Content creation - made simple
Content creation should be more that just about having a budget of X, therefore lets create Y asset.
When creating content, be it one asset or multiple to fill a campaign or always on nurturing programme I like to use the below diagram, as it helps focus the mind.
First off, it's important to know how long the buyer journey is for the particular production/solution you're promoting. This will impact how many pieces of content you need to create to keep relevant. There are typically three buyer journey stages of; discover, consider, and decide. Within each buyer journey stage the audience will have one mindset before progressing along their buyer journey. This can be applicable for both B2B and B2C content creation. At each mindset stage, the audience will typically be looking for certain types of questions/pain points to be answered. The ones shown here are examples and not exclusive, and should be identified from persona mapping. It's important to understand the pain points of the audience as this will intern inform the topics and content formats that need to be created, ensuring that they are authentic and aligned to the audience's needs, as well as ensuring you tick the brand box with product/solution inclusion (at the right time).
Whilst some content types like blogs appear within multiple buyer journey stages, it's important to note that the; tone, style, and length should be reflective of the audiences engagement around the topic, your brand, the products and solutions that are being considered. The content at the earlier part of the buyer journey will be smaller in length and will look to be focused specifically on the audience. This can often be a difficult shift for brands to make. The further into the buyer journey the content goes, it should start to outline the brand and the products and solutions that are suitable in addressing the earlier pain points of the audience. Towards the end of the buyer journey the content should be validating the selection made through proof points, and those feel good moments.
Other points to consider during the content creation, before putting it live/printing it:
- Have keywords been used?
- If an offline asset, how are you driving audiences online to continue their journey with your brand?
- Have the assets been atomised for distribution across suitable channels for audience engagement with the master asset?
- Have key events been set-up within Google Analytics?
- Has the relevant form strategy been deployed to enable data capture of inbound records, or progressive profiling of those already in the nurture?
- Does each piece of content signpost the audience to the next asset in the journey?
- If Marketing Automation is being used, have the assets and forms been lead scored correctly?
Please feel free to mention in the comments section of this article how you currently create your content.
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About the author: I am not and nor do I proclaim to be an award-winning author, however my blogs are developed from real experiences within Marketing. My aim is to share with and hopefully support others in their quest for Marketing excellence. If you find the blogs useful please follow me on LinkedIn and or on Twitter @ChrisHorley.