Starting content marketing can feel overwhelming, but breaking it down into manageable steps makes the process much clearer. The key is building a solid foundation before jumping into content creation – too many businesses start writing blog posts without understanding their goals or audience first.
Coursera outlines a systematic approach that begins with defining your content strategy goals. This isn’t just about saying “we want more traffic” – it’s about establishing specific, measurable objectives like generating 50 qualified leads per month or increasing brand awareness among your target demographic by 30%.
Define Your Content Strategy Goals: Your goals should align with broader business objectives and be specific enough to guide decision-making. Are you trying to establish thought leadership, generate leads, support sales conversations, or build brand awareness? Each goal requires different content types and measurement approaches.
Research Your Target Audience At Ronin, we’ve found this step is where most Australian businesses rush through or skip entirely. Proper audience research goes beyond demographics – you need to understand their challenges, information consumption habits, preferred content formats, and the language they actually use. Create detailed buyer personas based on real customer interviews, not assumptions.
Conduct an Audit of Your Current Content Marketing Plan: Before creating new content, assess what you already have. What content exists? What’s performing well? Where are the gaps? This audit helps you avoid duplicating efforts and identifies quick wins you can build upon.
Choose Your Content Strategy Deliverables Based on your goals and audience research, decide what types of content you’ll create. Will you focus on blog posts, videos, podcasts, downloadable guides, or a mix? Consider your team’s capabilities and where your audience consumes content. Start with one or two formats and do them well rather than spreading yourself too thin.
Create a Content Marketing Strategy: This involves developing your editorial calendar, content themes, distribution plan, and workflow processes. Your strategy should specify what you’ll create, when you’ll publish it, where you’ll promote it, and how you’ll measure success. This strategic foundation prevents the random content creation that wastes time and resources.
Learn How to Make Content and Establish a Process: The final step involves developing systems for consistent content creation. This includes content creation workflows, approval processes, publishing schedules, and promotion strategies. Many businesses underestimate the operational side of content marketing – having efficient processes makes the difference between sporadic posting and consistent value delivery.
What we typically see working best is starting small and scaling up. Pick one content format, one publishing frequency, and one main distribution channel. Master that foundation before expanding. Your SEO strategy and social media marketing efforts will be much more effective when built on this solid content foundation.
The most common mistake? Skipping straight to content creation without doing the groundwork. When you follow these steps systematically, you’ll create content that actually moves the needle for your business rather than just keeping you busy.
