This lesson looks at ways and methods to identify the demographics, interests, and pain points of your target audience, create user personas for your business, and understand the buyer’s journey and what types of content will be most relevant and valuable to your audience at each different stage of their journey.
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Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Hello and welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
So far, we’ve looked at what a content strategy is, why your business needs one, and the benefits and importance of having a clear and defined content strategy in module 1.
We then looked at the main challenges of managing content effectively and what we need to put in place before we can develop an effective content strategy. That was module 2.
This is module 3, and this lesson is all about identifying and understanding our target audience.
Understanding our target audience is essential to develop an effective content strategy that will help our business succeed.
By identifying key characteristics of our target audience such as demographics, their interests, and their pain points, we can then create content that will speak directly to their needs, desires, and motivations.
So, how do we identify our target audience?
First, let’s look at what we are trying to understand about our audience.
Demographics relates to a market or a sector of the population.
Understanding our audience’s demographics lets us tailor our content strategy and content to better meet the specific needs of our customers.
Demographics relates to attributes like age, gender, income, education, occupation, geographical location, maybe even their family structure or lifestyle, if that’s important, and psychographics.
Psychographics is similar to demographics, but it deals with attributes that are harder to observe, such as mental and emotional characteristics and motives, whereas demographics are more visible and easier to determine.
So, things like your audience’s values, beliefs, and attitudes are psychographic attributes, whereas age, income, and occupation are demographics.
Now, the next set of information that we want to identify relates to our target audience’s interests and hobbies.
Understanding our target audience’s interests and hobbies can help us create messaging and advertising content that will fit their preferences and resonate with our audience, keep them engaged longer with our business or website, and create a more personalized approach that will help to increase our chances of attracting new customers and retaining existing ones.
To identify the interests and hobbies of our audience, we need to know things like:
What do they like to do in their free time?
What are they interested in learning more about?
Here are some examples of questions we can ask to uncover these answers:
“What are some of your favorite hobbies or activities outside of work?”
“What are some of the books, movies, or TV shows you enjoy?”
“What are some of the websites or blogs you like to visit?”
“What kind of music do you like to listen to?”
“What kind of events or activities do you like to attend?”
“What kind of sports or fitness activities are you interested in?”
“What kind of hobbies or activities do you enjoy with your family?”
“What are some of your favorite travel destinations or dream vacation spots?”
“What are some of the volunteer or community activities you’re involved in?”
“What are some of the causes or social issues that you care about?”
Another area we want to identify about our target audience are their pain points.
Their challenges, problems, and frustrations.
So what problems are they trying to solve?
And how can your product or service help to address these pain points?
Understanding our audience’s pain points lets us tailor our content to address their specific needs, desires, and concerns.
Now, how do we gather data about our target audience’s demographics, interests, and pain points?
If you visit the page listed on this slide, you will find more detailed information about each of these sources and links to tools and resources that you can use to gather this data.
Another way to identify your target audience is to create user personas for your business.
A user persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer.
User personas provide a detailed and specific picture of who your target audience is, what their needs and goals are, and how they think and behave.
You create a user persona from the data and research gathered about your target audience.
And these allow you to address your ideal customer when creating your content.
And there are a number of free user persona online generators that you can use to create user personas.
Visit the URL on the screen for a list of free tools.
The other important area that will help you identify your target audience and their needs, is understanding your customer’s buyer journey.
The buyer journey is the process that a potential customer goes through before making a purchase.
The stages of the buyer journey are typically divided into Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Retention.
In the awareness stage, your potential customer becomes aware of a problem or need that they have.
In the consideration stage, our potential customer is actively searching for a solution to meet their needs and is considering their options.
In the decision stage, potential customers have made a decision to solve their problem, and they are now looking for the best solution, and they are ready to make a purchase.
In the retention stage, the customer has already purchased the product or service and is now using it.
Since they have already purchased, this stage is not typically considered to be part of the customer’s purchasing journey but your content strategy still needs to accommodate this audience group in terms of retaining them and building customer loyalty.
Visit the URL on the screen for more details on understanding your customer’s buyer journey, the types of content you can create for each different stage of their journey, and useful tools and resources that will help you save time.
So, to summarize what we have covered in this lesson, let’s look at the action steps that we need to take to identify our target audience.
One, gather data about their demographics, interests, and pain points. There are various methods you can use to do this,
Two, create user personas. There are free online user persona generator tools that you can use, and
And three, understand the customer’s buyer journey and the best content types to help them at each stage.
For detailed tutorials covering each of these areas and links to tools and resources, just visit the URLs shown on your screen.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at setting content goals to create an effective content strategy.
Thank you for watching this video and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
This lesson covers what you need to know and do before you can create an effective content strategy for your business.
You will also learn about the challenges of managing content effectively and what you need to put in place first.
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Watch the video lesson below or refer to the video transcript:
Video Transcript
Welcome back to our video course on how to create an effective content strategy for your business.
This is module 2.
In module 1, we introduced you to the course and looked at what a content strategy is, why your business needs one, and the benefits and importance of having a clear content strategy.
In this lesson, we are going to look at what you need to know and do before you can create a content strategy for your business.
