Many people focus on the marketing side of content strategy, because it’s a means to achieve a certain goal. That goal is usually to enhance, or even replace, traditional marketing efforts. They want to generate more awareness and get more eyeballs. Fill the top of the funnel.
But as I always say, in the digital world, content = connection. You are doing much more than driving awareness. The goal of content strategy is to tell a story about your brand—to create a user experience. Storytelling is about making the customer feel something about your brand. When they feel good about you, they are more likely to buy from you—and even better, to recommend you to other potential customers.
Getting started planning your content strategy
But let’s get down to brass tacks. There’s no point in running a content strategy if it doesn’t impel an action. So how do we get started? In working with clients, here’s a rough overview of how I guide them through the beginning stages of designing their own content strategy:
- Start with your goals. Good content strategy always starts with a plan—looking at things before you even begin. The logical place to start? Your business goals. I always recommend narrowing these goals to one or two specific things that your business wants to achieve in the next specific span of time. One you’ve stated your goals, which ones can be achieved with content? If not completely, then partially? Good. Focus on those.
- Take stock of your assets. What do you currently have? What can be re-factored? Perform a full content audit. It can take a lot of time, but your content is a business asset. Like any asset, you want it to be a really important part of your business. What you’ll find is that there are opportunities to refresh, adapt, or reorganize current content into something that remains useful. Give it longer life.
- Plan for efficiency. As much as you can, think about producing content that will serve multiple purposes. Try to avoid creating one piece of content for one use only. Sometimes, that will be hard to avoid. Think re-use, as much as possible. It will make you more efficient, and when you set out with this mindset from the start, then it doesn’t feel like content marketing is an “extra” activity. It becomes a natural part of your business.
- Set your tone and voice. Your content is the orchestra and you are the conductor. Make sure that everything is in tune. Consistency is important in making a connection, so decide on a tempo as well. As you progress, your content will come to have its own personality. If it sounds uneven, people will notice. This is especially important if your business has more than one person producing content. Set up a style guide and make sure everyone sticks to it.
- Embrace changes to your plan. Working from your plan—with your goals always on the horizon—start producing. You may find that your plan changes a little as you get into it. Your audience may encourage you, or even challenge you. Your customers may inspire you with new questions—a great source of new content! Be patient, enjoy the dialogue, and let it come to you. You will really start to hone your voice in the process.
- Network your content. As you start to build out a library of durable content, look for areas where you can network your content together. Always link to 1 or 2 other pieces of yours. Just don’t go overboard. You want to take your readers on a path and invite them to take the next step, not overload them with more of your stuff. You don’t want it to feel too pushy or “salesy.” You can also use categories and tags in WordPress to “chain” content together to tell smaller stories as a part of your overall narrative.
Once you have a few pieces published, you’re ready to start inviting people in. Social media is the obvious next step, but how do you determine which channels are right for your brand? You can usually focus on one or two (rather than be in every channel), which is good news to most small businesses. Here’s an episode of my podcast to help you make some determinations in that regard: Social Media Marketing: Choosing Your Channel.
Click here to download the tools and templates that I use regularly in my own content strategy—and with my clients too. It includes worksheets for building and maintaining your website, publishing optimized blog posts, deploying social posts, and then monitoring and measuring your progress.
