WHY AND HOW: A DOCUMENTED CONTENT STRATEGY (AND MORE)

This week:

• A few thoughts on content strategy - why it’s a necessity and how to create one.
• Advice on budgets and attribution.
• A must have for you re: content.

A DOCUMENTED CONTENT STRATEGY: A WORTHY (AND VERY NECESSARY) INVESTMENT

Reality check: attention is currency and content is the means by which to capture it.?

This isn’t an easy thing, publishing quality content consistently, but it’s much easier if you (as with most anything) have a structure to work out of.

This feels intuitive - and yet, per a survey conducted last late year by the Content Marketing Institute, just 40 percent of marketers have a documented content strategy, 33 percent say they have strategy, but it’s not documented anywhere, and 27 percent don’t have any sort of strategy and are winging it entirely.

This is unfortunate.

Why do you need a content strategy??

The answer is straightforward: sans strategy, you’re fumbling around in the dark, with no means of knowing whether your efforts are translating into value.

This is to say: developing a content strategy is one of (if not the) most important things you can do re: content marketing.

What makes for an effective content strategy?

If you’d like for your content strategy to produce results, you must ensure it’s:

• Aligned with your business objectives. Sans alignment, you’re left with a strategy that is ineffective, if not counterproductive.
• All-encompassing. A strategy should encompass every part of the process, built to ensure your editorial calendar is (always) fleshed out with fresh, relevant content - with the infrastructure in place to create, publish, and promote it.
• Malleable. There’s quite the difference between “reality as you think it will be” and “right now reality," and your strategy should account for this, built to be altered as is necessary.

How to develop a framework for your content strategy:?it requires effort, applied consistently over time, but worry not - it's worth it.

What follows is an high-level overview of the process, broken down into different stages (and I'd to say, what follows isn't particularly novel, but has been said before, many times, but given that most marketers who do content do so sans strategy, I feel it's worth talking about nonetheless):

(1) RETRO: before you think about doing something new, you should first set aside some time to think about what you've already done (and are currently doing) and why.

Review your business objectives: review your high-level objectives so as to inform your content strategy.

• Remember: a content strategy that isn't properly aligned with your larger business objectives isn't going to do what you want it to.
• So, it’s important to consider things you probably think you already know: who your brand is, what the market looks like, how you compete, and what you’re wanting to achieve.

Audit your existing content (if you have any): examine the current state of your content ecosystem so as to see what might be missing and how you can improve.

• Ask yourself: what sort of content are you (as of now) pushing, what messages are (and aren't) you sending to your audience, what's working, and (most importantly) what isn't?
• As you move forward, take what's been working and leave what isn't (regardless of how much you like it).

(Is there anything else you'd include in this stage? If so, let me know.)

(2) STRATEGIZE: so, you’ve given yourself a good look in the mirror - now it’s time to construct a framework for your strategy.

Determine your content strategy objectives: ask yourself what (specifically) you want to achieve with your content strategy and define (reasonable) metrics by which to measure your success (or lack thereof).?

• Start at a high-level: construct a content strategy statement to (in one or two sentences) explain the contours of what you want out of your content marketing efforts.
• Take this statement, and break it down into objectives - so, such things as cultivating brand awareness, generating more leads, driving conversions - or something else altogether.
• From here, come up with key performance indicators by which to measure how you're doing re: objectives.

Conduct persona research: understand who your audience is, what they’re interested in, and how you can serve their needs.?

• Remember: your audience is selfish, which is to say, at the end of the day, they don't (really) have an interest in your brand or your product offerings. but in what your brand and offerings can do for them.
• This is to say: don't talk about yourself, but about them - their problems, interests, wants, and needs.

Think through their customer journey: determine what prospects need to hear at each stage of the journey to move them forward.

• The right message to the right person at the right time can (and oftentimes does) make the difference - but this requires an understanding of the customer journey (for each of your personas), end to end.

Determine what channels and content formats you will focus on: identify what will allow you to most effectively reach your target audience (read: your personas).

Create an editorial framework: get a high-level view of your content priorities.

• Before you get into the "content-weeds," it's in your best interest to identify what (read: subjects) you want create content around for, say, the next year, broken down by quarter.

(Same question: anything else you'd include here?)

(3) CREATE: by this point, you should have a (relatively) fleshed out picture of your objectives and structure, so now it’s time to get into the "content-weeds."

Ideate on content: create content that provides value to your target audience (in support of a specific objective).?

• Ensure you’re not offbeat: focus on your personas and provide them with the sort of content they’re after.?(I know I've said this already, but this is a point worth repeating.)
• Work toward consistency: identify your primary talking points so as to ensure you’re telling a consistent narrative across your content.
• Identify your keywords: again, your content is only as effective as it is visible, so take advantage of and optimize your content around select keywords.

Develop your content calendar: cultivate a consistent publishing cadence and stay in front of it.

• Consistency in publishing is (one of) the most important parts of a content strategy that finds any sort of success - so, do yourself a favor and schedule your content ahead of time, finding a publishing cadence that works for you.

An ongoing approach to content. Important: refer to your content (and strategy) often - and adjust as necessary - because remember: this is a reality that is constantly changing.

(One last time: what else would you include?)

So, as you can see, this isn’t rocket science, but it requires effort, applied consistently over time to do effectively - a worthy investment, you will find.

WORTH YOUR TIME: BUDGETS and ATTRIBUTION

These are two things (budgets and attribution) most of us marketers loathe to talk about, but they’re a reality we face, whether we’d like to or not - so .. here’s a few links for you.

• This article (by Marcus Taylor of Venture Harbour ) on how to set, allocate, and optimize your marketing budget.
• This guide (from the folks over at CaliberMind ) on multi-touch attribution (something every marketer worth their salt should familiarize themselves with).
• This blog post (by LAIRE ) on how to more effectively justify your marketing budget to those you answer to.

TRY THIS: CONTENT MARKETING MADE EASIER

So - circling back to content strategy: again, it’s not a difficult thing in the abstract, but does require (quite a bit of) effort (again, applied consistently over time) to make it a reality.

Much of the work is on the front end. It takes (many) hours of work to audit your content (determine how it’s performing, what you’re missing, and what you should prioritize).?

MarketMuse by Siteimprove automates this - all of it - and more: cluster creation and analysis, competitive content analysis, keyword research, content briefing, and content optimization.?

I’d say it’s a content marketing must have.

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Check it out and let me know what you think - and also, pass along any recommendations you have on new and useful tech.

That’s a wrap on this week, folks.

Find any of this useful? If so, let me know what (and why) in the comments - and if not, I’d ask you to do the same.

Cheers.