Now, there are obvious and not-so-obvious challenges to managing content effectively.
So, let’s look at some of the obvious challenges first.
These include things like:
Having too much content. The more content you have, the more content you have to manage. Without good content management systems, it’s hard to keep your content organized and easy to find, and important information can end up getting lost or overlooked.
It’s also harder to coordinate your content when you have multiple people or teams contributing to it.
Also, having outdated, inaccurate, or obsolete information can be confusing for users and harm your credibility.
Another challenge is adapting to new technologies and platforms. Your business needs to keep up with new technologies, systems, and tools to stay current and manage its content effectively.
Keeping sensitive or confidential content secure and protected from unauthorized access or leaks is another challenge.
And so is tracking and measuring content performance, which is essential for making informed decisions.
Keeping content integrated and aligned with other systems and processes within your organization is also challenging, but important to optimize efficiency and avoid confusion or duplication of effort.
And budget and resources constraints is a challenge for all businesses, especially small businesses.
Now, the not-so-obvious challenges of managing your content effectively don’t become apparent until you actually start trying to manage your content effectively.
Then you discover that effective content management is a Catch-22 situation.
If you are not familiar with this expression, think about the dilemma that most people face when they first try to get a job.
You’ve probably heard people complain that no one will give you a job if you don’t have experience, but how can you get experience if no one will give you a job?
That’s an example of a Catch-22 situation.
Similarly, when it comes to managing your content effectively, you discover that “You can’t plan, produce, promote, and manage your content effectively until you have put in place the right systems and processes to plan, produce, promote, and manage your content effectively.”
But then you are faced with the challenge of do you put content management systems in place first and then start to create and promote your content, or do you start creating and promoting your content first and then worry about putting systems in place later?
As we will see, this has a significant and direct impact on our content strategy.
So, let me explain what I mean.
Your content strategy is part of your content management system, so if we start creating and promoting content before developing our content strategy and putting systems in place to manage our content effectively, then what’s the point of having a content strategy?
Let’s go back to our definition of a Content Strategy from module 1.
A content strategy is…
A plan for creating, publishing, and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to achieve specific business goals and objectives.
A content strategy also helps you:
Define who your target audience is and understand their needs and interests
Create the right content to address their needs and speak to their interests
Determine the most effective channels for distributing your content
And track and measure performance so you can continue to improve your results.
So, without a content strategy, we are just creating content blindly with no real direction or ways to measure and track our content’s performance, so it’s all going to be hit-and-miss and guesswork and assumptions.
As we will see later in this course, eventually your business will end up with a very difficult mess to deal with and many more problems to try and sort out.
So we want to put a content strategy in place before we start creating and promoting our content.
But, this has its own challenges.
The first challenge is that a content strategy involves all areas of our business because content impacts all areas of our business.
Even writing a simple article or blog post for our website has to take into account areas like marketing and research, product development, accounting, legal stuff related to what you can and can’t say in your content, and even different types of technology like servers and different applications that are used by different teams or departments to store and send information, and so on.
You can read more about this challenge by following the link on your screen.
The point is that our content strategy has to take all of this into account.
The next challenge is that creating high-quality content and managing our content effectively requires quite a sizeable team.
There are many different roles involved in the process of planning, creating, promoting, and managing content.
So, whether you’re an individual blogger or part of a larger organization, all of these roles and responsibilities have to be met, so our content strategy also needs to take all this into account.
This leads to the next challenge, which is that it takes significant resources to create high-quality content and manage this content effectively.
You need a sizeable budget and personnel with the right skills and expertise, plus spending time doing content research, content planning, and documenting systems.
All of this is time-consuming and takes resources away from other areas of our business.
Most businesses operate with very limited resources and have very little time to devote to areas like content planning and documenting systems, so that’s a big challenge when it comes to creating a content strategy.
And finally, the last of the “not-so-obvious” challenges only becomes obvious when we try to start putting our content strategy together.
And this challenge is that all of the basic business foundations need to be in place for our content strategy to be truly effective.
Let’s think about what this means.
If the aim of our content strategy is to help our business achieve specific goals and objectives, then our business first needs to define those goals and objectives before we can put a strategy together to achieve these goals and objectives.
But it’s not just setting goals and objectives.
Before we can put an effective content strategy together, we also need to have a clear marketing plan, and this comes from having a clear marketing strategy, which comes from having a clear business plan, which comes from having a clear business strategy, which comes from having clear strategic goals and objectives, which come from having a clearly-stated business vision, mission statement, and core values.
If all of these processes are not clearly defined, then our content strategy will not be as effective.
So, let’s recap what we need to know and do before developing a content strategy for our business.
First, we need to be aware of the challenges of managing content effectively and
Then, we need to make sure that all of the basic business foundations are in place.
I’ve listed a number of articles on this screen that I recommend you read, as these cover in more detail everything that we’ve talked about in this lesson.
So, make sure to visit the website and if you have subscribed to the free email course, you will get additional information on everything that we cover in this video course.
So, that’s the end of this lesson.
In the next video, we’ll cover module 3, which is all about understanding our target audience.
