Are you a content creator who’s ready to get into the details of how you’re going to grow your business? Are you excited to create bomb content that connects with your audience? 

If this sounds like you, then it’s time to learn about marketing strategy. Your marketing strategy is how to research, plan and create goals to measure business growth. We’ve created a six-step guide to get you started with your content marketing strategy, so let’s get to creating!

  1.  Research

The first and most important step in creating a boss marketing strategy is research. In the beginning stages of your journey, research will give you ideas for your content and also tips on what success looks like in your space. 

Spending time developing the pillars for your brand and outlining the mission behind why you create is key during this stage. Even if your content and visual style change, having your mission intact can encourage you to keep creating. 

Next, researching your niche, audience, and strategies for future monetization is a good place to gain ideas. Consider doing the following: 

• Outline your mission statement–what is the goal of your brand? 
• Identify your brand voice– how do you speak to your audience? 
• Define your niche–who is your content for? 

These don’t need to be perfect to get started. Your marketing strategy will benefit from trial and error, and there’s room for growth at every stage of your journey. Think of the initial research stages as the opportunity to do some positive visualization for where you can take your brand, and watch as your glowing content improves along the way!

  2.  Identify Your Target Market 

Who is your content for? Understanding who you serve online will take a lot of the guesswork out of content creation. Steps you can take to identify your target market include:

• Researching questions commonly asked in your niche
• Researching content creators who are successful in your niche 
• Creating a detailed buyer persona 
• Identifying where your audience is most likely to spend time online
• Studying people creating content in your niche to see who their content speaks to

You can use demographics, psychographics, beliefs, and lifestyle attribute to determine who your content is for. Whether you’re creating for moms who want to make an income online or students who want to start a personal styling brand, narrowing down your audience will give you a better idea about what type of content will work best for your business.

  3.  Outline Your Goals 

Outlining your goals is how you can set marketing objectives for your brand. Setting objectives that are measurable and tracking your progress will allow you to look back and see the growth of your brand over time. 

Consistency is the most important part of content creation, so don’t leave out goals related to developing and implementing schedules, mapping out content, and posting consistently online. 

  4.  Add Timelines 

An additional step to creating goals is setting timelines to achieve them. This will help you track your progress and see if you're headed in the right direction. 

Paying attention to the growth of your brand can also open doors to see where new opportunities are possible. This is where tactical growth comes in.

  5.  Implementing Growth Tactics

Tactics are specific channels for increase that you outline in the goal-setting stage of your marketing strategy. Tactics for a lifestyle brand may include: 

• Identifying brands to create content for 
• Using sales statistics to identify which platforms are bringing in the most revenue, and then increase your efforts to promote on that platform
• Developing relationships with other lifestyle creators to do collabs 

Implementation of growth tactics can make the difference between content creation as a fun hobby and content creation as a career. It will take your marketing strategy to the next level and allow you to piggyback off previous successes.

  6.  Define Your Content Strategy 

Finally, once you've evaluated the space you’ll occupy online and know where your audience is focused, you can begin to map out your content strategy.

Your content strategy is how you’ll connect with your audience and attract brands that want to work with you. It should include:

• The platforms you’re posting on
• Posting schedule 
• The types of content you create
• The way each type of content creates value 
• Measurable objectives for engagement 
• Tracking the growth of your platform 

From here, you can begin to create fabulous content! For more tips on content creation, check out our other article: Content Creation 101.

Create Glowing Content with LITTIL

Whether you start with a marketing strategy or you jump straight into creating content, LITTIL is here to help you on your journey. Our ring light selection will help you to create fabulous content wherever you go. Create glowing content today, where a LITTIL magic is all you need to get started!