The Essentials of a Documented Content Marketing Strategy: - PDF document

1 The Essentials of a Documented Content Marketing Strategy:  2 WHY DOES A DOCUMENTED CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY MATTER? The majority of content marketers don’t have a documented content marketing strategy. What di�eren e does a do umented ontent strategy make? A ording to Content Marketing Institute/MarketingProfs content marketing research, marketers with a documented content strategy are:Far more likely to onsider themselves e�e tive at ontent marketingFar less challenged with every aspect of content marketingGenerally more likely to onsider themselves more e�e tive with every ta ti and so ial media channel Able to justify a higher per entage of the marketing budget to be spent on ontent marketing So, what does a do umented ontent marketing strategy in lude? There is no “template” for a content marketing strategy, be ause how mu h and in what format you need to do ument your strategy is unique to your business. For small and limited content marketing initiatives, we’ve seen success from simply walking through the process and not documenting much at all (although our research shows that a larger percentage of smaller organizations have a documented content marketing strategy as compared to their larger peers). In other larger organizations or initiatives, documenting everything and adding mapping or even separate executive summaries can make sense. Regardless of the format you use, this document will walk you through the steps you need to follow and the questions you need to ask as you create your content marketing strategy. As a starting place, The CMI Content Marketing Framework: 7 Building Blocks to Success, walks you through the seven common elements of a successful content marketing strategy. 3 CHEKLIST: POSSIBLE QUESTIONS TO NSER IN OUR OCUMENTED ONTENT ARKETING TRATEGYBusiness Plan for InnovationWhat hallenges are we trying to solve?What is our dream out ome with this pro ess?What is the risk if we fail?Whose unique perspe tives do we want to involve? If internal, what permissions do we need from their managers to parti ipate?What is our budget?How o�en do we want to produ e deliverables?If life or business issues get in the way, how an we push a “big red button” without disbanding the idea of the business plan? How will we exe ute ea h experimental idea, and how long will we give it to work?Business Case for Content MarketingWhat is the need? What do we hope to a omplish with our ontent marketing?How big of a need is it? Do we have a big enough audien e to justify a plan? What is the business model? How does it work? What do we have to do?What is our di�erentiating value? Why is this more important than other things we are spending time on?What are the risks? What’s in our way of su ess – or what happens if we fail?Persona Development and Content MappingWhat are the details of ea h of our personas? What does our sales funnel look like?What does the ustomer’s buying y le look like? What ontent do we need to reate based on the engagement y le? What is the ustomer ontext? 4 Our Brand StoryWhat does our marketing look like? Where are our ompetitors situated? What is the reality for our ustomers? Why do they urrently identify with our brand?What would the world look like if we ould realize the Big Hairy Auda ious Goal (BHAG) that we set out for our brand? What is the “ all to adventure” for our produ t?Why hasn’t this been done? Who will provide guidan e for our brand as it makes this journey? What is our new idea? How will we lead our audien e into this unknown with us?Who will our brand align with to help us move forward? Who will be the naysayers? What hallenges an we plan for?What will our brand ultimately a hieve? On e our brand has hanged, how will we show that di�erentiation? What ambush ould – or will – our brand fa e now that it is di�erent? How will we ontinueto move on?Channel PlanWhat do we already have that helps us tell this story (e.g., an existing Web page, blog, et .)?What must hange for us to tell this story (e.g., do we need to add a blog; do we need to reate or revisit our so ial Web strategy?)What must stop (if anything) for us to tell this story (e.g., do we need to stop using Fa ebook and divert our energy to a blog?)What are the obje tives for ea h hannel as they relate to the engagement y le? How will we map ea h hannel to our story?What are our spe i� goals for ea h hannel? Whi h hannels apply to whi h persona(s)? (Note: You may want multiple a ounts on the same so ial network to address di�erent personas.)How/who will manage the ontent and onversation on ea h hannel?What is the velo ity, tone, desired a tion and stru ture for the ontent on ea h hannel? 