Thank you for watching and I’ll see you in the next lesson.
Learn about the main challenges to managing content effectively and how to address these.
The Challenges Of Managing Content Effectively
Content management challenges abound in all organizations. Learn about the main challenges to managing content effectively and how to address these.
There are many challenges to managing content effectively. These include having too much content, multiple contributors, outdated content, adapting to new technologies and platforms, and more.
We explore these challenges in more detail and offer suggestions for effectively addressing them in this lesson.
This article is part of our Content Troubleshooting Guide, where we help you identify and fix content-related issues in your business.
Content management is about effectively creating, organizing, and maintaining digital content. This is not only essential for your business to operate efficiently, but also to communicate with all stakeholders.
There are, however, many challenges to managing your content effectively, and poor content management leads to confusion, costly delays, and lost business opportunities.
Think about this…
If your business has an online presence, it almost certainly needs content.
This applies to all businesses. If your company wants to compete online effectively, especially against larger competitors, it needs to regularly create and promote new content (your competition is doing the same).
New content, however, gets old very quickly. Old content with outdated, irrelevant, inaccurate, or obsolete information almost always has no value to users and can hurt your business.
Additionally, the more content you have, the more content you have to manage.
Now … stop for a moment and think about all the content and all the content-related areas your business needs to manage.
You will soon realize that effective content management involves managing not only your existing content, but all content-related areas and processes associated with content planning, content production, and content promotion.
Look deeper and you will realize that there are some obvious challenges to managing content effectively and some that are not so obvious.
Let’s look at these areas.
Managing Content Effectively – Obvious Challenges
The obvious challenges of managing your content effectively include:
1. The Challenge Of Too Much Content
As your business creates and acquires more digital content, it can become difficult to sort and organize it all in a way that is easily accessible and makes sense.
This can lead to important information getting lost or overlooked.
When multiple people or teams contribute content to your company’s digital assets, coordinating and consolidating these contributions can be challenging.
It is important to establish clear guidelines and protocols for content creation and submission, and a system for reviewing and approving new content.
Ensuring that all content meets standards for quality and consistency is also crucial. This is where documenting procedures can help, as well as using a workflow management system or other tools to help streamline the content creation and approval process.
3. The Challenge Of Outdated Content
Outdated content containing inaccurate or obsolete information can be confusing for users and it can harm your credibility.
Regularly reviewing and updating content is essential to ensure it is current and accurate. It is also good to consider repurposing old content rather than simply deleting it, as it may still be valuable in a different form or context.
This may involve using a content calendar or other tools to help schedule and track content updates.
4. The Challenge Of Adapting To New Technologies And Platforms
As new content management systems and tools are developed, your business must stay current to ensure the effective management of its digital content.
This can be a challenge, as learning and implementing new technologies requires effort and resources. Additionally, it is important to ensure that content is compatible with various platforms and devices, as more and more users access the internet through mobile devices and other non-traditional means.
This may involve using responsive design techniques or other methods to ensure that content is accessible and user-friendly across different devices and platforms.
5. The Challenge Of Securing And Protecting Content
6. The Challenge Of Measuring The Effectiveness Of Content
Determining the impact and effectiveness of content is essential for making informed decisions about future content strategies.
This may involve using analytics tools or other content tracking methods to measure content metrics such as engagement, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI) for different types of content.
7. The Challenge Of Integrating Content With Other Systems And Processes
Ensuring that content is integrated and aligned with other systems and processes within the organization is important for optimizing efficiency and avoiding confusion or duplication of effort.
This may involve using integration tools or other methods to seamlessly link content with other systems and processes.
8. The Challenge Of Budget And Resource Constraints
Allocating sufficient budget and resources to content management efforts can be a challenge, especially for smaller businesses or those with limited resources.
It is important to prioritize content management efforts and allocate resources accordingly while finding ways to maximize efficiency and reduce costs where possible.
We cover the challenges involved in this area in more detail in our Digital Business Setups lesson.
9. The Challenge Of Managing Client Content
Managing client content poses challenges involving communication, organization, and consistency.
Effective communication is crucial to understanding client expectations and delivering content that meets their needs, but it can often be difficult to ensure clarity and alignment between parties.
Organizational issues can also arise from the sheer volume and variety of content, requiring robust systems for tracking and managing various assets and versions.
Maintaining consistency across all client content is also a significant challenge, as it requires adherence to brand guidelines and quality standards while accommodating your client’s unique requirements.
Additionally, addressing client feedback or complaints efficiently is essential to maintaining positive relationships and ensuring ongoing satisfaction.
Now that we have looked at the obvious challenges of managing your content effectively, let’s look at the “not-so-obvious” challenges that are not apparent until you start trying to manage your content effectively.
Challenge #1 – Effective Content Management Is A Catch-22 Situation
Have you heard the expression “no one will hire you without experience, but you can’t get experience if no one will hire you?”
That’s an example of a “Catch-22” situation.
Managing content can feel somewhat like that.
You can’t plan, produce, promote, and manage content effectively until you have put in the right systems and processes to plan, produce, promote, and manage content effectively.
Putting all these systems and processes in place, however, requires a significant investment of time, effort, and resources.
