Content marketing now seems like an old buzz word in digital, with more and more companies seeing the value in engaging, high value and consumer-focused content.
A good content marketing strategy, however, is still a very much debated and current issue whereby getting the right percentage of promotion vs. engagement across to your target audience.
From focussing on high-quality website content, to aggregating effervescent PR, a good content strategy should consider different aspects of content; exercised in a coherent and on-going plan that speaks directly to the product or service customers.
Linked & liquid success
The problem with content strategy is that although its importance is realised - with companies and brands investing a significant amount of media budget and man hours into slick company copy - it is also completely misunderstood.
The internet is now a buzzing and evolving commodity littered with poorly written, terrible quality ‘white noise’ with no purpose other than to sell, sell, sell.
Content that is written for content’s sake.
The few that are doing it well, are reaping sales rewards. They are approaching content marketing through linked (directly promotional) and liquid (themed, expert) strategies.
Skittles embarked on an awe-inspiring Twitter campaign, bringing its brand to life with a whacky and forthright persona, growing the account’s following to an impressive 60k+.
‘Liquid’ tweets are built around nonsense, comical one-liners and ultimately ‘uplifting’ content that is on trend for the sweet’s target audience; ultimately associating the sweet and tweets with a general ‘uplift’.
Coca-Cola also continues to lead the way with the initiative via 2020 in 2012. Although seemingly linked, i.e. infographics directly related to products, its global content vision continues to create value and make a real difference to the end-user.
Power of purpose
It seems obvious then, that all content marketing should have a purpose. Defining this purpose, before defining a strategy, therefore seems like a good idea.
Ask yourself, what do you want your content to do?
Is it to…
· increase website traffic?
· grow enquiries?
· improve average time on site?
· be engaged with?
· be shared socially?
· increase brand awareness?
· act as a stand-out PR piece?
Wax on, wax off
All good content strategies should start – and stem from – excellent static, onsite content, showing search engines clarity and consistency in high quality and relevant content.
Therefore, it’s important to firstly assess existing online material, through:
1. On page content - is it good quality in terms of content & grammar? - Is it the right length, optimised and relevant?
2. Metadata - is there metadata on every page? - Has it been created in line with page content & search query volumes?
3. Sitemap - is there a XML & HTML sitemap available? - Is it up-to-date / uploaded frequently to reflect site changes
4. Online content style guide - is there a company / brand online style guide for internal and external content to ensure consistency? - Is there a predefined workflow for the upload of content, to ensure different copywriters are able to represent one brand / company voice? - Does content need to be approved by your Head of Content before going live?
5. Images - are all images optimised with carefully crafted alt text? - Are they linked to the original source if taken from another site?
6. Gap analysis - is there any information missing that is causing a high user bounce rate?
7. Clear architecture - is there a clear content architecture, does it flow naturally according to a user journey?
8. Editorial strategy & taxonomy - is there a strategy in place to ensure regularly uploaded & fresh content? - Is there a regular content audit in place to check through all online content? Once you have your starter cracked, you have the basis to start link building from a quality foundation.
Once your onsite is full optimised, start planning any offsite strategy by considering the following elements:
· PR;
· Articles;
· Blogs;
· Forums;
· Videos;
· Images & infographics;
· Social platforms;
· Ebooks;
· Webinars;
· White papers.
From one-off posts to all-encompassing PR stunts, your content strategy needs to be themed, seasonal, relevant, engaging and purposeful.
You may also want to consider critical, on-going analysis, to continue to improve and evolve and strategy, including: link analysis, messaging and auditing.
Winning ingredients
Using the simple formula of: plan, create, govern and deliver, any content marketing can be planned to be a winning strategy built to engage with the audience, and consequently start their journey in the first stage of the buying cycle.
Most importantly with content marketing is to remember:
customer engagement = customer acquisition
The more touch points you can use to speak to your audience, through linked and liquid content, the more likely the customer will be to remember your brand, company, product or service – and ultimately fulfil the content’s initial purpose.
By Andy Headington, CEO, Adido Ltd.
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