Need to shake up your content marketing strategy? Heres how.

Content gets stale, we all know that. Fresh is best as far as content is concerned.

But when do you know when you need to freshen up your content marketing strategies, when is it the right time to bin your current strategies and get some new ideas on the boil?

The 2017 Content marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends report has just been released and it is a super reference for anyone who is in the CM world and want to ensure that their strategies are done right for maximum effect.

From the research, the current challenges voiced by the survey include content creation, not enough time and lack of technology added to this is the realisation that a staggering 41% of those surveyed dont have a strategy as such and 21% dont have a strategy at all.

Heres a few things the you might be currently doing that could be detrimental to your content strategy - no biggie, most of us do it at some stage:

Posting without a plan
Spontaneous posting is really tempting and putting up a post without a strategy in place is not only a water of time but a wasted effort. If you collaborate with colleagues and have calendar of content that you incorporate across your posts you will have a stronger opportunity to promote your offering to your followers without appearing sporadic and without planning

No CTA
Failing to have a Call to Action is a bit of a waste as well, you need to have a hook and without the message within your content it is completely without purpose. Whether you want people to sign up for a newsletter or click on a link, say it in the CTA


Writing with conviction
Doing your research and knowing your material and content is backed by supporting evidence not only show you are a great resource but also shows you know your stuff. If you need to bring in the big guns do it and support your content with the facts including articles or links from the experts if needed to quantify your message.

Not posting across a range of platforms
When you share content you need to broaden your horizons a little. Post on a range of social media channels and platforms and enhance your distribution strategy. Consider trading blogs with reputable bloggers and doing guest blogging as well.

Not knowing your audience
Do your research and understand who your followers are. If you know where they live, when they go online, what they do and what their style of content is you can craft your messages to suit them.

As well as this, experts such as Eric Siu from Entrepreneur also suggest the following to take your marketing to new heights:

• Pay attention to personal personas in content marketing
• Meet weekly where possible with your content team (this may not really be viable but even a virtual meeting may be possible)
• Stick to a schedule - this is paramount
• Use a range of mediums - mix it up
• Take risks - experiment and monitor your success

Read Erics full article here https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/281313

My greatest take away from this is that for content marketing to be truly successful you need to know your customer first and foremost, have a very structured content strategy with CTAs and try new things to see how the audience react.

How many of us have just flown by the seat of our pants and posted and hoped for the best without too much through or consideration of the overall strategy. I know I have.

What are your thoughts? How do you shake up your content marketing strategy when it is getting a tad stale?