Most businesses have very limited time, effort, and resources.
So…do you:
A) Invest your time, effort, and resources into putting the right systems and processes in place to plan, produce, promote, and manage your content effectively, and then create and promote your content, or…
B) Invest your time, effort, and resources into creating and promoting content, and then start putting systems and processes in place?
Which of these options will you choose to manage content effectively in your business?
Many businesses, however, choose option “B” because it seems more practical.
Publishing and promoting content first and then worrying about systems and processes when things start becoming unmanageable, however, only leads to more challenges and bigger problems.
Challenge #2 – All Areas Of Your Business Are Involved
Your content strategy is part of your content management system, so if you start creating and promoting content before developing your content strategy and putting other systems in place to manage your content effectively, then what’s the point of having a content strategy?
Without a content strategy, you are just creating content blindly based on guesswork and assumptions without any real direction or ways to measure and track your content’s performance, so it’s all going to be hit and miss and eventually your business will have a very difficult mess to deal with and many problems to sort out.
So you want to put a content strategy in place before you start creating and promoting content.
This, however, has its own challenges.
First, there’s the challenge that content impacts all areas of your business as discussed in the lesson on your digital business structure.
Content impacts all areas of your business. Click the image to enlarge it.
Challenge #3 – Creating And Managing Content Effectively Requires A Sizeable Digital Team
Next, is the realization that creating effective content requires a sizeable content team.
Managing content effectively requires a sizeable content team.
There are many different roles involved in the process of planning, creating, promoting, and managing content, and whether you’re an individual blogger or part of a larger organization, all of these roles and responsibilities have to be met to create and manage your content effectively.
We touched briefly on the challenge of resource constraints earlier.
However, it’s not until you seriously try to start managing your content effectively that you realize just how resource-intensive creating and managing content can be.
You need a sizeable budget and personnel with skills and expertise, plus research, planning, and documented systems, all of which take time to create and take resources away from other areas of the business.
Most businesses operate with limited resources and have very little time to devote to important areas like planning and documenting systems.
If, like most businesses, your decisions are influenced by a lack of time and resources, by competitive and financial pressures, and by the need to make things happen sooner rather than later, then your ability to manage content effectively may be heading toward bigger problems.
For example, here’s what can happen when you choose option “B” (i.e. start with content, then try to put systems in place later):
1) Little to no content planning
If your content is created based on keyword research but there is no content strategy or content plan and new content projects are mostly based on guesswork and assumptions instead of solid research and analytical data, then your content pipeline will keep drying up, leaving your team continually scrambling to come up with new content ideas.
2) Chaotic and disorganized content production
If there is no content plan and there are no documented procedures for workflow processes and operational guides for doing content research, creating a content brief, using content production tools, etc. your content production will be chaotic and disorganized, leading to inconsistent production outputs.
3) Hard to measure and quantify content performance
If, in addition to the above, your content metrics and content marketing objectives are not well-defined, any generated reports won’t lead to actionable efforts or initiatives to improve results, and your content marketing activities and ROI will be difficult to quantify and calculate.
Challenge #5 – Building Content Management Systems As You Go Is Hard To Do
Think about all the areas of your business that are involved in the planning, creation, delivery, distribution, and promotion of content.
Now, ask yourself:
How quickly can your business create and publish new content?
What’s stopping you from creating more content and publishing it faster?
How does your business keep a pipeline of new content going?
How does your business keep the information in your existing content (across all content types and distribution channels) up-to-date, relevant, and accurate?
How do you know when your content is out-of-date or has become irrelevant, inaccurate, or obsolete?
How can you tell if your content is performing well?
How do you keep your content processes documented, organized, and accessible so anyone needing the information can locate it quickly and easily?
How can you tell if your team members implement and follow effective content management processes?
How quickly can your business adapt to incorporate new content planning, production, and promotion processes, strategies, methods, and tools?
From the above, it should be clear that not only does your content need management but all of the content-related processes and areas responsible for planning, creating, delivering, distributing, and promoting your content too.
And to manage all of this effectively requires systems.
This is where option “C” comes in. You develop, test, and improve your systems while creating and promoting content, documenting everything as you go, and repeating this process.
Option C involves building, testing, and improving your content management systems as you go.
Option “C” will help your business solve the challenges of managing content effectively, but it is very challenging and hard to do, especially if you have already started down the path of “Option B” (i.e. create and promote content first, and then worry about putting systems and processes in place later).
Building systems to document the work as you do the work requires a total “buy-in” from everyone in your organization, and the focus and commitment to work twice as hard and twice as long, often with little to no resources, and with no guarantees that things will work out until everything is in place and you can assess the results.
Even just thinking about it can feel overwhelming, because content impacts every area of your business!
But even before you can put all of these systems in place, there is one more “not-so-obvious” challenge your business has to overcome…
Challenge #6 – Managing Content Effectively Requires Solid Business Foundations
No doubt you’ve heard the expression “walk before you run”.
Many processes need to be put in place before your business can manage its content effectively.
For example, suppose you want to write and publish an article on your website that will help your business generate new leads.
