7 Steps for Making a Competitive Content Creation Strategy

Posted April 2, 2019

Words can create a profound and impactful influence on readers — do yours? Your content is valuable, which is why creating an outstanding content creation strategy is vital to your business and your future success.

Every industry comes with competition, which leads you to ask, “How can our center make content that stands out?” If you want to produce top-tier work that helps your clinic reach its target audience and grow, you need to develop a competitive content strategy.

Not sure how? Follow these seven steps to get started.

1. Create a style guide

No two businesses are the same, which means their content varies from one another.

Whenever you do a quick browse on the Internet for blogs and articles, you’re likely to read through material that presents a variety of different writing styles. For your business, this means defining your clinic’s sense of style is crucial.

What exactly is a style and how do you create one that resonates with your center’s brand?

Common areas in a content marketing style guide include:

The targeted tone or voice of your content: Is your center formal or informal? Do you speak as a friend or as a therapist to readers? Look at your past advertisements or marketing efforts to discover your brand voice.

The style of the writing: Does your center prefer short, to-the-point, and clinical sentences? Or, do you like to provide audiences with content that follows your exact train of thought?

Word choice preferences: What words does your business like to use or avoid? Do you call yourself a center or a clinic, for example? Or, how do you prefer to talk about mental health?

Your audience: Who is your audience? Are you speaking to women in their 40s, for instance, or men in their 20s? What are their concerns or questions when it comes to rehabilitation centers?

The length of your work: What word count should you reach? Do you want a variation of short and long blog posts, as well as extensive guides? What are your default lengths for content types?

Since your style guide will serve as a reflection of your company’s branding and standards, figuring out the style of your upcoming content is an essential first step in developing your content creation strategy.

2. Define your content format

You know that publishing quality content is vital for your business, but do you know what makes up your content too? When you start a new content marketing plan, it’s crucial to define the areas that you want to focus on during your campaign.

While many businesses think that content consists of articles and blogs, you can take a more creative direction for your clinic’s content marketing plan. Social media posts, infographics, ebooks, and client interviews are other potential strategies your company may consider.

Choosing the right content is crucial as you want your marketing strategy to support the goals of your company. Fortunately, the different content format options mean you won’t find yourself struggling to craft a unique, yet successful content marketing campaign.

Which format is the best for your strategy, though? That’s up to your team — or content marketing agency — to determine. In most cases, some audience research, a competitive analysis, and a few experiments can help you find the best content format for your center.

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3. Research your audience

While you may have dozens of ideas for your content marketing strategy, you need to consider your audience. Content marketing is more than publishing content to promote your center. It’s also about writing content that helps your audience.

That’s why investigating your target audience is crucial to your content creation strategy.

What are the characteristics of your current clientele? Do they represent a particular age group? Do you have more male or female clients? What questions do they tend to ask your team — or what do they ask before, during, and after treatment?

Creating content relevant to your audience is crucial.

For rehabilitation clinics, that may include people seeking recovery programs for themselves or a loved one. Be sure to conduct your research and to develop a content strategy that helps your prospective clients get answers.

When you do that, you’ll see real change in the number of calls and visits to your clinic. This shift impacts your center across multiple levels, from helping generate new revenue to giving your facility the means to expand and hire additional team members.

4. Curate potential ideas

Brainstorming is one of the most critical steps in developing a content creation strategy. You may have your style guide and audience research complete, but do you have the creative ideas to make your research worthwhile?

This step in creating a content strategy includes listing blog topic ideas, researching relevant news in your industry, and brainstorming engaging ways to reach and help your audience with their questions.

Get a bit of inspiration by scrolling through the content produced by other centers in your market. What makes their content valuable to readers? Discover the little details that help their content succeed.

Or, work alongside a team of established marketers to brainstorm ideas for your content.

While many companies use examples from competitors to inspire their ideas from time to time, remember to be original, too. For your content to succeed, make it original and unique, serving as a reflection of your clinic’s expertise, values, and standards.

5. Produce your content

After you’ve brainstormed and outlined your content marketing goals, it’s time to write.

Outline your initial ideas and work out the details, like images or graphics, that will play an essential role in acing your content creation strategy. Remember to follow your company’s style guide while simultaneously writing for your intended audience too.

Turning an idea into content is one of the most challenging parts of this process.

That’s why many business leaders turn to digital marketing experts for help. Marketers not only help you in the process of creating your content but also offer tremendous value by monitoring the success of your campaign.

6. Get feedback

While many businesses think that creating content is the last step in developing an effective content marketing strategy, your work doesn’t stop after you publish your first piece of content, like a blog post or infographic.

Even after you’ve conducted all the necessary research and promoted your content with success, it’s still vital to get feedback. As the timeless expression goes, there is always room for improvement.

Consider asking the following questions before and after you publish content:

How readable is your work?
Does your new content bring value to your target market?
Are specific blog posts or articles not generating attention?
How does the content perform in search results?
Are there opportunities to get your content coverage?

Remember to assess the quality and success of your work so that you can make improvements.

7. Make improvements

Now that you’ve dedicated so much time and effort into developing your content, it’s time to take a step back and examine the results of your hard work. While an often-forgotten step, improving past content is an essential part of your content creation strategy’s success.

Review your audience’s response to your content and modify it to meet their expectations. Even after you think you’ve reached success, remember to continuously reflect on your work and brainstorm ways you can improve your connection to your audience.

Since the realm of marketing is continuously evolving, your content should too. Remember to remain up-to-date on the latest branding and advertising strategies so that you can incorporate new and innovative ideas into your work.

Start your content creation strategy

Do you need a content creation strategy? For rehab centers, it’s a definite yes. With original and compelling content, you can reach and connect with your audience as they consider rehabilitation and research centers that would meet their needs and wants.

Start your content creation strategy today and reach the people who need you the most!