Certainly, you use content marketing in your marketing strategy, or at least you associate this term. But do you associate the term Content Strategy? If so, I congratulate you. If not, you have omitted a very important element in planning your content marketing strategy.
To better illustrate this, we present a short definition of both terms.
Content Strategy: planning, development and management of information content.
Content Marketing: creating and distributing content for marketing purposes.
Do you see the difference? These are two completely different definitions, but very interrelated. One should not exist without the other. But about 75% of organizations conduct content marketing activities without a basic strategy. This means that most of the content created does not have a defined framework and specific goals, which creates content for the very idea of creation.
Here are 10 steps to help you create your own content strategy:
- tables of pages;
- publication calendar;
- style guidelines;
- persona;
- list of keywords;
- short information about the brand (brief);
- guidelines for editors;
- a database of graphics and/or digital resources;
- instructions for external authors;
- content maintenance plan;
STEP 1: Page tables specify content requirements.
Page tables, also known as content schemas, are useful in determining content requirements for websites, social media and other media channels before such content is created.
Style boards help to separate the same content and their goals from style. The boards answer questions such as:
- What content is to be created?
- What is the type of page?
- What is the area of the company’s operations?
- Who is responsible for accepting the content?
- When will the content expire?
- Who is the content targeted to?
- What goals do we want to achieve?
- What brand messages do we want to convey?
- What products or services are offered on the site?
- What is the purpose of the recipients? (CTA)
- Who writes and edits content on the site?
STEP 2: The publication calendar organizes the creation of content.
The publication calendar determines what content will be created when in what format and for which channel. The digital calendar also tracks the connections of these contents, including the way they will be adapted and their response reinforced in social media channels.
The publication calendar should answer the following questions:
- How much content?
- How often are the content published?
- When will the content be published?
- What are the requirements for content?
- Which keywords will the specific materials focus on?
- Where will the content be published?
- Who is responsible for the various stages, from creation to publishing?
STEP 3: Style guidelines for authors and graphic designers.
Style guidelines are documents that describe the rules and recommendations for creating content elements related to the brand.
They can be divided into two categories:
Written guidelines:
Guidelines for authors include rules in grammar, vocabulary, style, tone and expression. Usually different depending on the channel.
Visual guidelines:
The guidelines for graphic artists include the principles of invoking authors, text-graphics r