Creating a Content Marketing Strategy That Works (Part 3)

After deviating from the content path the last couple of posts, we have found our way back. Not only that, but we are finally coming up on the juiciest, yummiest parts of creating a content strategy that drives revenue for your business.But first, let’s recap. We know that the skeleton of a successful content strategy should always include the following:

• A clear set of goals that you are setting out to accomplish. This can be anything from generating revenue to increasing brand awareness, but a successful plan usually has more than one goal.
• Next define the objectives or the measurements that you will use to define success. In marketing-speak, these are known as “key performance indicators” or KPIs. This might include increasing visits to your website by 20% in six months, or have 500 new likes on your Facebook page in one quarter.
• Finally, it is time to plan your strategy aka how you plan to achieve your goals and objectives. This might mean launching a blog on your website and posting to it regularly, updating the content on your website, or designing a blogger outreach program.

Now that you have defined your goals, objectives, strategy, and performance measurements, you are ready to build your content calendar. An effective content calendar should define topics, delegate responsibilities, and set a posting schedule.Topics should be varied, and can change on a monthly or weekly basis depending on the amount of time/information you have. Your topics should be based on things that might actually be of interests to your potential or past customers. Look at what your competitors are talking about, check out trending topics on Google and social media, and most importantly, check out what your current customers are already talking about.The easiest way to get someone to listen to what you have to say is to tell them something they already want to hear. Make sure your topics are relevant to specific times of year or holidays, and never talk about the same thing for too long or risk reader boredom.After defining your topics, figure out who on your team will be able to tell that particular story, post it, and monitor its performance. Depending on the size of your team, these responsibilities might all go to one person, or an entire group of people. By defining each person’s responsibilities, expectations are clearly defined every time you release a new piece of content.Lastly, decide how often you want to post content. Obviously, bombarding your email list with 15 emails a month is overkill, but posting on social media everyday is not. Take into account what channel you are posting on and strive to make the content interesting, fresh, and delivered on a schedule that won’t annoy your readers.For most hotels, the primary content marketing channels will be your website, your blog, and social media channels. However, it is also important to remember that any other website that lists your hotel should also be considered in your content strategy. This can include:

• Metasearch sites
• Online Travel Agents (OTAs)
• Any association or membership group you might be involved in

Content on these channels will highly influence travelers’ decisions so you must ensure that their information is on-brand and consistent with the content that you are putting out. If not, then you risk unhappy customers whose expectations were set by messaging you did not create. In order to fully manage your presence on non-branded channels take the following steps:

1. Stake Your Claim: If you already have a listing on Yelp, Google, an OTA or a metasearch site, you may have to complete a verification process to prove that you are the hotel’s designated representative. If not, then create one.
2. Build Your Profile: Once you have claimed your hotel’s space, you can edit the information to reflect the information and imagery that lives on your website. Ensure that contact information, amenities, location, and other important facts are up to date. Create messaging that is consistent, but also tailored to the unique nature of each channel.
3. Foster Communities: One of the ultimate goals for your social media content strategy should be to create conversation with your potential guests. This means fostering conversation by posting compelling information and imagery that people will share and interact with. Encourage this type of behavior by responding, reposting, or interacting with earned media.
4. Monitor Engagement and Maintain Content: Keeping an eye on user-generated content is paramount to any content strategy. Furthermore, by keeping your own content fresh, you are giving visitors an opportunity to continuously circulate fresh information to their friends and followers.

By creating a roadmap focused on strategies to fulfill your goals and objectives, delegating responsibilities, and staying organized, even small hotels can have a hugely successful content marketing plan. Research is by far the most important part of curating content that drives revenue. Use the resources and data that are available to you to make educated decisions on topics and distribution channels, and remember that organization is key to success.Now get out there and create some content! We're rooting for you.