The digital landscape is changing. In 2018, more people are getting their news on the go through social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram than from traditional news sites like The New York Times.

This shift has resulted in a vast difference between how digital marketers and content strategists approach marketing. While marketers are increasingly turning to digital methods to reach and engage their audiences, content strategists are pivoting to focus on creating media that speaks to a wider audience.

Here, we’ll highlight five tips for digitally-focused marketers looking to make the transition to a content-led strategy.

1. Set a benchmark for yourself

One of the first things you’ll want to do is set a benchmark for yourself. Just because your former boss is no longer responsible for your career does not mean you should aimlessly follow the same path of revenue and margin growth he led you down. You need to continue to evolve and challenge yourself.

The simplest way to do this is by setting a sales target that you believe you can achieve. For example, you may decide that you’ll need to hit a sales target of $5,000 in order to feel that your efforts are paying off. Knowing that this is your minimum threshold allows you to constantly review your performance against this benchmark, identifying areas where you can be strengthened, and areas where you might need to make an adjustment.

2. Measure the success of your strategy

Once you’ve firmly established yourself as an expert in your industry, you can move on to the next step of measuring the success of your strategy. This is a particularly crucial step if you’re looking to evolve your approach and change tack towards a more content-led strategy. Since your benchmark will define your strategy, you’ll want to make sure that you review it frequently and adjust as necessary.

One of the simplest ways to do this is through analysis of online activity. If you’ve set up appropriate tracking tools (more on this below), you can easily measure the effectiveness of your various strategies and ascertain which ones are delivering the best results. You may find that certain strategies work better for certain categories of customers or certain types of products, meaning that you should reassess your approach and try out different tactics.

3. Identify the key performance indicators for your content strategy

Once you’ve established yourself as an expert in your industry, you can move on to the next step of formulating key performance indicators (KPIs) for your content strategy. These are benchmarks that you’ll track and use to determine the success of your strategy. Some examples of KPIs that you may want to track include:

• Prospecting — how is your content strategy attracting new leads into the top of the funnel?
• Inbound Marketing — how is your strategy driving web traffic to your website?
• Conversion — how is your strategy leading to sales?
• Revenue — how is your strategy driving revenue?
• Brand awareness — how is your content driving brand awareness (e.g., among consumers, or potential customers)?
• Customer loyalty — how is your content keeping your existing customers engaged and coming back for more?

These are just some examples — your KPIs will depend on your own unique situation. Just remember to formulate these with the end user (or buyer) in mind. If you’re looking to increase brand awareness among teens, you may want to track the following indicators:

• Reputation (both positive and negative)—how is your content impacting your reputation among peers?
• Fashion — how is your content impacting fashion-related searches?
• Beauty — how is your content impacting beauty-related searches?

If you’re looking to increase brand awareness among adults, you may want to track the following indicators:

• E-commerce — how is your content impacting e-commerce searches?
• Savings — how is your content impacting savings-related searches?
• Income — how is your content impacting income-related searches?
• Luxury — how is your content impacting luxury-related searches?
• Investment — how is your content impacting investment-related searches?
• Saver — how is your content impacting saver-related searches?
• Mature — how is your content impacting mature-related searches?
• Family — how is your content impacting family-related searches?
• Home — how is your content impacting home-related searches?

4. Evolve your strategy based on what you’ve learned

Now that you’ve laid the groundwork for your content strategy, you can gradually evolve it based on what you’ve learned. You don’t need to rush and implement sweeping changes overnight, but instead can take your time to learn from past mistakes and grow as a business—making incremental changes that will eventually form a more evolved strategy. This is an important step to ensure that your approach does not become stale as you continue to grow and evolve.

5. Reassess your needs regularly

If you’ve followed the steps above and defined a clear benchmark and set of key performance indicators for your content strategy, you’ll be well positioned to assess its effectiveness. If necessary, you can then make minor adjustments to improve results and continue to evolve your content strategy.

However, eventually, you may decide that a complete overhaul is necessary. You haven’t followed a strictly defined path to this point, but rather have constantly changed direction based on the needs of your business. Reassessing your needs regularly ensures that you don’t become complacent and stagnant.