Strategy nests hierarchically, with each layer supporting the ones above. For digital content marketing specifically, you'd detail those questions as:
* What are your objectives covering the next 12 months (SMART format), to outline what the efforts should achieve, how they'll be measured, success/failure criteria etc.
* What's your content going to look like in terms of media, what's the rest of the market doing, what are users, content consumers and customers all looking for...
* How will the comms translate your brand positioning and differentiation/distinctiveness to the audience? What should they take away from each piece and from the overall viewing of the many pieces of content which will be created?
* What channels will be used for promotion z and how will they be utilised?
* How will that content be produced, analysed and refined? What's the production lifecycle & management.
It's always the same five questions, with subtly in the detail of the thing being planned.
Hi Pete, It’s not really intended as an overall strategy – but as a ‘how to do content marketing’. Whether or not to attach the word ‘strategy’ is perhaps debatable; I think it works with the word ‘content’ – I wouldn’t have called it ‘marketing strategy’; but I did call it ‘content strategy’.
Three of the principles within it are:
1. Getting the most out of pillar content (e.g. 20–50 pieces relating to each pillar)
2. Getting the most out of social networks (e.g. tailoring pieces across different social networks with paths to the pillar)
3. Listening to reactions and accounting for those reactions in further content that is produced
In RTS we’d call it a ‘build order’. Which is a strategic template used to guide the order in which you build or create things to support your overall strategy.
In the same way, this is a strategic template for what to build, when and in what order to support your overall marketing or customer acquisition strategy. Choosing this template yo deploy would depend on other criteria that would push you to choose this over other possible strategic approaches.
I think all that is missing from the above article is some discussion of when it’s not appropriate to deploy such a strategic approach.
The blog layout is not the best i agree – some typography changes would be good, and the images may not be the best since sliced bread. The 10 steps though are proving effective for 2 companies I'm working with.
Not sure if I'm speaking just for myself, but it just comes across as kind of sleazy, but I guess that's the nature of this game. I'm not even sure what it is about it. I think it might be that it's accomplishing something that feels like it ought to be based purely on knowledge/expertise/competency and achieving based on a very robot/formulaic approach. I dunno. Feels like in the same vein as all that growth hackery stuff.
You do need to change the font color though lol. It is seriously hard to read..ultra thin sans font with a shade of grey that is like baaarely legible. It hurts to read.
It's low on information, badly presented, lacks any depth on anything it covers, and is flat wrong about what it's supposed to be (strategy). There's hundreds of better pieces about strategy, content strategy, marketing, digital comms, and content marketing than this.
My impression is sometimes people see a certain topic and want to talk about it and upvote. Regardless of it being high quality article or novel. Not saying that's right but it happens.
And sometimes low-quality content gets a better signal, because people want to pick it apart in the comments. Which looks engaging to the ranking rules.
Our organization has embarked on a content marketing strategy that looks exactly like this and it seems to be paying off. Our sales pipeline is better than it has been in years. Our sales and marketing people brought in a content marketing company to help us and although it seems obvious and simple having the formula laid out clearly without a wall of text does not translate to low value in my mind.
Definitely for the growth phrase. And could be before product-market fit, depending on many factors. If you know a particular niche and you know you are going to serve that niche, then I’d start content marketing early. If you might switch niches (for example your background is not in a niche you’re trying and your technology could serve other niches), then I wouldn’t go all in on content marketing with that niche until you know you’re sticking with it.
The content you’re publishing doesn’t need to relate directly to your product. Of course, you want to show expertise in that area. But so long as the content is useful for your niche, you can go more broad with it. For example, you might do an interview with someone who produces another technology for your niche.
Generally people do create a page for the brand; but this can be just a repository for content. Personal accounts are – of course – more personable; but also they have much more organic reach on some networks – notably Linkedin. If you post something from your personal account and the same thing on your company page, more people will see the personal post (assuming zero sponsored post spend).
The "pillar" or "hub-and-spoke" content model is standard practice these days and is recommended by everyone from HubSpot to Brian Dean to, yes, Gary V.
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[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 68.4 ms ] threadStrategy is planning five things:
* SMART objectives covering the next 12-36 months;
* Choices around how to compete and win in chosen areas of the market to achieve the objectives set;
* Positioning your organisation and its offering to be both distinct and differentiated to the audience;
* Selecting comms channels and messages to use to communicate with potential and current consumers/users;
* Altering your organisation to deliver the work all the above entail.
This is a not great article giving a list of things to execute a single tactic. Not a strategy.
Do not confuse the two.
I'd strongly suggest anyone interested in strategy read this: https://hbr.org/2014/01/the-big-lie-of-strategic-planning, by the excellent Roger L Martin
You can also read my far less expert thoughts on strategic thinking here: https://toughcompetent.com/dcxd/strategic-thinking/
* What are your objectives covering the next 12 months (SMART format), to outline what the efforts should achieve, how they'll be measured, success/failure criteria etc.
* What's your content going to look like in terms of media, what's the rest of the market doing, what are users, content consumers and customers all looking for...
* How will the comms translate your brand positioning and differentiation/distinctiveness to the audience? What should they take away from each piece and from the overall viewing of the many pieces of content which will be created?
* What channels will be used for promotion z and how will they be utilised?
* How will that content be produced, analysed and refined? What's the production lifecycle & management.
It's always the same five questions, with subtly in the detail of the thing being planned.
Three of the principles within it are:
1. Getting the most out of pillar content (e.g. 20–50 pieces relating to each pillar)
2. Getting the most out of social networks (e.g. tailoring pieces across different social networks with paths to the pillar)
3. Listening to reactions and accounting for those reactions in further content that is produced
In the same way, this is a strategic template for what to build, when and in what order to support your overall marketing or customer acquisition strategy. Choosing this template yo deploy would depend on other criteria that would push you to choose this over other possible strategic approaches.
I think all that is missing from the above article is some discussion of when it’s not appropriate to deploy such a strategic approach.
Other than that, it's great.
My impression is sometimes people see a certain topic and want to talk about it and upvote. Regardless of it being high quality article or novel. Not saying that's right but it happens.
And sometimes low-quality content gets a better signal, because people want to pick it apart in the comments. Which looks engaging to the ranking rules.
Do people typically use their personal social media accounts, or create new ones for the company/brand?
The content you’re publishing doesn’t need to relate directly to your product. Of course, you want to show expertise in that area. But so long as the content is useful for your niche, you can go more broad with it. For example, you might do an interview with someone who produces another technology for your niche.
Generally people do create a page for the brand; but this can be just a repository for content. Personal accounts are – of course – more personable; but also they have much more organic reach on some networks – notably Linkedin. If you post something from your personal account and the same thing on your company page, more people will see the personal post (assuming zero sponsored post spend).
I highly recommend looking through that deck for anyone interested in modern digital marketing strategy.