The 6 Figure Marketing Plan: How to Create an Effective Content Strategy in 7 Steps

An effective content strategy delivers expected outcomes, drives sales and get prospects coming back to your website while you smile to the bank but, but according to research, 90 percent of online content delivers zero results.

It’s sad that millions of content creators will pour in hours of research, resources and time into content creation but they won’t get any thing out of that effort because the system is not made to favor them.

But, this is not how it should be. You should be able to reap the benefits of your labor in content creation.

That’s why in this guide, I am putting together lessons, strategies and ideas gleaned from almost two decades of content creation, marketing, training and consulting, to walk you through the steps you will take to bulldoze your way from the failing 90 percent content creators to the winning 9 percent, using my content marketing strategy.

What is an Effective Content?

An effective content is a content that delivers a specific result for the content creator. That result could be driving sales, informing the target audience, creating brand awareness etc.

So, an effective content marketing strategy is the kind of strategy that will lead you to create an effective content.

Generally, It doesn’t matter what it is, a piece of content must achieve a specific set of outcome before it can be said to be effective. Outside that, the content has failed.

In my almost one decade experience as content creator, a handful of my content has generated sales in 6 figures.

The latest one led to a six figures sales in less than three months.

In all of these, i have observed that there are some specific elements that have stood out to make these content achieve the result it does.

And I’m going to share some of these key elements of effective content marketing below.

Identify Key Outcomes

You can’t create an effective content strategy without identifying key outcomes expected for each piece of content.

So, the first step to get started is to identify key outcomes. This is the result driven approach you want to take. Without this, you’ll be moving around in circles with content marketing.

Before creating your content strategy, ask yourself questions like, what do I want to achieve with these contents? What are the key deliverables I need to get out of this effort?

Remember, your content outcome does not have to be cut in stone. It can be anything from creating brand awareness, driving traffic, improving signups or increasing sales. Anything!

When you understand the motive behind your content, you’ll be able to measure its effectiveness or find out if the content has delivered on the result, after creating and sharing it.

Now let me quickly add this…

There’s a huge need to create a specific goal for each content strategy you create. This will help a lot in your final analysis of your content marketing effort.

It will also help you understand whether the content has been able to achieve the goal or not.

In a situation where you’re able to achieve your content marketing goals, you can find ways to consolidate on your results and create even better outcomes.

And if your content doesn’t achieve the expected goals according to your analysis, you can find out what got wrong, fix it and improve with future contents.

Choose Your Audience

Your target audience are some of the key drivers of your deliverables. They are the ones that will decide if you will achieve your content marketing outcomes or not.

As a matter of priority, you have to identify them, identify content that matters to them then create and deliver that same kind of content to them, without fail.

In fact, if you want to create an effective content, you have to find your audience first. The earlier you find them, the easier it is to tailor your content solutions to meet their needs.

This is what i did before creating the content that led to my first six figure sales. Knowing my audience clearly played a huge role in delivering that result.

Before creating your content strategy, ask yourself, Who am I creating this for? Where are they? What’s their problem? And how best can I solve that, using my content?

Your answer to this question will reveal the people that will be consuming that content. And with this information you’ll get to tailor your content to fit in with the kind of content that appeals to this audience.

Target One Customer

One of the biggest ingredients of an effective content strategy is the fact that it strategically aims to solve the needs of one specific customer.

What this means is that if your content is meant to solve the needs of restaurants struggling with email marketing, you will do well to effectively provide clear solution for this set of business instead of expanding to target others outside this niche.

What this does for you is that it gives you a clear focus, gets you to create a very straight to the point solution that is customer specific.

In addition, it also improves your chances of getting a better search engine visibility as the competition for your target keywords become less intense.

Solve a Problem

One of the easiest ways to create an effective content is to focus on solving a certain problem faced by your target audience.

Like I mentioned earlier, your content should be able to solve a specific problem if you really want to create bubbles.

This is because highly valuable and problem solving content are the type of contents that draws attention.

