No longer is it enough to publish one blog every few months nor upload random pictures on social media for the sake of appearing active. When using marketing copy to promote your brand, it’s important to have a plan—but it’s more complicated than it seems.

There are different factors to consider when creating a strategy, such as the impression you want to leave your customers. Those new to content marketing will struggle to create a plan that includes all of these. It’s more likely you’ll drive away prospects with your schemes.

The good news is that you don’t have to transform into a content strategist yourself; you can simply hire someone remote for your business. Before we get into why you badly need one, let’s first define what a content strategy is and why you need one.

What is a content strategy?

A content strategy is like a building blueprint wherein everything a marketer needs to do is mapped out.

It answers the questions:

• What is the purpose behind the content you’re creating?
• What audiences are you targeting with your copy?
• What kind of objectives are you hoping to achieve?
• How are you promoting the content once it’s ready?
• What types of copy are you planning to create?
• When and where will you be publishing our content?
• Who is in-charge of creating the marketing copy?
• How will your target audience find the content?
• How will you maintain your brand style across platforms?

A well-documented and carefully crafted plan gives you an edge over your competitors.

Besides that, it helps you with the following:

Setting and achieving goals

By defining your objectives and priorities, you can plan out every task in your content strategy work.

Tracking progress

Short-term and long-term goals serve as milestones so you know if your marketing initiative is effective or not. It enables you to define the metrics you’ll be using to track and analyse your progress as you go along.

Identifying new opportunities

A good strategy includes staying updated on the hottest trends and topics. With this, you can explore different avenues for finding article or post ideas that will resonate with your audiences.

Cutting costs

It’s easy to get carried away when creating and distributing content, then end up wasting money on methods that aren’t effective. Having a plan defines how much money to spend per project and how to spend it.

Optimising the marketing team

A formal strategy outlines the tasks that need to be done so your employees know their responsibilities. It also provides them guidelines on how to do their work better so they become more effective.

Producing content that converts

It takes more than proper grammar, spelling, and sentence structure to turn prospects into paying customers. You need to identify and address their pain points as well.

What is a content strategist?

Digital marketing often feels like a battle and your content strategist is the general. They:

• Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors
• Devise effective strategies for meeting your goals
• Create the road map for the writers, videographers, and designers to follow.
• Put your plans into action.

Some of their major responsibilities are:

Bridging the gap

A content strategist ensures that your marketing copy, design, user interface, and overall strategy is cohesive with your brand. They evaluate your existing content, your competitors, SEO campaigns, and audience to devise a plan that leverages your copy.

Finding your audience

Your message comes across more clearly when there is content to support and reinforce it. A content marketing strategist develops customer personas for your target audience so you can determine the best channels to engage with them and reach your business goals.

Their other responsibilities include:

• Ensuring content is compelling and clear
• Getting copy properly distributed across platforms
• Adhering to the brand philosophy consistently
• Creating and managing social media campaigns
• Monitoring customer engagement and patterns
• Analysing data related to content marketing
• Managing content marketing campaigns
• Implementing search engine optimisation best practices
• Building strategic partnerships with clients and agencies
• Researching keywords, competitors, audiences, and trends
• Executing routine audits to check road map is on track
• Identifying issues in the current plan and making corrections
• Writing and editing copy when and where necessary

It’s not a requirement for a content marketing strategist to be hands-on in the creative process, although there are cases when they have to be. There’s a strong argument about separating creation from strategy so both sides have more time to focus on their specific areas of expertise.

Why you need a content strategist BADLY

To sum it all up, they ensure that your marketing copy is on brand across all channels and integrated with social media. They pinpoint the leads who are more likely to convert into customers. Plus, they optimise content for search to reach your target market.

They understand how media, images, and words must work together to make the digital experience pleasing for everyone who interacts with your brand. They manage and supervise the development of content that supports your message and regularly checks for effectiveness.

Where to find a content strategist ASAP

According to data gathered by reviews website Review42, only 1 in 5 marketers claimed that they knew the best way to run a content marketing campaign last year. This means that not everyone is competent enough to handle a content strategy as efficiently as they should.

Make sure that you hire the right person to add to your team rather than pick the first candidate that seems to fit the bill.

For this, you must do your part to attract and hire the best content strategist for your business. What is a content strategist to do when they can’t make heads or tails of the job description or even find your listing to apply in the first place?

Make it easier with Remote Workmate. We can help you find the most suitable candidate for the job. Our recruitment process is free; we replace under-performing staff too.

And unlike freelancing marketplaces where you do everything yourself, we handle the heavy lifting for you, including screening, payroll, periodic Workmate evaluation, coaching, and mediation.