Creating a content strategy 101

Notes on Digital Marketing Strategy: An Integrated Approach to Online Marketing by Simon Kingsnorth

Creating great content is like cooking a special family recipe — it’s just pure magic, no matter the fancy tools or ingredients. But to get more people interested in the meal, we need a bit of flair — presentation, testing, or a good story with a touch of grandma’s charm. In this article, I share some reading takeaways from the book “Digital Marketing Strategy: An Integrated Approach to Online Marketing.” I’ll talk about what makes content great, how to create content for a global audience, as well as the step-by-step process from planning to creating a detailed schedule for content launch.

Thinking of Content

What should we consider when determining the content to produce?

• Formats: live content, immersive experience, imagery, written copy
• Platform: different social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, the brand’s website, and more
• Message: What’s the key message I want to deliver?
• Target audience: returning customers or new customers, all customers, or a subset of the overall customers
• Stage of the buying cycle: At what stage of the buying cycle is my audience currently positioned? Different information should be highlighted for the early decision-making stage versus the consideration stage.
• Content type(s): Is it feasible to create diverse content types from a single piece of content?
• Organization structure and current practices: Does my organization have a dedicated content marketing group as an independent unit, or is content marketing practiced horizontally across various organization silos? Additionally, does my organization have a documented strategy, or is there consideration for developing one?

What is considered great content?

Great content should be sharable, credible, relevant, interesting, timely, different, on brand and authentic.

Some questions to ask when writing a piece of content:

• Will my audience want to share this?
• While the content provides useful information, do my audience enjoy the process of exploring these results?
• Is the content interesting enough to be remarkable?
• Beyond staying relevant, is it possible for the content to not only align with my expertise but also intersect with other subjects, like a global event or a trending topic from a different industry?
• If my content has been done before, is it differentiated enough?
• Can my audience identify the connection between the content and my brand?

Four Key Stages to Create Content

1. Objectives and strategy

Our content strategy should align with the company’s business objectives. Some typical objectives include raising awareness, changing perception, fostering engagement, driving transactions, and improving retention. These objectives can also be categorized into brand engagement or demand generation. Brand engagement focuses on thought leadership, brand perception, loyalty improvement, and creating brand advocates. while demand generation targets traffic or lead-specific goals. Additionally, we need to determine whether the content required is functional or engaging. Functional content is designed to facilitate product or service sales, while engaging content encourages audience to interact with it by talking about it or sharing it on the internet.

2. Data analysis and target groups

We leverage brand guidelines to grasp the appropriate tone, design style, and acceptable boundaries for the brand. Customer analysis helps identify existing content and popular topics, while customer research provides detailed insights into the context, needs, and pain points from the user’s perspective. Analyzing historical data and current performance through analytics informs us about what is effective and areas for improvement. Keyword analysis is crucial for maintaining relevance and enhancing our credentials to rank on Google search. When defining target groups, it’s vital to focus on users’ problems and needs, because, in the end, users care most about themselves, as quoted by the book. We can think about where they are digitally active, what channels they prefer to communicate, and how they would like to be addressed.

3. Ideation

I have learned some interesting approaches to brainstorming, but I’d never heard of brainwriting before reading this book. In a brainwriting approach, we first define a problem statement, and then ask each member of a small group of colleagues to individually note down three ideas to solve the problem. We go through the process sequentially, allowing each person to build upon previously written thoughts and contribute new ideas to update the scenario.

Source: How to Use Brainwriting to Generate Ideas

4. Creation and planning

In the creation process, we kick off by crafting a comprehensive brief for the content strategy and plan based on insights drawn from previous phases.

We can use the content bubble to stay informed about what content to cover. Within the “company” zone, we focus on content relevant to the company, its products, services, company-specific news, and its expertise. Be careful not to be too internally focused here so that audience stay interested. The “industry” zone encompasses industry-wise events and updates. The “world” zone includes content about global events or content from world leaders, viewed through the lens of our company’s perspective.

Source: The Content Bubble

At this point, we would have created a list of content ideas with the help of the content bubble. We then move on to Excel to construct a content calendar. This calendar provides a brief overview of each content piece, detailing aspects such as publish dates, channels, authors, designers, audience or target personas, titles, synopses, required assets, and dependencies. Additionally, we create another topic calendar to track trending topics and world events, categorized into the “company”, “industry”, and “world” zones mentioned earlier. This calendar helps us plan relevant stories for the next 12 months. When preparing for content, a reactive process might require the creator to predict the outcomes or updates of upcoming events. To cover all bases, we can create the full piece for the expected result and a framework for the alternative result. Finally, a content audit checklist is needed to ensure each piece aligns with the brief and meets the intended objectives.

Measuring the Value of Content

When measuring the value of content, some metrics to consider are:

• Volume and reach metrics: number of reach or followers, impressions, media coverage gained (coverage, reach), social mentions, links back to my site obtained
• Engagement and consumption metrics: VTR, views, bounce rates, number of page views or download
• Content interaction metrics: social triggers data (retweets, shares, posts), social engagement data (number of comments under a post, audience of the person sharing a content piece)
• Acquisition and value metrics: number of conversions or leads, attributable sales volume and revenue, cost per lead, action, or sale

In addition, we might measure failure as well to gauge the effectiveness of our content. This involves examining the features of the content piece and the way we distribute it. We assess factors such as the particular day and time of release, the author, the subject of topic, the chosen channel, and the format to pinpoint the reasons behind failures.

International Content

In terms of international content, some areas of differences to consider include:

• Persona differences
• Platform differences
• Cultural differences (such as the use of humor)
• Legal implications
• Seasonal events
• Localization
• Mobile (mobile penetration and preferred operating systems)

*Regarding the book: Digital Marketing Strategy: An Integrated Approach to Online Marketing by Simon Kingsnorth is good for beginners without prior work experience or knowledge in digital marketing. The book provides a comprehensive overview of various channels, essential concepts, and key terms within the field.