People go online to search for specific things. They ask questions on Google, based on what matters to them.

To get a sizeable number of these searchers over to your blog, you need to create content that addresses the things they search for.

Your content has to be made to answer some of this questions in a way that will make your audience to click through and read it.

Add Value Consistently

What value can people really get from your content? What lessons can they learn when they come to read your blog?

An effective content does not only address the need of its target audience, it addresses it in a way that adds exceptional value to the reader.

In an online world where content creators are repeatedly creating what’s already there all over the internet without extra value, to make your content stand out, you want to bring your own value into it.

So, don’t just create content, bring on your lessons. Add your own unique perspective. Include a new way of solving the problem, your unique ideas or inputs etc.

This is the best way to create an effective content strategy that stands out. It’s also the best way to beat the competition and stand out with your own uniquely.

The reason behind this is simple. There’s a stiff competition out there in the content marketing world. And to get noticed, you have to stand out in a good way.

PS: Be careful. While creating a valuable content, remember that some times, the value you create in a content is as important as its length.

Optimize your SEO Correctly

Keywords are the keys to search engine visibility. Without optimizing your SEO and getting your keywords right, even the best content gets lost in the sea of nothingness.

Optimizing your content for the search engine and using the right keywords throughout your content are some of the best ways to create an effective content strategy that delivers consistently.

Back then as a new content creator, one of the mistakes I made was creating content without search engine optimization or using any target keyword strategy.

This mistake caused me a lot in terms of search traffic as most of the content I created at that time were usually returned zero visibility.

So, it happened that no matter how good they were, a lot of these content were just sitting on my blog, driving zero traffic.

Now, that’s not the right way to create an effective content. Optimizing your content with the right keywords allows you to include popular search terms used by your target audience while searching for items related to what you write about.

When done well, this strategy matches the keywords with the search term used by a search engine user, making your content more visible in the search result.

Showcase your Expertise

Don’t just be the guru, talk about it. Let people know that you’re good. Show them results.

Readers do not just want to read content, they want to read content from experts. People who know their onions.

And one of the ways to create an effective content strategy is to demonstrate to your audience that you know what you’re doing.

This demonstration can come by way of using case studies through your content. Sharing anecdotes based on a previous experience to buttress your point or sharing compelling stories through your content

Remember those days we read novels in school? How did you feel?

For me, whenever I read stories, it gets me glued to the screen. Distracts me from worries at the time. Makes me want to read to the end.

This is what happens with a content that’s filled with real and compelling stories… Telling stories or sharing your case studies through your content is a great way to cement your expertise.

It captures attention. Makes your claims more plausible while bringing out the human element around the content.

As one of the most important elements of content marketing, story telling stories ignites your consumers imaginations. You want to utilize this as much as possible.

Create stories that capture the emotions of your audience, create curiosity while positioning you as the expert that they should listen to.

Promote your Post

In content marketing, the myth “a great product will sell itself” is completely untrue. No matter how good they are, no one talks about what they do not know or see.

An effective content may not necessarily need to be promoted but promoting your content improves the effectiveness of the content.

It gets it across to many more people and this in turn improves the success rates of such content. So, one of the key steps to create an effective content strategy is to promote your content.

There are basic ways to promote your content which includes sharing across the social media, forums and niche based groups.

But beyond the very basics, you can also promote your content by collaborating with other creators, building back links, re-purposing the content for other platforms or getting guest posting opportunities.

The good thing about promoting your content is that it drives visibility. It gets more people to see the content. And the more it’s seen, the better its chances of delivering on results.

Final Words

Creating a six figure content is possible. A lot of content creators are doing this. And you can start getting this same results with your content.

But before you get started, you have to use the same elements of effective content marketing that’s worked for these creators. That’s why you just read this six figure content strategy today.

And of course to get an even better and faster outcomes with your content marketing effort, sign up for our content marketing course here and learn the bolts and nuts of content marketing with the right mentorship.

Now, it’s your turn. What are your biggest challenges when it comes to creating the right content strategy? Drop your comments below.