You care about the reputation of your business, so naturally, you will want to publish only quality content across all channels…from your site’s company pages, product descriptions, and blog posts, to social media posts, emails, newsletters, banner ads, sales, marketing, and training content, videos, collateral materials, etc.
Also, because your business has limited time and resources, you’ll want to avoid guesswork and taking blind stabs in the dark. If you are going to invest time, money, and effort into activities designed to promote and grow your business online, every activity must be geared toward generating optimal results and delivering maximum return on investment.
So, ideally, your lead generation article will target the right audience, with the right message, at the right time, to help them make the right decision (e.g. buy, subscribe, submit an inquiry, etc.).
To do this effectively, however, you need accurate information to help you understand who you are writing the article for (i.e. your target audience).
In other words, even before you begin writing your lead generation article, you will need to know things like:
Who is going to buy your products or services?
What problems are they looking to solve?
Why would they buy from you and not from your competitors?
What can stop them from buying your products or services?
etc.
Once you understand this, you can begin to write the article from the instructions provided in your content brief.
Now…your content brief is created from the specifications and guidelines set out in your content plan.
And all of this should have been defined during the business planning phase after a need has been identified in the market, and you have done research and feasibility studies to determine whether there is even an opportunity worth pursuing (and this should be done even before you spend any time or money getting a website built!).
Ok, let’s assume that you have done all of the above before writing your lead generation article and you know the who, what, how, why, and when of your article’s purpose.
All you need to do now is write the article, right?
Whoaaa … not so fast! Let’s think about this for a moment.
Creating a high-quality, high-value, and high-yielding article involves an editorial process with activities like content scheduling, production, planning, research, writing, editing, and different stages of reviews and approvals before the content can be published.
This requires having some expertise and skills (e.g. content research, content writing/copywriting, editing, media creation, etc.).
For example, your article needs elements like a compelling headline, useful content that will engage your reader’s interest, a call to action, and additional copy elements like summaries, excerpts, artwork, images, image captions, product and meta descriptions, testimonials, references, credits, attributions, etc.
You may also need to source, create, script, produce, edit, format, and upload media elements to your server, like images, logos, photos, videos, audio, downloadable files, and other documentation before you can insert these into your article or web pages.
After this is done, you then also need to revise, format, fact-check, search optimize, proof, edit, review, and approve your article before you can publish, distribute, and promote it.
There are also additional checks like making sure that the content flows well and your article is easy to read; that any links in your content to related articles or additional information point to correct URLs; that branding guidelines have been adhered to; that any embedded scripts or code (e.g. rotating testimonials, forms, etc.) work correctly; that there are no distracting elements that could negatively affect your conversions; that the content displays well on all web browsers and devices, etc.
Also, you may need to obtain clearances and clarifications from other departments before your article can be published.
For example, the article may contain information related to products or services that include pricing or tax information, special offers, competitions, discount coupons, product or service availability, product ordering, shipping and delivery, liability disclaimers, terms and conditions, brand or product licensing, use of images or media, copyright, trademarks, etc.
All this needs to be cleared with your marketing, accounting, and legal teams.
Finally, you may need to consult management or executive levels (e.g. product, finance, or operations manager) to make sure that the article complies with all company policies, manufacturer specifications, third-party service guidelines, industry rules and regulations, and any other legal requirements.
But it doesn’t end there.
You want your investment of time and effort to achieve consistently and progressively better results for your business, don’t you?
So, after publishing the article, you will also want to track and measure your results and document these in a report so you can review, analyze, and improve your content’s performance.
After publishing, you may also need to moderate comments, answer questions, reply to user inquiries, collect and collate form data, and add new entries to your site’s FAQ section (for example, if you repeatedly get the same questions from your site visitors, prospects, customers, etc).
As you can see, creating something as seemingly simple as an article for your website requires systems and processes in place…
before the article gets written (to ensure that you’re targeting the right audience),
during the content production process (e.g. review workflows and scheduling when the article will be published), and
after the article has been published (e.g. tracking its results and performance).
In short, unless your business doesn’t care about the content it publishes, there is nothing simple about creating content for your website or blog.
It requires participation from all areas of your business and the effective integration and coordination of different roles, systems, and processes, in addition to ensuring that everyone involved follows all content procedures, specifications, and guidelines, while also ensuring compliance with all company, departmental, and legal policies…staying aligned all the while with the goals and objectives of the business.
Ideally, everything required to write an article as described above would be in place before the article is written.
Of course, you can ignore all this, and just start writing and promoting your articles and see what happens!
If You Don’t Want To Guess Your Way To Success…
If you want to avoid guesswork, the first step to managing your content effectively is to accept that effective content management is not a simple undertaking.
Your business will need to put effective content management systems in place to grow using content, continually review your content’s performance, and improve its results.
While there are loads of useful information and tools that can help you do this (including our lessons), there is no one-click, “done-for-you”, “set-and-forget”, “hands-free” service, software, or app that will allow you to manage your content effectively.
It’s a process and it requires a systemic approach.
Summary
Effective content management is essential for your business to operate efficiently and to communicate effectively with all stakeholders.
