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10 INSIGHT V13N3 TRUENORTHCUSTOM.COM insight into CONTENT STRATEGY 6 Steps to Content Strategy Success Want useful, actionable steps to creating a better content strategy? We've got you covered. 1. Take an inventory of what you've already got. 2. Define your goals. 3. Understand your audience with personas. 4. Apply best practices to the most relevant channels for your audience. 5. Always test and learn. 6. Measure, optimize, repeat. S E V E N T Y-T W O P E R C E N T of content marketers don't think their work is sufficiently effective, according to True North Custom's 2017 State of Healthcare Content Marketing survey. Are you one of them? And if so, do you know how to determine what is working for you and what isn't? To know where to go, you first must know where you are. Take stock of your current strategy and all its pieces, from social media account details to internal stakeholders involved to the budget allocated to each aspect of the process. Analyze your competitors as well, and ask yourself what they're doing well, and if there are any lessons you can learn and apply to your own work. A STRATEGIC APPROACH Once you determine what is going well and what could use improvement, you'll be able to outline your complete content strategy. A great place to start is through the development of personas that represent your audiences. Get a good picture of what your audience cares about, and it will lead you to the best channels with which to target them. Recommended post frequency varies greatly by channel—for instance, social media often does best when posting multiple times a day, while email content can get exhausting if sent too often—so knowing your audience's channel preference is crucial to determining what kind of content to send them, and how often. Refining this is especially important when it comes to channels like paid search or paid social, as you will likely have a set budget and need to make the most of it. TRUST THE PROCESS If you can't determine how well your strategy is working, is it actually useful? Here are some performance indicators to measure periodically, in order to continually improve your process: » EMAIL OPENS » EMAIL CLICKS » WEBSITE TR AFFIC » FORM CONVERSIONS » LIKES AND COMMENTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA » CALL S RECEIVED » APPOINTMENTS MADE » SEMINAR AT TENDEES » SERVICE LINE PROFITABILIT Y When it comes to content strategy, even when you're done, you're not really done. Fortunately, with every measurement of how successful your strategy is, you'll learn new, tangible ways to improve your efforts. Want more insight into creating a complete content strategy? Download True North Custom's step-by-step content strategy and execution eBook at truenorthcustom.com/fall17. Boost Your Bottom Line through Content Strategy Content Strategy THE TEMPTATION TO TRY TO BE ALL THINGS TO ALL AUDIENCES AT ALL TIMES IS STRONG. HOWEVER, YOU'RE ONLY HUMAN — WHICH IS WHY YOU NEED A COMPLETE CONTENT STRATEGY. YOUR STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO CONTENT STRATEGY AND EXECUTION FROM TRUE NORTH CUSTOM

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