“Content is King,
Strategy is Queen”
Content is King
Advances in Web-based technology have
ushered in a new era of content creation.
Barrier to entry for publishers is lower
than ever before. Increasingly
user-friendly content management systems and
well-established blogging platforms like
Wordpress, which provide a lot of support
and automation, have made it easier to
create and manage websites, effectively
democratizing publishing and content
creation.
Some extol the virtues of widespread access to these resources while others believe that it is the demise of publishing as we know it. Either way, content, underpinned by storytelling, is considered
million websites, according to a survey by Netcraft. Citing a report from Nielsen, there are 181 million blogs (up from 36 million just five years ago). As such, it is harder than ever to be heard above the noise. Your content needs to be tighter and more targeted in order to distinguish yourself from the masses.
While the democratization of publishing has increased the noise level, it has created opportunities for those who wield these
platforms to develop relevant content that supports their business. Sure, there are more website properties with which you, as a website owner, blogger or other content provider, have to compete against, but also consider that this democracy, while flooding the Internet with competition, has, in many areas, lowered the quality of your competition. There is an opportunity to be heard above
600
MILLION
WEBSITES
181
MILLION
BLOGS
Business First
Before you go shelling out coin for a snazzy
website or a glossy brochure, make sure that
you’re clear on what your business objectives
are first. That sounds like an obvious dictum,
but the truth is many businesses let tactics
dictate strategy, as opposed to the inverse.
Answering these questions is the first step
toward developing successful content:
1. What are your business objectives? Think long-term and short-term.
2. Do you have a clear understanding of the market and the differentiation your company offers?
3. Is your solution unique or a commodity?
4. What problem does your product or service solve? 5. How about the why? Why would someone need your
solution?
Who Are You?
Once you’ve crystallized your business
strategy, you can create a brand identity that
will dictate the messaging you develop and,
hence, content that you produce. Your brand
identity is who you are as an organization.
Ask yourself a few questions in order to help
clarify your brand identity.
What is your company ethos? What do you value as an organization? Customer service, innovation, loyalty, openness? The qualities you aspire to espouse will be influenced by the kind of industry in which you operate. A consumer-facing technology startup will likely value innovation, for instance, whereas a large, well-established enterprise software organization may value partnerships and loyalty.
How do you want to be perceived and by whom? Who is your customer? What are their pain points? What are their needs? What are their spending habits? And once you’ve established who that person is, what they need, and how they behave, ask yourself how you want that person to think of your organization. A partner? Resource? Problem-solver?
What is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)? You know who you are. You know who your customer is. Now ask yourself why they might be drawn to your organization. Who are your main competitors? Better put, who might your prospective customers consider as an alternative to you or instead of you? For which services? Why should they choose you over them? For example, if you’re an established organization, you may tout your proven track record as an asset over your competitors, whereas a younger organization is likely to promote its customer service and nimbleness. Find out what your differentiator is. Try to be as specific as possible. The more specific your USP is, the clearer your branding and the more targeted your messaging can be.
Content Vehicles
With a clear brand identity and sound
business strategy, you can start thinking
about your content strategy. How do you
want to communicate your messages to
prospects, customers, partners and the wider
market? Different tactics and combinations
of tactics can be used to convey different
messages to different audiences. It’s your
job to identify which content vehicles are best
for which messages.
In order to accomplish that, you must be familiar with the content vehicles at your disposal. Springboard’s POSE offers a simple framework to help you understand the main buckets of media from which you can draw your content elements. POSE is an acronym for Paid, Owned, Social and Earned media:
Advertising, Sponsorships, Events and SEO/SEM
Website, Blog, Video and other Internally-Created Content
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Foursquare and Quora
Public Relations, Investor Relations and other Word-of-Mouth Activities
PAID
OWNED
SOCIAL
EARNED
Content Vehicles
Social Media: According to Netpop Research, social media use in the U.S. has increased by 356 percent since 2006. In an increasingly social world, it’s important to utilize social media to engage with a community of prospects, customers and industry professionals. You may not consider social media to be content in and of itself, but it is. A tweet or status updates on Facebook or LinkedIn are all different animals that require different considerations when communicating a message. It’s important to understand the etiquette of different social media when creating messages on the disparate platforms. For example, while Facebook has made overtures to the business community with enhanced fan page features, Facebook remains largely consumer-focused. LinkedIn, by contrast, is exclusively professional. Twitter straddles the professional and the
personal, though its imposed brevity does foster a more casual atmosphere.
