The 6Hs of Content Strategy

Over the course of my marketing career, I've both developed enterprise content strategies from the ground up and consulted brands' content strategies. When developing a content strategy, analyzing an existing strategy and building a content house, one of the most effective frameworks I have come across is Google’s 6H content marketing framework.

This framework focuses on building a content house of 6 categories to tap into the wants and needs of your target audience and ensure that you are creating content along every stage of the customer journey.

It's a framework that acknowledges the Gartner research that the client journey is no longer linear. Customers now navigate through various stages non-linearly, and your content strategy should reflect this reality (1). It also taps into what the B2B Institute at LinkedIn refers to as the B2B effectiveness code (2) which recognizes different types of content serve different purposes. By embracing this you can create a more tailored and impactful content strategy.

Marketing teams need to stop the hyper-fixation on driving traffic, stop the war on brand – and focus on driving the right person to the right piece of content at the right time.?

Here are the 6 H's to do just that:

1. Hero (Awareness) =?These are the "wow" big rock content that attracts the masses. These are the larger-scale brand content that aims to make a significant impact, generate buzz, and attract a wide audience. Hero content is a beacon that attracts new eyeballs. This content isn't designed to convert it’s designed to attract.
2. Hub (Consideration) =?This is episodic content that keeps your customer coming back for more.?This is also known as evergreen content. This content keeps your site fresh, the Google Bot happy and your audience returning for more. Creating a "hub" of content is essential for building authority and expertise in a particular topic or industry. A hub typically consists of comprehensive, in-depth content that covers various aspects of a subject.
3. Help (Consideration) =?This is the content that answers the burning questions that your customer has. This content aims to answer users' questions and provide them with valuable information. It's important to do thorough research to understand the queries that customers have through mass listening software, focus groups, and surveys.
4. Heart (Conversion) =?This is the core of what a company does. It speaks about the products, solutions, and services and leads to product and sales pages. This is the content that sits at the end of the journey and can be tracked by sales leads.
5. Happy (Loyalty) =?The sequence of content your customer receives when they first become a customer and ensures that they are happy with the product/service and continue their education on that product/service. This is often in the form of email drips, customer webinars, and social media retention programs.
6. Human (Advocacy) =?This is content that engages on a 1x1 basis. It's personalized to that individual and moves from being a loyal customer to an advocate.

If you are starting a content strategy from the ground up it's important to build content within each of these 6Hs. And if you are optimizing an existing strategy it's important to first do a brand audit and understand where your content gaps are in your current strategy.

Sources:

1. Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattcraig/2023/05/14/russell-westbrook-means-business/?
2. LinkedIn https://business.linkedin.com/marketing-solutions/b2b-institute/the-b2b-effectiveness-code

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