content, you get more out of every idea by delivering previously popular messages, topics, and discussions like they’re new again (without spending loads of time brainstorming ideas, researching new topics, outlining, and writing).
Add a Fresh Voice to Your Evolved Strategy and Pump Out the Content
Now that your brand is no longer lost in a sea of single-celled eukaryotes, find a team of fresh-fingered, nimble-noodled writers to help you spread your brand, voice, message, values, and most importantly your popularity. Partnered with a team of professional content marketers, your evolved content strategy can boldly go where no content strategy has gone before — into the future.
Jennifer G is a full-time freelance writer and editor with a B.A. in creative writing from the University of Montana. She enjoys researching and writing creative content to engage readers and developing professional voices for clients across all industries. She specializes in medical, health, veterinary, and financial writing. Having worked nearly thirteen years in finance, Jennifer applies her experience in the banking industry (marketing, social media management, consumer and commercial lending, customer service, accounts, and bookkeeping) to her writing work within the industry.
