818 Agency’s Guide to Implementing Content Marketing in Your Organization
So this happened.
If “Content Strategy” and “Content Marketing” were brands, they would be blowing up right now.
CMOs and agency heads everywhere are madly Googling and adding themselves to every newsletter possible to try and figure this out.
We’ve entered the phase where all industries know they need it but now need guidance on how to implement.
Focusing on content and the context of communication is now at the root of any successful customer acquisition strategy – especially now that ‘traditional’ methods have led to some serious flatlining. Cue: Panic Mode.
A Pitch Around Content Strategy: The Intro
Content strategy broadly refers to how you use editorial content to drive business objectives that direct sales and traditional marketing no longer can.
Specifically it refers to using insights and data to solve creative dilemmas, inform content creation, distribute content to the right audience – and measure everything so you can refine what works and what doesn’t.
All brands also need to create high-quality, search-friendly editorial content as a foundation to increase global web traffic. The tools now exist to help us understand the how and why content resonates or not.
This is How You Track Content Performance (It’s Personal)
There are hundreds of analytics tools out there (and more popping up every day).
Analytics are kind of like food preferences. They can be very ‘personal’ to each brand and depends largely on business goals, types of content, volume, or desired call-to-action. Also, certain clients will already be using analytics tools they really like (orthink they like).
That said, there are certain core “dishes” everyone loves. Stay tuned for a separate blog post just on tracking. Proper tracking and optimization is crucial to mitigating the disappearance of the content you’ve labored (so lovingly) to create.
Content marketing, when done well, solves this problem very effectively. It’s an elegant blend of creative excellence and sophisticated data.
The Set-Up: A Typical Content Strategy Process – Where Does Your Company Fit?
- Target Audience identification – Insights, Focus Groups, Content Audits, Competitive Analysis
- Goal Setting & Attaching a Business Goal to each piece of content
- Channel Selection & Development
- Content Creation (SEO and Insights-driven) and Distribution (Placement, unpaid and/or paid)
- Ongoing Content production and governance plans
- Measurement Methodology | Optimization (Content Performance)
Test Period
The idea here is to collect enough data and test 3–5 channels so that some real-time strategy and some tactical things can happen concurrently.
Competitive analysis and target audience identification allow you to create appropriate content. Measurement and SEO enables you to learn what works and what doesn’t. At the end of the test period, you’ll be able take key learnings and document a much more comprehensive and informed content strategy – which you can then execute internally or hire an agency to do so.
Creating Your Own Content Strategy and Marketing Dept.
As a brand, you may not realize it but you may already have all the key players necessary to create your own content strategy and marketing department. If these folks are already at their limit, it’s time to hire an agency until you can beef up in these core areas.
Get the people who already work with you oriented around Content Strategy and Marketing;
- Research: Insights, Focus Groups, and Competitive Analysis
- Tracking, Analytics, and Data Visualization
- SEO
- PR & Media Relations (influencer Outreach)
- Strategic Content Creators (writers, video, graphic designers)*
- UX/UI Specialists
- Social Media team
- Paid Media specialists (FB, Twitter, Linkedin, Outbrain, et al)
- A Collaboration platform just for Content Marketing and Strategy efforts/team – Try Trello or TeamGantt
*it’s always good to also work with outsider writers/creators who can bring their unique perspectives to your storytelling (i.e. not yet drinking the internal kool aid).
And Introducing……Someone to Bring it all together
A Chief Content Officer (reports to the CMO) > ok, so you’ll have to create this position. This person really knows how work with editorial, insight, and data teams and rocks when it comes to writing and continually revising company content strategy. At a smaller brand this is the CMO (or owner). All good.
You may have noticed that content marketing touches all parts of your business.
As a CMO or VP, if you run more than one brand it makes sense to have associate content chiefs for each brand, so distinct brand voice maintained and content strategy can properly tailored within the mothership.
Content Strategy Development – The Playbook
After going through the above process you’ll be able to take your findings to develop and document a comprehensive, scalable content strategy playbook (with a cost structure) for your brand team or clients. The playbook is something youand/or your agency can execute together over the longer term.
“that content strategy tho…..”
By: Jed Wexler
Some Amazing Resources (Get Your Learn on);
A Really Good Article called The Content Marketing Revolution
Lieu Pham — follower her on Twitter and definitely add yourself to her newsletter list. She’s a content strategist at King Content, a great company out of Australia
Content Marketing Institute – the OGs of this discipline, founded by Joe Pulizzi in 2007 (workshops, conferences, and seminars)
The Cure to CMOs’ Top 3 Concerns? Smarter Content Marketing.
Stay Tuned: “PR, Say Hello to Content Strategy – How Content Marketing and PR go Hand-in-Hand” — Sign up to receive more just like it straight to your inbox
