Make Your Content Work For You

We’ve found that organizations have content, sometimes lots of it, but they can’t always pinpoint the value. It has become so pervasive that it has created what we call “white paper noise.”

But when organizations apply a strategic lens to these assets and realize that content can actually attract, engage, nurture, convert and ultimately build trust with the right people, then the power of content marketing is realized.

So what is your situation? If you’re like most, you have a good idea of the content in your inventory, but need a little help fitting the pieces together to best serve your audiences. And that starts with a thoughtful content strategy process.

To start, ask yourself – do you believe:

Content plays a role throughout the buying process and beyond?
A more informed customer is a better customer?
It’s more about engagement than impressions?
Content impacts bottom line?

If you answered with a resounding “yes,” let’s get started. If you answered “no,” give us a call at 919-677-9555. We have some talking to do.

A Unique Approach to Content Based on Your Goals

Though everyone’s content strategy and approach to nurturing should be unique to goals, audiences, challenges and resources, below are a few core elements of our process that are likely relevant to your objectives.

Identify Your Audiences

There’s a saying that goes, “When you try to please everyone, you will please no one.” We have to start any initiative by getting to know the people you are most interested in building relationships with.

Audience research – this could be primary or secondary, internal or external.
Persona development – defining your target audience with personality traits, decision making lenses, values and other key characteristics that impact their journey with your organization.
Customer journey mapping – understanding key questions, pain points or misconceptions to uncover key topics of interest.

Highlight Gaps

Once we have a strong understanding of who your primary audiences are, current content can be evaluated based on criteria like relevance, clarity, accuracy and comprehensiveness. This process highlights gaps that must be bridged in order to effectively reach and move your audiences forward.

Content inventory and audit – completed with the lens of audience behavior insights, buy cycle conversation information and key strategic business goals.
Channel evaluation – to understand which channels and formats have historically performed, which have not and what opportunities we have yet to explore. We can also use this as a time to identify functionality obstacles with your organization’s platforms (i.e., content management system, digital asset management system, marketing automation platform).
Organizational resource identification – evaluation of time (capacity), talent (subject matter experts or copywriting experts) and treasure (budget).

Develop Strategy

Now that you have identified the gaps, it’s time to develop a plan. Prioritizing where you need to focus content and to whom is key to starting off on the right foot. But don’t get held up in paralysis by analysis. No strategy is static – we refine over time as we become more informed.

Competitive/marketplace analysis – become familiar with how competitors are communicating to ensure future content is differentiated.
Content strategy – identify content priorities and create an actionable plan based on gap analysis.
Content planning – define content type, create a content development calendar, determine responsible parties, due dates, metrics of interest, content format, etc.
Channel strategy and promotional planning – identification of appropriate channels to communicate through and development of promotional calendar.

Continue Optimizing

Effective content strategy means you’re investing appropriately. Much like a financial advisor would optimize your investment portfolio, we help you continue to improve your content approach based on performance. We do this through:

Evaluation of content topic, format and channel performance
Testing of creative and placements