Managing content effectively in any organization, however, is a complex and difficult undertaking, as content impacts all areas of your business.
It can also feel like a “Catch-22” situation. You can’t plan, produce, promote, and manage content effectively until you have put in the right systems and processes to plan, produce, promote, and manage content effectively.
While there are challenges to managing content effectively, your business can overcome these by implementing effective content management systems.
Action Steps
Assess how willing your business is to become systems-driven (instead of personality-driven).
If you haven’t already, we recommend starting with the following steps:
Subscribe to our free email course. This course will guide you step-by-step toward effective content management.
Useful terms and definitions related to the creation, management, and distribution of digital content.
Content Management Glossary
This content management glossary provides terms and definitions related to the creation, management, and distribution of digital content.
Whether you are new to the content management field or an experienced professional content creator, digital marketer, project manager, or executive, this content management glossary will serve as a useful reference to understand content management terminology and concepts used in the field and help you stay up-to-date on the latest developments and best practices in content management.
Agile Content Marketing
Agile Content Marketing is a flexible approach to creating and managing content. It involves continuously planning, executing, and reviewing content in short cycles, allowing for quick adjustments based on feedback and performance. This method helps businesses stay responsive to market changes and customer needs, ensuring their content remains relevant and effective.
A statement that describes the purpose and values of a business.
Here are some examples of business mission statements:
“To provide the best products and services in our industry, and to always put our customers first.”
“To create value for our shareholders by building a sustainable and successful business that makes a positive impact on the world.”
“To be a responsible and innovative company that creates value for all of our stakeholders, including customers, employees, shareholders, and the communities in which we operate.”
“To help people achieve their financial goals and live better lives through innovative, reliable, and accessible products and services.”
“To be the leading provider of innovative, high-quality healthcare solutions that improve the lives of people around the world.”
“To be the most trusted and respected company in our industry, known for our commitment to excellence and innovation.”
“To be the global leader in providing sustainable solutions that improve the quality of life for all people.”
A plan for achieving the goals of a business, often involving the development of a unique value proposition and a competitive advantage.
Here is an example of a business strategy using content and content marketing:
Our company’s goal is to establish itself as the leading provider of healthy, convenient, and delicious food, helping people around the world to live their best lives.
To achieve this goal, we will develop a content marketing strategy focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to a clearly defined target audience. This content will include educational articles, recipe videos, and infographics that highlight the benefits of a healthy diet and the convenience of our company’s products.
The content marketing strategy will also include a strong social media presence, with regular posts showcasing the company’s products, highlighting customer success stories, and offering healthy living tips and inspiration. We will also partner with influential health and wellness bloggers and influencers to amplify its message and reach a wider audience.
Through this content marketing strategy, we will aim to attract and retain a loyal customer base, increase brand awareness and engagement, and ultimately drive sales and revenue growth.
The buyer journey is the process that a potential customer goes through to become aware of, evaluate, and purchase a product or service.
Understanding this process will help you create a content strategy aligned with your target audience’s interests.
The stages of the customer buyer journey can include awareness, research, evaluation, and purchase.
The goal of the customer buyer journey is to understand the customer’s needs and preferences and to guide them through the process of making a purchase.
The process of examining and evaluating written or spoken material to extract meaningful insights and improve the quality of the content.
Content analysis is an essential part of content research, as it can help to ensure that your content is relevant, informative, and engaging to your target audience.
A schedule or plan for creating, publishing, and distributing digital content, often organized by date or topic. A content calendar (also known as an “editorial calendar”) can help organizations plan and coordinate their content creation efforts and ensure a consistent flow of content to their audience.
The process of creating and maintaining records of digital content, including information such as the creation date, author, and any updates or revisions.
The processes and practices used to ensure that content is created, managed, and published in a way that is consistent with an organization’s policies and goals.
Content Management Lifecycle
The stages of content creation, management, and retirement within an organization.
Content Management Metrics
Data used to measure the effectiveness of an organization’s content management efforts.
Content Management Policy
A set of guidelines or rules governing the creation and management of content within an organization.
Content Management Strategy
A plan for creating, managing, and distributing content in a way that supports the goals of a business or organization.
A software application, platform, or a set of tools used to create, edit, organize, store, manage, and publish content on a website or other digital media.
Additional useful CMS-related terms include:
Asset – A digital file or piece of content that can be managed and reused within a CMS.
Workflow – A set of steps or processes for creating, reviewing, and publishing content within a CMS.
Metadata – Data about content, such as tags or keywords, that can be used to classify and organize it within a CMS.
Permalink – A permanent URL that points to a specific piece of content within a CMS.
User role – A set of permissions or privileges that determine what actions a user can take within a CMS.
Taxonomy – A system for classifying and organizing content within a CMS, often using categories and tags.
Content type – A category of content that is defined within a CMS, such as articles, products, or events.
Revision history – A record of all the changes made to a piece of content within a CMS, along with who made the changes and when.
API (Application Programming Interface) – A set of rules and protocols that allow different software systems to communicate and exchange data with each other.
Also, see these types of content management systems:
An enterprise content management system (ECMS) is a software solution that allows businesses to store, organize, and manage their digital content, regardless of format or location.
