Content is King, Strategy is Queen. A Springboard E-Book

Transcription

1 Content is King, Strategy is Queen A Springboard E-Book

2 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 userfriendly 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 the lifeblood of a marketing message, and is more important than ever before. The Internet is ever expanding: There are over 600 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. 600 MILLION WEBSITES 181 MILLION BLOGS 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 the masses if your content is well-executed, targeted correctly and calibrated according to your particular message. 2

3 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? 6. What are the metrics that identify your success? 3

4 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. 4

5 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: PAID OWNED SOCIAL EARNED 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 5

6 Content Vehicles 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 , 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. Social Media: According to Netpop Research, social media use in the U.S. has increased by 356 percent since 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. 6

7 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 Web pages get six times more leads than those with 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. 7

8 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-bycase 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. 8

9 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 only when your strategy is Queen So what is your content strategy? us at [email protected] Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter 9

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