Managing Content Marketing

1. Content marketing is about creating valuable, engaging stories

Good content marketing is alive. It is your story. It is conscious. It is about emotion.

Shift in marketing approach. Content marketing represents a fundamental change in how businesses communicate with their audience. Instead of interrupting customers with promotional messages, content marketing aims to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating valuable, relevant content. This approach helps businesses build trust, establish thought leadership, and ultimately drive profitable customer action.

Focus on storytelling. At its core, content marketing is about telling your brand's unique story in a way that resonates with your target audience. This involves:

• Identifying what makes your business unique
• Understanding your customers' needs and pain points
• Crafting compelling narratives that showcase your expertise
• Providing genuine value through informative, entertaining, or inspiring content

Long-term strategy. Content marketing is not a quick-fix solution but a long-term investment in building relationships with your audience. By consistently delivering high-quality content, businesses can create a loyal following of "brand subscribers" who are more likely to choose their products or services when the time comes to make a purchase decision.

2. Develop buyer personas to target your content effectively

Demographics don't work anymore.

Understanding your audience. Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers based on real data and market research. They go beyond basic demographics to include:

• Behavioral traits
• Goals and motivations
• Pain points and challenges
• Preferred communication channels
• Decision-making processes

Creating detailed personas. To develop effective buyer personas:

1. Conduct customer interviews and surveys
2. Analyze your existing customer data
3. Gather insights from your sales and customer service teams
4. Research industry trends and competitor audiences
5. Use social media listening tools to understand your audience's online behavior

Tailoring content to personas. Once you have developed your buyer personas, use them to guide your content creation process. This ensures that your content resonates with your target audience and addresses their specific needs, interests, and pain points at each stage of the buying journey.

3. Map your content to the customer's buying journey

Our buyer doesn't care one bit about our sales process.

Understanding the buying process. The customer's buying journey is typically non-linear and consists of several stages:

1. Awareness: Recognizing a problem or need
2. Consideration: Researching potential solutions
3. Decision: Evaluating options and making a choice
4. Post-purchase: Using the product and potentially becoming a brand advocate

Creating an engagement cycle. To effectively map your content to the buying journey:

1. Identify key touchpoints and decision-making moments
2. Develop content that addresses specific questions and concerns at each stage
3. Use a variety of content formats to cater to different learning preferences
4. Align your internal sales process with the customer's buying journey

Content segmentation grid. Create a matrix that maps your content to both your buyer personas and the stages of the buying journey. This helps ensure you have appropriate content for each persona at every stage of their decision-making process.

4. Create a compelling brand story using the hero's journey framework

Your content is now a conversation. It's a story that needs an audience to respond to.

Adapting the hero's journey. Apply the classic storytelling structure to your brand narrative:

1. The Ordinary World: Describe your industry's current state
2. The Call to Adventure: Present your brand's unique value proposition
3. Refusal of the Call: Address potential objections or skepticism
4. Meeting the Mentor: Introduce your brand as a guide or solution provider
5. Crossing the Threshold: Show how your brand helps customers overcome challenges
6. Tests, Allies, and Enemies: Highlight case studies and testimonials
7. The Ordeal: Demonstrate how your brand solves critical problems
8. The Reward: Showcase the benefits of choosing your brand
9. The Road Back: Address potential post-purchase concerns
10. The Resurrection: Illustrate long-term success with your brand
11. Return with the Elixir: Show how customers become brand advocates

Crafting your brand story. Use this framework to develop a compelling narrative that:

• Differentiates your brand from competitors
• Resonates emotionally with your target audience
• Clearly communicates your unique value proposition
• Inspires action and engagement from potential customers

5. Establish a multi-channel content distribution strategy

The content strategy defines the channel strategy — not the other way around.

Developing a channel plan. Create a comprehensive strategy for distributing your content across multiple platforms:

1. Conduct a situational analysis of your current channels
2. Define specific objectives for each channel
3. Create a content/conversation plan aligned with your overall story
4. Establish metrics for measuring success
5. Identify which personas will be addressed on each channel
6. Develop a content management process for each channel
7. Create an editorial calendar to guide content creation and distribution

Choosing the right channels. Consider factors such as:

• Where your target audience spends their time online
• The types of content that perform best on each platform
• Your resources and capacity for managing multiple channels
• The potential for cross-promotion and content repurposing

Optimizing for context. Tailor your content to the specific characteristics and user behavior of each channel. For example, create shorter, more visual content for social media platforms and longer, more in-depth content for your blog or website.

6. Build a content creation and management workflow

If you don't create change, change will create you.

Assembling your team. Identify key roles and responsibilities:

• Chief Content Officer (CCO): Oversees the entire content strategy
• Managing Editor(s): Manages day-to-day content execution
• Content Creators: Produce original content
• Content Producers: Format and package content for distribution
• Chief Listening Officer (CLO): Monitors social media and manages conversations

Establishing processes. Develop clear workflows for:

• Content ideation and planning
• Content creation and editing
• Approval and compliance checks
• Publication and distribution
• Performance tracking and optimization

Creating guidelines. Develop resources to ensure consistency and quality:

• Editorial style guide: Defines voice, tone, and writing standards
• Social conversation guide: Outlines rules for engaging on social media
• Content templates: Standardize formats for different types of content

Leveraging technology. Implement tools to streamline your content marketing efforts:

• Content management systems (CMS)
• Editorial calendar software
• Social media management platforms
• Analytics and reporting tools

7. Implement a robust content measurement and optimization process

Measuring everything you need, but reporting only what is important is key in creating an environment that allows for innovative experiments and the ability to "fail fast."

Building an analytics pyramid. Organize your metrics into three levels:

1. Primary Indicators (KPIs): 3-5 high-level metrics that demonstrate overall success
2. Secondary Indicators: Metrics that help improve specific processes
3. User Indicators: Detailed metrics for day-to-day optimization

Focusing on actionable insights. For each metric, ask:

• What action can we take based on this information?
• How does this metric contribute to our overall goals?
• Is this information truly necessary for decision-making?

Continuous improvement. Use your measurement process to:

• Identify top-performing content and channels
• Understand audience preferences and behavior
• Optimize content creation and distribution strategies
• Justify budget allocation and resource investments

Balancing quantitative and qualitative data. Combine hard metrics with qualitative feedback to gain a comprehensive understanding of your content's performance and impact on your audience.

Last updated: November 19, 2024