5 USINESS LAN FOR INNOVATIONWhen introdu ing an innovative pro ess like ontent marketing, you may need to build the business ase for innovation. Why? Be ause it’s quite simply getting the permission to fail. There is no way to prove return on investment (ROI) before you innovate be ause, by de�nition, it hasn’t been proven before. This plan may seem a bit ounterintuitive, but building a stru tured pro ess for innovation is more than gathering a new group in a conference room and throwing sticky notes on a wall (although that’s fun). Consider building a stru ture and plan for your innovation. Here are the questions the plan should include:What hallenges are you trying to solve?What is your dream out ome with this pro ess?What is the risk if you fail?Whose unique perspe tives do you want to involve? If internal, what permissions do you need from their managers to parti ipate?What is your budget?How o�en do you want to produ e deliverables?If life or business issues get in the way, how an you push a “big red button” without disbanding the idea of the business plan? How will you exe ute ea h experimental idea, and how long will you give it to work? 6 USINESS CASEFORCONTENTMARKETINGOn e your organization has agreed to experiment, the next step is building the business plan for ontent marketing. Content marketing is so new for most organizations – and tends to involve so many di�erent parts of the business – that it’s o�en di�i ult to identify the “hard bene�ts” or “numbers” that are going to really drive business value. It’s important to note: The business ase is not ROI. Trying to pin ROI on ontent marketing is a bit like asking, “What’s the ROI on your telephone system?” Like any good business plan, the business ase for ontent marketing answers five questions succinctly:What is the need? What do you hope to accomplish with your content marketing?Goals in lude things su h as brand awareness or reinforcement, lead conversion and nurturing, and customer conversion.How big of a need is it? Do you have a big enough audience to justify a plan?Can you use ontent marketing to ease an existing pain point or to enhance your existing marketing su essfully? Is this opportunity big enough to warrant spending your time and/or your money on? If so, by how mu h? While those with a documented content strategy are less challenged with every aspect of content marketing, those without a content strategy are far more challenged with getting executive buy-in, which is a key roadblock to content marketing success. Creating a business case is key to getting buy-in. 7 What is the business model? How does it work? What do we have to do?What is the s ope of your initial ontent marketing plan?What is the team you will need to address that s ope? How will this a�e t your existing ontent marketing e�orts? What is your di�erentiating value? Why is this more important than other thingsyou are spending time on?Can you expe t a li� in an existing program?Is there something that you are no longer doing (or that you should no longer be doing) that you an shi� people/budget from? Are there programs that ontent marketing an help feed (e.g., your SEO-optimized site)?What is your budget for failure? What are the risks? What’s in your way of success – or what happens if you fail?What are the possible sour es and impa ts of the ontent marketing risk on a hieving the goals you have set?What an you ontrol? And what an you do to minimize the possibility of these things o urring?Will your risk mitigation plans in rease the osts and/or return of your plan? 8 PERSONA DEVELOMENT AND CONTENT MAPPINGDo you really know WHO your ustomers are? The �rst thing you need to understand is that personas are NOT demographi s. Demographi s are simply attributes of a population (e.g., age, gender, race). You need to start thinking about your buyers as people – alive and di�erent and separated by their behaviors — rather than identifying them by their demographi s. Of ourse, these people will represent “segments” (or groups) of your onsumers — but they are nonetheless individuals you can identify and service. Follow these steps so you an better understand who your audien e members are and what questions they have. Develop your personasWhile we believe that you an – and perhaps should – go through a omprehensive buyer persona and ontent-mapping exer ise, many times this is not feasible. However, �guring out WHO you are talking to is vitally important — as is walking through a buyer persona exer ise.You will need one persona for every distin t group to whi h you are marketing. In other words, if a person goes through a di�erent buying y le, he or she is a di�erent persona. What do you need to know about these people? The easiest way to think about this is to answer the following questions:Who is this person? What is his or her need? (This is NOT why they need your produ t.)Why should she are about you?What unique value proposition (UVP) do you o�er this persona? 