How to Craft an SME Content Management Strategy

More B2B SMEs than ever are adding a content management strategy to their marketing.

Creating a strong content marketing strategy is tough. Businesses must manage and share content across many channels, like a blog, a newsletter, and social media.

Successful content must be innovative, relevant, and engaging for prospects and existing customers. Successful content builds trust and boosts conversions for your SME.

Many ways exist to build a unique content marketing strategy, from personalisation to planning.

If you're new to the marketing team or a seasoned marketer, stick with us. We'll teach you the basics of content marketing. In four easy steps, we'll also show you how to create a content management strategy.

What Is A Content Management Strategy?

A content management strategy is a plan for a brand's content. It covers creating, organising, publishing, and governing the content. A Content Management System (CMS) is often used in this strategy.

Content can include blogs, newsletters, infographics, social media, videos, podcasts, ebooks, and more. It can also be shared via your website, social media, or email.

Here are some reasons why a robust content management strategy is essential:

• Content generates leads. People will happily share their email or phone number to get access to free content, which turns them into leads.
• Content educates prospects about your products, services, or brand. The content encourages them to become customers as they better understand your offerings.
• Content lowers customer acquisition costs (CAC). Compared to ads interrupting the search, good content answers search intent and lowers CAC.
• Content builds your brand. Content marketing shows your expertise. It builds trust and industry knowledge. This makes prospects more likely to choose your brand.
• Content increases online visibility. Optimising your content management strategy can improve your content's relevance. It will also drive traffic to your website by boosting your search engine rankings.
• Enhanced content control. By taking advantage of a CMS, you can take control of your content for all channels in one centralised place. A CMS gives you control over your content's messaging, style, and frequency.

A strong content management strategy is vital in a competitive market.

As brands produce more content, organisation is vital for efficiency.

How to Craft a Content Management Strategy In 4 Easy Steps

To set up a content management strategy, marketers must:

• Know their audience.
• Choose the right CMS.
• Create a content calendar.
• Centralise content management.

Here are four ways to optimise your content management as a beginner:

Understand Your Audience

You're not crafting content for just anyone. You want your content to attract potential customers. They are interested in buying your products or services.

Here are ways to learn about your target audience. They will help you find the best content types, topics, and marketing channels to reach your goals:

• Talk to prospects and customers. You can talk to your targets directly or ask them to participate in surveys to understand their needs better.
• Talk to sales and customer service teams. Both teams can give you insight into what customers frequently ask questions about. You can leverage this insight to develop content that directly addresses these concerns.
• Analyse demographic data. Use analytics from social media and Google to find out where your website or social media visitors are coming from and what they want to read.
• Understand the customer buyer journey. There are four stages in the buyer journey: unaware, problem-aware, solution-aware, and product-aware. Create relevant and compelling content that aligns with each phase.

Once you have learned more about your target audience, consider creating a buyer persona. The above research shows that a buyer persona represents ideal customers. This is a helpful way to ensure that your content stays relevant.

Choose The Right CMS

When choosing a CMS for your brand, consider your budget, the tool's scalability, and your team's training. Also, consider any extra features you may need.

In addition, your chosen CMS should be easy to use, customisable, and secure.

Many marketers choose WordPress or Webflow CMS since it publishes directly to their site.

Or, you can use a headless CMS. It separates the content-presentation layer from the content-management backend.

A headless CMS enables marketers to manage all content in one place and deploy that content on any channel.

Remember to talk to your team about their content approach. Understand the features they'll need access to. Then, research the best CMS for their needs.

Create A Content Calendar

To manage your content production, creating a content calendar is essential.

Here, you can add and arrange the content types you plan to produce. You can also set their order and note any big projects that might take more time this month.

A content calendar is not the same as an editorial calendar. The latter gives a broad overview of the themes your content should cover in a specific period.

For example, your calendar may say to focus all November posts on Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, a content calendar organises each post within that time frame. It gives more details about each content piece. It also organises a series of posts on a topic from your editorial calendar.

An automated content calendar or a tool like Notion or Airtab toll help you manage all tasks. This includes monitoring all social media, setting deadlines, and seeing everything in one place. It involves leaving comments for your team.

Yet, these tools are only synced with your content creation or publishing platform. You'll still need to use third-party tools like Google Docs to write and edit content.

Using both editorial and content calendars can help marketers plan a content strategy. It will ensure cohesive topic coverage. It's also helpful in streamlining content ideation processes and maintaining steady workflows.

Centralise Your Content Management

As brands expand their content marketing, switching between tabs and apps gets hard. It also requires work to collaborate with your team.

A centralised hub, like a CMS, can help. It will allow all content team members to access, store, and produce ideas, ensuring your content calendar runs smoothly.

Using collaborative, end-to-end tools that need less downloading and uploading could save your team time transferring project assets.

A centralised content management strategy helps maintain messaging, tone, and style consistency.

Are You Ready To Craft A Content Management Strategy?

Growing a successful content marketing strategy takes time, resources, and creativity. It also takes organisation.

Once you have a content management strategy, check its performance. Adapt it as needed. This includes tracking key metrics such as content conversions, social analytics, and email engagement.

A team effort is key to a perfect content strategy, from knowing your audience to picking the right CMS. Yet, those who make a strong content plan will find content marketing easy in the future.

About the author

Rebecca is a content marketing manager at Solvid. She specialises in content management and in building your SME marketing strategy from scratch.