Planning a Digital Publishing Content Strategy

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Written by Matt Berringer

July 19, 2022

Even top-quality content can lose views to a social media or search engine algorithm. A content strategy is the most effective way to manage your publication, especially when you’re sharing media across multiple channels and audiences. A well-planned strategy helps you post consistently and at ideal engagement times while optimizing each piece for maximum reach.

Establish Goals and KPIs

The first — and most important — part of digital content strategy planning is knowing your goal for each year, quarter, publication, content piece and beyond. By establishing your goals at the start and committing them, you give yourself a strong content strategy framework to guide each decision.

Follow these steps:

  1. Identify your starting point: You need a clear picture of your publication’s current state, including your profit margins, audience engagement and retention metrics, cost to produce, subscriber or member
    count, search engine ranking, organic traffic and more.
  2. Set SMART goals: Once you’ve got a better idea of your starting point, you can start setting long-term goals. Each goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely (SMART).
  3. Choose KPIs: Key performance indicators (KPI) are benchmarks that measure your progress for each goal. For example, if one long-term goal is to increase your number of satisfied subscribers, some KPIs might be reader retention rates or the ratio of positive to negative feedback on your social platforms.
  4. Measure progress: After setting your KPIs, determine how often you’ll monitor them and your method for doing so. Consider visualization software or similar to help track and quantify progress.

Audit Existing Content

Setting goals is the backbone of creating a content strategy, and you can use those insights to audit your existing media, website, social posts and publication content. Keep your long-term goals in mind as you approach each step of the auditing process:

Conduct Audience and Market Research

You know where you’re at and where you want to go — now it’s time to see how your audience fits into that vision. Goals are a great way to grow and track progress, but your audience’s wants and needs are what ultimately win new readers and subscribers. The more you know about them, the better you can tailor content and your marketing efforts.

Start your research here:

Set Your Publication Up for Success With Nxtbook Media

Whether your content strategy needs a digital-first solution or a more traditional approach to online publishing, Nxtbook Media has what you need. Request a demo for our platforms and see what they can do for you!

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