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8 Steps to a Smarter Content Strategy
- 1. 8 Steps to a Smarter Content Strategy Eric Wilinski CantaloupeContent.com 415.971.3249 eric@cantaloupecontent.com
- 2. Content Strategy: Due Diligence Understand what your target market wants and needs 1. Define target personas What content do you have already? 2. Inventory content What must you give targets that you’re not already? 3. Identify gaps
- 4. Content Strategy: Execution Encourage conversation and sharing 6. Promote & socialize Take part in conversations around your brand 7. Monitor & participate Use analytics to learn what works, and revise your planning to do more of it 8. Measure & revise
- 5. Due Diligence 1. Define target personas •What problems are they trying to solve? •What are their interests and tastes? •What do they talk about in person, online, and in surveys and forms •What are their digital habits? 2. Inventory existing content •What marketing content do you already have? •Can it be “chunked,” repurposed, optimized? •Is it effective in moving targets through the sales cycle? •Is it relevant to target personas? 3. Identify gaps •How does your existing content map to what targets want and need? •Are you missing the opportunity to engage targets with specific types of content? •Are you engaging targets wherever they are, across a range of relevant channels? • Are you tapping into your organization’s unique domain knowledge and brand values to add value for targets?
- 6. Planning 4. Prioritize channels • What channels will get your content in front of targets – or targets’ networks? • In-house blog • Guest blog posts • Twitter • LinkedIn • Facebook • YouTube • Google+ • SlideShare • Email 5. Create editorial calendar • Are you committing the resources necessary to publish new content regularly? • Are you telling stories? • Industry-relevant stories • Company-origin stories • Customer-success stories • Who owns what? • Editorial calendar • Creative executions • Channel management
- 7. Execution 6. Promote & socialize •Are you promoting your content on key digital channels? •Are you publishing new content regularly •Do you have the resources to execute? •Are you encouraging conversation about and sharing of your content? 7. Monitor & participate •Are you listening to targets? •Are you responding in a timely fashion? •Are you being transparent? •Are you being accountable? •Are you escalating key insights about target needs and how your organization can meet them? 8. Measure & revise •What content is working best in terms of engagement? •What content is working best in terms of conversion? •How can you adjust your approach to be more relevant and engaging?
Editor's Notes
- 1. Define target personasWho are you trying to engage? What problems business problems are they trying to solve? What are they searching for on your site? Beyond business problems, what are their interests? What are they talking about – in person, online, and in surveys and feedback forms? What are their digital habits – where can you reach them online? 2. Inventory existing contentWhat marketing content do you already have? Online? Offline? Can it be “chunked,” repurposed, optimized? Is any of it particularly effective in moving targets through the sales pipeline? Is any of it low in value to targets? (Feedback from sales, or from customers directly, can be very helpful in understanding the value of your existing content.) 3. Identify content gapsYou understand your targets’ problems, and how you can help solve them. You understand their broader related interests. You know what content you already have. Now it’s time to map what you have to what targets want and need, and identify types of content you’re missing – content that will help engage targets more deeply and more consistently. Digital offers the opportunity to engage targets earlier in the customer lifecycle. And digital means shareable, meaning your content can end up in front of your target even if it only reaches the target’s friends, family, or colleagues initially. So think beyond promotions and product demos, and consider building out content that taps into your organization’s unique domain knowledge or brand values to add value for targets. As any 3-year-old fan of Thomas the Tank Engine will tell you: It’s all about being useful. (E.g., Columbia Sportswear released an app giving users instructions on how to tie more than 70 kinds of knots.) (You may not see the ROI in this, but rest assured that your competitors do.)
- 4. Prioritize channels 5. Create editorial calendarContent marketing success is typically contingent on the regular publication of new or repurposed content. Ideally, this content will tell stories – industry-relevant stories, or company-origin stories, or product-development stories, or customer-success stories, etc. To ensure sufficient resource allocation, create an editorial calendar detailing who’s going to deliver what and when, and which channels you’ll use to deliver each content piece. Remember: Content marketing is a process, not a project.
- 6. Promote and socialize contentDeliver and promote your content via your chosen digital channels. Publish regularly; make sure you have the resources in place to execute your editorial calendar. Ask questions; encourage conversation about and sharing of your content. 7. Monitor and participate in conversationsIn the digital era, you’re no longer the sole author of your brand – you co-author your brand along with the marketplace. Effective content marketing requires understanding of this, and participation in the digital conversations that emerge around your brand. The keys here are responsiveness and transparency. You’ll be pilloried for things like deleting negative comments from your Facebook page – and in the digital world, word spreads fast and far. 8. Measure and revisePerhaps the biggest advantage of digital over traditional marketing channels like advertising and PR is the measurability of your efforts. Study the analytics for insight into what content pieces are working best in terms of engagement and/or conversion. Then tweak your editorial calendar to give the market more of the content that works.