9 Create the engagement cycleThe engagement y le is a de�ned pro ess your audien e members go through as you help them in reasingly engage with your brand. You use it to map ontent to both sales and a consumer engagement process to help deliver the right conversation at the right time. Just as in real life when you meet someone, determining what you want to say to a persona is a combination of two things:Content: What do you want to say?Context: What is the best time and pla e to start the onversation?The sales processTo start, you need to de�ne your sales pro ess, whi h is how you wat h your onsumer pro eed through your marketing and sales e�orts. Regardless of what you all ea h step, this is how you identify customers who:Know nothing about youKnow something about you (lead)Are interested in what you have to o�er (subs riber)Compare you to other solutions (prospe t)Do what you want them to do (buyer)On e you have your funnel mapped out, you then build out your ontent segmentation, whi h is a matrix of your personas and your sales funnel. On e you have your grid, start �lling in the ells with your existing or new ontent items. A primary bene�t of this exer ise is that it o�en points to where your content marketing is either very light or very heavy. Jeremy, Webinar CONTACTQUALIFIEDFINALISTPERSONASContent Segmentation Grid 10 The buying processNext, you need to map out how your ustomers buy from you, or, on e they have bought, what you want them to do next. A sample buying y le may look something like the illustration. Note that this is not a linear process and consumers typically jump in and out of the orbits as they move closer in. But, as the consumer moves closer to the center of gravity, what he or she wants be omes more fo used as well. Buying Process Pur hase De isionRFI’s Pri ing VendorInformation SearchAwareness Competitive AlternativesRegardless of where your content is in the buying process or what persona you are targeting, it needs to do one thing: upport your content marketing mission statementhe why must come before the what. his seems obvious, but most marketers have no mission statement or core strategy behind the content they develop. 11 The engagement cycleOn e your sales and buying pro esses are de�ned, you next overlay them to get a better view of the ontent that you have – and that whi h you need. This pie e is designed to help you deliver the most relevant content to the most relevant persona at the most relevant time. Note: You do not need to map ontent to this extent, and you ertainly don’t need to develop content segmentation grids for every product or process. However, for key segments, you may want to consider these questions:In what language should we produ e this ontent?In what devi e ontext will this ontent be onsumed (devi e, interfa e hannel)?Why will people want this ontent through this hannel?What do we hope they will do with this ontent? PERSONASContent Segmentation With Buying Cycle Highlighted Awareness & Jeremy, Webinar CONTACTQUALIFIEDFINALIST 12 YOURBRANDSTORYYour next step is to determine your pillars of ontent, whi h in essen e, are the stories you want to tell. While this sounds great in theory, the tricky part for many companies is determining how to develop these stories in the �rst pla e. There are no hard-and-fast rules for developing your brand’s stories, but you an go ba k and look at lassi storytelling and stru ture as a helpful map to guide you. In Managing Content Marketing, we adapted Christopher Volger’s hero’s journey into 10 steps for developing your ontent marketing brand journey. Please note that this is a framework rather than a “to do” list or template. The stru ture is meant to help you to develop a way to TELL the story or maybe to dis over what is missing from the existing story. It’s not a TEMPLATE for the story. This is an important distin tion be ause your story will be unique to you, your brand, and the experien e you are trying to reate. The conventional marketWhat does your marketing look like? Where are the ompetitors situated? What is the reality for your ustomers? Why do they urrently identify with your brand?The challengeWhat would the world look like if you ould realize your Big Hairy Auda ious Goal (BHAG) that you set out for your