A component content management system (CCMS) is a software solution that helps organizations create, manage, and publish modular content in a structured manner to be used across different products, services, or platforms.
A digital asset management system (DAMS) is a platform designed to manage digital files such as images, videos, and audio files, allowing users to easily store, organize, retrieve, and distribute their assets.
A marketing strategy that involves the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.
A content marketing plan is a strategy for creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a specific target audience, with the goal of driving profitable customer action.
A content marketing strategy is a comprehensive plan for creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and engage a specific target audience, with the goal of driving profitable customer action.
It outlines the overall goals and objectives for your content, your target audience, the channels through which your content will be distributed, and the metrics by which success will be measured.
A content measurement plan is a document that outlines the goals, objectives, key performance indicators (KPIs), measurement tools, and schedule for measuring and evaluating the performance of your content marketing efforts.
It helps to track progress and make data-driven decisions on how to optimize your content strategy.
Data and metrics used to measure the performance and effectiveness of digital content, such as website traffic, engagement rates, and conversion rates.
Content Migration
The process of moving digital content from one platform or system to another.
Content Performance
The effectiveness of digital content in achieving its intended goals, such as generating website traffic or driving sales.
A detailed plan for creating and managing digital content, typically including goals, target audience, and a content calendar.
A content plan is a document that outlines the content that your business will create and publish in a given period of time.
It helps your business align its content with its overall marketing and business goals, and ensures that you have a steady stream of relevant, high-quality content to share with your audience.
Your content plan can be divided into smaller plans covering different aspects such as content production, content promotion, and content management, and distributed to different teams of departments responsible for managing and implementing these:
A content production plan is a detailed plan that outlines the specific actions and resources that your business will use to create and publish its content.
It is a more detailed version of a content plan and helps your business stay organized and on schedule when creating content.
A content management plan is a strategy for organizing, storing, and maintaining your business’s content over time.
It helps your business keep your content organized, ensure that it stays up-to-date and relevant, and make it easily accessible to the people who need it.
A Document Management System (DMS) is a software program that is designed to help organizations manage, store, and track their electronic and physical documents.
Evergreen Content refers to content that remains relevant and valuable over time. Unlike news articles or trend-based content, evergreen content addresses timeless topics and provides information that is consistently useful to your audience. Examples include how-to guides, tutorials, and FAQs. This type of content continuously attracts traffic and engagement long after it’s published.
Keyword Research
The process of identifying and analyzing the words and phrases that people use when searching for information on a particular topic.
Keyword research involves finding the terms that are most relevant to your content and that are likely to be used by your target audience. It is an essential part of content research, as it can help you to optimize your content for search engines and ensure that your content is being seen by the right people.
The marketing funnel is a framework used to describe the journey a potential customer goes through before making a purchase. It typically includes the stages of awareness, interest, consideration, and conversion.
The goal of the marketing funnel is to move potential customers through each stage, with the ultimate goal of converting them into paying customers.
A plan for promoting and selling a product or service, including an analysis of the market and the development of a unique selling proposition.
Metadata
Data about data, such as tags or descriptions, that can be used to describe and classify digital content.
Pomodoro Technique
The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that breaks work into intervals, typically 25 minutes long, separated by short breaks. Each interval is called a “pomodoro.” After completing four pomodoros, take a longer break. This technique helps improve focus, reduce mental fatigue, and increase productivity by encouraging regular breaks.
Project Management
The process of planning, organizing, and overseeing the work of a team to achieve specific goals and meet specific success criteria. When managing content projects, this often involves using content production workflow tools.
A set of standards and guidelines that determine the writing, design, and formatting of your website, documentation, products, or brand.
A style guide serves as a reference for maintaining consistency and ensuring that the various elements of your website, documentation, products, or brand present a cohesive and professional image to your audience.
A document that outlines the guidelines and standards for creating and publishing content for your business.
It provides a set of rules and recommendations to ensure consistency and quality across all your content, from blog posts and social media updates to product descriptions and email newsletters, and standards for the writing, design, and formatting of your web content.
A style guide focuses on visual elements while a content style guide focuses on written elements. Both guides are essential tools for creating a consistent and recognizable brand identity.
The process of using data to identify patterns and trends in the content that is being consumed by a particular audience. By analyzing trends, your business can gain insights into the types of content that are popular among your target audience, and use this information to inform your content creation and marketing strategies.
A user persona is a fictional representation of a business’s ideal customer. It is based on data and research about the target audience, and it is used to help businesses create more effective marketing campaigns and design user-friendly products.
User personas provide a detailed and specific picture of who the target audience is, what their needs and goals are, and how they think and behave.
Streamline your content management process, save time, and improve efficiency with these practical tips.
5 Tips For Streamlining Your Content Management Process
Looking to streamline your content management process? These practical tips will help you save time and create high-quality content.
Content management is a crucial aspect of running a successful business or organization. It involves creating, organizing, and distributing content across various channels and platforms.
However, managing content can be time-consuming and complex, especially if you don’t have a streamlined process in place.
In this article, we’ll cover five practical tips for improving efficiency in your content management process. By implementing these strategies, you can save time, reduce errors, and better engage your audience with high-quality content.
