Overview

This article provides a comprehensive guide on how to create an effective content strategy by building a diverse content team, involving representatives from all departments, aligning content with business goals, mapping the customer journey, and ensuring content serves a purpose. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the audience, setting clear goals, and brainstorming content ideas that provide value to the reader.

Information

Best Practices For Creating a Content Strategy

Learn best practices for creating an effective content strategy. In this lesson, you will get a better understanding of best practices for creating content. Following the below criteria will help you achieve success!

Build Your Content Team

Here are some questions to ask yourself to get started:

Do you have a content manager?
Do you have any existing content you can use?
Do you have a content agency?
What’s your content budget?
Do you have experts internally or should you outsource?

Get Perspective: Gather a Content Committee

A common mistake many enterprises make with their content strategy is to leave it solely in the hands of the Marketing department. An effective content strategy should aim to break down departmental silos. To achieve this, form a content committee that includes members from all departments. Engage these representatives in discussions about the goals that are important to them. These discussions could take place during a lunch-and-learn session or through informal conversations with each department leader.

Align Feedback with Business Goals (KPIs)

After gathering goals from all of your department representatives, determine what will be a measurement of success for each of those goals. For example:

Brand mentions and impressions
SEO Rankings and backlinks
Web traffic
Meetings booked
Sales leads

Set Goals for Content Creation

Here are some questions to get you started:

How much new content will you be creating?
How much content can you repurpose?
Who will approve content for publishing?
What devices will employees and customers, prospects and recruits use to consume the content?
Will there be multimedia content?
Who does the content research? What tools will you use?

Map the Content Journey

Don't make the mistake of creating content based on assumptions about what will interest the reader. Instead, find a way to "know" how people are thinking and what they'll find most useful. Engage with your audience by asking questions and identifying friction points in the customer's journey. This valuable data likely already exists within your CRM or customer support system. Each challenge, concern, or question identified can be transformed into compelling content.

Content Should Always Serve a Purpose and Provide Value

Building on the content goals you determined earlier, select which content type would be best for your brand. Here are some different content types you can create:

Blog posts
Downloadable Guides
Video/webinars
Photos
Memes

Brainstorm Some Content Ideas

Building on the content strategy you've put together, it's time to brainstorm some content pieces. Some of the most effective content pieces shared by our customers include:

Company culture: Share pictures of employees working in the office, events outside of the office, employee features, etc.
Industry influencers & media: Target specific influencers in your industry and curate their content.
Articles: Share blog posts that are relevant to your audience.
White papers and downloads: Offer white papers and downloadable content from your website.
Jobs and career opportunities: Post about job openings and career growth opportunities within your company.
Industry research: Share any research or data that’s relevant to your industry to help your employees build thought leadership.
Media coverage: Highlight media mentions or coverage to help build brand awareness and recognize third-party validation.

Helpful Resources

Explore the following resources to enhance your knowledge and skills:

FAQ

Why is it important to involve representatives from all departments in the content strategy?

Involving representatives from all departments helps to break down silos, ensures a variety of perspectives are considered, and aligns the content strategy with the goals that are important to different areas of the business.

How can I determine if my content is successful?

Success can be measured by aligning feedback with business goals and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are specific to the goals set by department representatives.

What should I consider when setting goals for content creation?

When setting goals for content creation, consider what will interest the reader, how the content aligns with the customer's journey, and the challenges, concerns, or questions your audience may have.

What types of content can I create to serve a purpose and provide value?

The article suggests selecting content types that best fit your brand and goals, but it does not list specific types. Generally, content types can include blog posts, infographics, videos, whitepapers, case studies, and more.

Who can I contact if I need further assistance with my content strategy?

For further assistance, you can contact the support team at support@postbeyond.com.