brand? What is the all to adventure for your produ t?The rejection of the challengeWhy hasn’t this been done? The appointment of the sageWho will provide guidan e for your brand as it makes this journey? Crossing the unfamiliarWhat is your new idea? How will you lead your audien e into this unknown with you? 13 Map the road of challengesWith whom will your brand align to help you move forward? Who will be the naysayers? What hallenges an you plan for?The �nal hallengeWhat will your brand ultimately a hieve? Looking backOn e your brand has hanged, how will you show that di�erentiation? The �nal renewalWhat ambush ould – or will – your brand fa e now that it is di�erent? How will you ontinue to move on?CelebrationThis is you realizing your dream. Learn more about Brand Storytelling: 10 Steps to Start Your Content Marketing Hero’s Journey Content Marketing Brand Hero’s Journey 14 ONTENT MARKETING CHANNEL LANThus far, you have identi�ed your personas, developed your pillars of ontent, and segmented your ontent into both your personas’ buying y les and your internal sales y les. Now it’s time to choose how you are going to “place” that content. What channels are you going to use to distribute your ontent? To answer this question, you have to onsider the CONTEXT in whi h your audien e will view the content and then use that to alter the content accordingly. There are seven basi onsiderations for developing a ontent marketing hannel plan. Situational analysisWhat do we already have that helps us tell this story (e.g., an existing Web page, blog, et .)?What must hange for us to tell this story (e.g., do we need to add a blog; do we need to reate or revisit our so ial Web strategy?)What must stop (if anything) for us to tell this story (e.g., do we need to stop using Fa ebook and divert our energy to a blog?)Channel objectivesWhat are the obje tives for ea h hannel as they relate to the engagement y le? Content planHow will you map ea h hannel to your story?MetricsWhat are your spe i� goals for ea h hannel? Personas addressedWhi h hannels apply to whi h persona(s)? (Note: You may want multiple a ounts on the same so ial network to address di�erent personas.) 15 Content management processHow/who will manage the ontent and onversation on ea h hannel?Editorial planWhat is the velo ity, tone, desired a tion and stru ture for the ontent on ea h hannel? TRUCTURECTION250-Word Blurbs Sales Twitter Channel Add to existing Twitter posts. RT’s of our inforCRM Twitter Channel A Very Simple Channel PlanTo see a simple channel plan and more details about each step, view creating your content marketing channel plan. 16 CONCLUSIONYour do umented ontent marketing strategy is not something to develop and put aside, but rather it is a “living” do ument that should be referred to and adapted as your onsumers’ needs and the market hanges. As mentioned in the introdu tion, what you need to do ument and the format you use will depend on the needs of your business. But, by working through these questions, you will ertainly get a better sense of the ontent you need to reate (and what you don’t need) so you an better prioritize — and reate epi ontent. And, of ourse, your job does not end there. On e you have your strategy, you need to exe ute. Consider the next two steps:The global editorial calendarThe global editorial alendar is an aggregation of your hannel plan and a tually looks at ontent produ tion as well as the editorial s hedule. It an take many forms, although its �nal realization will be tied losely to your pro ess.The resource plan (occasionally)This is a ommon do ument when your ontent marketing strategy is performed as a brand new initiative. A�er you’ve de�ned your strategy, ompleted your persona development, identi�ed your story, and mapped your hannels, you’ll �nd there are a large number of tasks to be ompleted. You’ll need to assign resour es for these tasks – and in many ases, it may a�e t your timeline or budget. To get more details of these plans, read the de�nitive guideManaging Content MarketingAbout Content Marketing Institute:Content Marketing Institute (CMI) is the leading global ontent marketing edu ation and training organization. CMI tea hes enterprise brands how to attra t and retain ustomers through ompelling, multi- hannel storytelling. CMI’s Content Marketing World event, the largest ontent marketing-fo used event, is held every September, and Content Marketing Sydney, every Mar h. CMI also produ es the quarterly magazine Chief Content Officer, and provides strategi onsulting and ontent marketing resear h for some of the best-known brands in the world. CMI is a 2012, 2013, and 2014 In . 500 ompany.