Website: In most industries, your website is the first impression you make on prospects, and it’s where customers go to see what you’ve been up to. Your website should contain a concentrated but comprehensive strain of your messaging, catering to all your audience segments. As such, it’s important to understand how different visitors may react to your home page and what they may want to see. Make it easy for different audiences, or buyer personas, to find the content elements relevant to them. According to Hubspot, 76 percent of consumers say that the most important factor in a website’s design is that “the website makes it easy for me to find what I want.” Once they get there, give them the option to drill down further or to complete an action: filling out a form, sending an email, etc.
White Paper/E-book: This is another formal mechanism. Use them to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. Don’t make the mistake of being self-serving with white papers; a white paper should be more objective. Essentially, they are position papers on a topic that affects your industry.
Content Vehicles
Video, Photos and Other Multimedia: Comscore reports that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion videos online in April. Sometimes, a picture (or a video) really is worth 1,000 words. Videos, images and infographics – graphical representations of statistics and other findings – can tell a better story than text-based messages. Infographic search volumes have increased by over 800 percent in just over two years, says Jeff Bullas. Consider your product or your industry. If you’re an enterprise software developer whose product interfaces with a lot of moving parts, an infographic may be a more effective way to demonstrate the pains your solution addresses. A
manufacturing company may want to show their efficiencies and commitment to safety standards in a video.
Press Release: Use press releases for formal, external announcements. Press releases are appropriate for product launches, acquisitions, partnerships, initiatives, etc. Though press releases are meant for media consumption, which means they should cater to journalists, they are increasingly read by your customers, partners and investors, offering a touch point to reinforce your message, new developments, etc.
Blog: A blog can hang off your website, serve as your online presence, or be independent from your website altogether. Either way, a blog is a more informal forum that allows you to intimate certain messages, allegiances, opinions and perspectives. You can also use your blog as a way to reveal some personality for customers and prospects who value loyalty and the human side of business. It is also essential for search engine discoverability as Google, Bing and the like award sites that produce fresh content. Businesses with websites that have 401-1000 Web pages get six times more leads than those with 51-100 pages, according to Hubspot. By creating more blog posts, you create more opportunities to rank in search engines.
Brochures/Pamphlets/Printed Collateral: These content pieces are often used for trade shows and other events. Presentation, look and feel are important elements for marketing collateral. The messaging here should give an understanding of your products and services. They shouldn’t be text-heavy but rather graphical and visually inviting.
Choosing Your
Content Vehicles
Once your business objectives and brand
identity are firmly in place and you have
an understanding of the content vehicles
available to you, you can begin to think
tactically. What content do you want to
develop in order to support your business
objectives? Does a corporate blog deliver
more bang for your buck than a video? Well,
it depends on what you want to achieve
and who you want to reach with a particular
message. In other words, it’s on a
case-by-case basis
.
If you’re a consumer-facing organization that wants to engage with users and create a sense of community, you may want to spend time developing a robust Facebook fan page, complete with a landing page, which might include an engaging video. But as a managed service provider, for example, Facebook may not do you much good. You’re better off spending time showcasing successful implementations, perhaps as a case study that hangs off your website and that feeds some of your marketing collateral.
Strategy Drives
Content
Content is only as good as your strategic
plan. If you have a sound strategy in place
and a clear understanding of who you are
as an organization, your content stands a
better chance at compelling its targets to take
action. As mentioned earlier, organizations
and marketers will often take a backwards
approach to developing content, fixating on
the tactic rather than the message and its
target, but when you’re clear on the latter, the
former will follow.
Content is King
when your strategy is Queen
only
So what is your content strategy?
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Written by
Springboard Public Relations
732-863-1900 springboardpr.com [email protected]
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