The most important part of your content marketing strategy is very likely to be the content you create. But first, you have to plan. Part of good planning and developing a good content marketing strategy is creating strategy process documents. Brainstorming documents lead to
Some people might think, “If we spend all our time talking about how we’re going to do things, when will we actually do them?”
NewsCred remarks on the importance of creating strategy documents by saying, “Having a documented content marketing strategy will help you work smarter, more efficiently, and more effectively. The very act of documenting your content strategy aligns you and your stakeholders. You’ll define your content marketing goals, the steps you’ll take to reach them, and how you’ll measure success. A good content strategy addresses your business challenges and how you’ll leverage content to solve them.” In fact, it’s so important that one B2B marketing study noted that 62% of the most successful content marketers have a documented strategy vs. 16% of the least successful.
How does a content marketing strategy document help you?
1. Onboarding new marketing team members
There are things that you can only learn by doing at a new business but having a blueprint or map can be helpful. Having a well-documented process and approach to your content marketing strategy can help you have not just consistency in what’s produced by your existing team but also help onboard new team members faster.
2. References for agencies and other partners
It’s possible that you won’t be handling your content marketing strategy alone; many businesses use agency partners to handle parts of their marketing business like social media. A content marketing strategy documents help guide efforts at agencies and other 3rd-party contributors.
3. Pre-determined success metrics
Without measures of success, how do you know if your content marketing is effective and working as intended? You don’t want to put days into a project to ultimately not have any way to measure its impact. While some marketing assets and campaigns will need to be measured independently and specifically, having some general KPIs documented makes it much easier to go into projects.
4. Understanding of business objectives
At its core, and at its start, a content marketing strategy playbook needs to outline not just what your content marketing is trying to do – like what social platforms make the most sense – but how these efforts will help your business meet its overall goals.
What to include in your content marketing strategy documentation
1. Identify your goals and audience
Why is your business pursuing content marketing? Why is that a better solution than something else? Who are the customers you’re hoping to reach with your content marketing plan? Having these answers and definitions documented helps give you direction when it comes to starting creating and distributing content.
2. Plan the creation of content
This document dives deeper to help businesses understand how to make content marketing work for them. What platforms make sense for distribution? Should you create a content calendar? What are the topics or themes that make sense to start with? Part of the marketing plan documents needs to have content guidelines that help writers and content creators know where the brand wants them to focus their efforts.
3. Measurement and analysis
Your strategy has guidelines, but everything is subject to change based on your efforts and engagement. Update your content marketing documents to reflect any changes, modifications, or findings that can help shape or progress your digital and content marketing strategy.
Content marketing guidance documents help guide writers and marketers, work to answer questions, and ensure the consistency that’s important for brands and the customer experience.
