The Key to Nailing Your Content Marketing Strategy

As of June 15th, 2021, there are over 854 billion search results for the term “content marketing strategy”.

It’s an overwhelming amount of resources, and most of them basically say the same thing: “content is king”.

This has been an oft-repeated mantra by marketers for decades at this point, and while it’s a slick tagline, it doesn’t really say very much. Content may be king, but how do you actually leverage the power of content to compel your audience to trust and engage with you?

The #1 key to nailing your content strategy is…consistency.

No, you don’t have to write 2000 words per month. No, you don’t have to post 3 times per day on your social media channels. No, you don’t have to publish 3 blogs per month. There is no golden rule for the amount of content you need to create, but there is a golden rule for how you post content. And that golden rule is: be consistent.

Why is consistency so important?

Being consistent accomplishes a myriad of goals. Firstly, it helps you manage expectations for how much content you can comfortably produce. For some organizations, that means 5 blog posts per month. For others, it means 1 blog post per month. There’s no inherent advantage or disadvantage to either of these approaches, as long as you can comfortably and reliable produce content and stick to a schedule.

Secondly, a consistent posting schedule sends positive trust signals to your audience. If you were looking to partner with a marketing agency and you see they only post a few blogs a year at sporadic times, would you trust them to guide your content marketing strategy? Probably not. However, you visited another agency’s site and saw that they’ve been posting one blog per month for years, that really makes them seem more trustworthy, right? Consistently producing content shows that you’ve made it a priority, and it’s important for earning brand trust.

For more information on trust signals, check  out our recent blog: Trust Signals: What They Are and How to Use Them

Thirdly, search engines love content. While the inner-workings of Google’s search engine algorithm are shrouded in mystery, the consensus among the SEO community is that better content = better rankings on search engine results pages. Again, this doesn’t mean you should pump out a ton of fluffy, redundant blog posts in the hopes of ranking in the #1 spot (in fact, duplicate content is more likely to hurt your rankings rather than help them). Instead, stick to a manageable posting schedule so that your content is engaging to humans and search engines alike.

How do I become consistent with my content?

Start by tapping your internal subject matter experts (SMEs) for insight. Get a headcount of how many employees are A) willing to help generate content and B) able to help with production. In our experience, nearly every single one of our clients were sitting on dozens of SMEs that were able to translate their expertise into engaging content.

Once you’ve assembled your team of SMEs, it’s time to hash out your posting schedule (or “cadence”). Above all, your cadence should be reasonable. In  this context, “reasonable” depends on the size and bandwidth of your team. For larger organizations, “reasonable” might mean 1 blog post per week. For smaller orgs, aiming for 1 post per month might make more sense. As long as you’re setting reasonable goals and sticking to a consistent schedule, you will be rewarded with higher engagement rates and better rankings on the SERPs.

Your content marketing strategy can make or break your brand. You can use content to cement your place as a trustworthy partner brimming with expertise, or you can ignore it and be left in the dust by your competitors.

Forma has decades of experience helping life science organizations leverage their content into powerful sales and marketing tools. If you’re looking to give your content the boost it deserves, start the conversation today!