Tip #1: Automate Repetitive Tasks
One of the easiest ways to streamline your content management process is to automate repetitive tasks. This can save time and reduce the risk of errors, allowing you to focus on more important tasks.
There are many different tasks that can be automated, including publishing social media posts, sending email newsletters, and updating website content.
To set up automation, you’ll need to choose a content management system (CMS) or third-party tool that offers automation capabilities. Many popular CMS platforms, such as WordPress and Drupal, offer built-in automation features or plugins that you can use to automate tasks.
Alternatively, you can use specialized third-party tools to automate social media or email marketing tasks, such as IFTTT (If This Then That), Zapier, or Buffer.
Here are a few examples of tasks that can be automated:
Social media: You can use a tool like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule social media posts in advance. This allows you to create and schedule content in bulk, rather than having to log in and post manually every day.
Email newsletters: If you have a regular email newsletter, you can use a tool like Mailchimp, Aweber, or ConstantContact to automate the sending process. Simply create your newsletter template and schedule it to go out at a specific time.
Website updates: If you use a content management system for your website like WordPress, you can use automation to publish new content at a set time or to update existing content on a regular basis.
When setting up automation, it’s important to carefully plan and test your workflow to ensure that everything runs smoothly. You should also consider the potential risks and limitations of automation, such as the potential for errors or the need for ongoing maintenance.
Tip #2: Utilize Project Management Tools
Effective content management involves coordinating the efforts of multiple team members and having a project management tool can help with this.
A project management tool allows you to organize tasks, set deadlines, and track progress in one central location. This can improve communication among team members and help ensure that projects are completed on time.
There are many different project management tools to choose from, ranging from simple to-do list apps to more comprehensive platforms like Asana, Monday, or Trello. When choosing a project management tool, consider your team’s size, workflow, and budget.
Here are a few ways to use a project management tool in your content management process:
Assign tasks: Use the tool to assign tasks to specific team members and set deadlines. This ensures that everyone knows what they are responsible for and helps prevent overlap or gaps in coverage.
Collaborate on content: Use the tool to share drafts and collaborate on content in real time. This can help speed up the review and approval process and improve the overall quality of your content.
Monitor progress: Use the tool to track the progress of each task and project. This can help identify bottlenecks and potential delays and allow you to make adjustments as needed.
Tip #3: Set Clear Guidelines For Content Creation
Having clear guidelines in place for content creation can help ensure consistency and reduce the time spent on editing and revisions. These guidelines can cover things like tone, formatting, and approval processes.
To create guidelines, consider the needs and goals of your audience, as well as the tone and voice that you want to convey. You should also consider the specific platforms and channels where your content will be published.
Once you have established your guidelines, it’s important to document them and communicate them to your team. This can help ensure that everyone is on the same page and that there is a consistent approach to content creation.
Here are a few things to consider when creating content guidelines:
Tone: Establish the tone and voice that you want to use in your content. This could be formal, casual, informative, humorous, etc.
Formatting: Determine the formatting standards for your content, including font size and type, headings, bullet points, and other formatting elements.
Approval process: Set up a clear process for reviewing and approving content. This can include establishing who is responsible for reviewing content, setting deadlines for review, and outlining the steps for making changes or approving content for publication.
Tip #4: Create A Content Calendar
Having a content calendar in place can help you plan and organize your content in advance. This can save time and reduce the risk of missing deadlines or forgetting to publish content. A content calendar can also help you identify gaps in your content and plan ahead for events or promotions.
To create a content calendar, start by determining the types of content you want to create and the frequency with which you want to publish it. You should also consider the needs and interests of your audience and any upcoming events or promotions that you want to feature in your content.
Once you have a list of content ideas, you can start organizing them onto a calendar. You can use a spreadsheet, a paper calendar, or a tool like Trello or Asana to create your calendar.
Here are a few tips for creating and using a content calendar:
Schedule content in advance: Plan out your content as far in advance as possible. This can help you take advantage of seasonal trends and plan around events or promotions.
Be flexible: While it’s important to have a plan in place, be prepared to adjust your calendar as needed. You may need to shift content around due to changes in your business or in response to current events.
Integrate with other marketing efforts: Make sure your content calendar aligns with your overall marketing strategy. This can help you create a cohesive message and ensure that all of your marketing efforts are working together.
Tip #5: Regularly Review And Optimize Your Content Management Process
Effective content management is a continuous process, and it’s important to regularly review and optimize your strategy. This can help you identify areas for improvement and make adjustments as needed to ensure that your content is meeting the needs of your audience.
To review and optimize your content management process, you can analyze data and gather feedback from your team and your audience. This can help you identify areas that are working well and areas that could be improved.
Here are a few tips for reviewing and optimizing your content management process:
Analyze data: Use analytics tools to track the performance of your content. This can help you identify trends and areas for improvement, such as which types of content are most popular or which channels are driving the most traffic.
Gather feedback: Ask your team and your audience for feedback on your content. This can help you identify areas where you are meeting their needs and areas where you may need to make changes.
Set goals: Establish specific goals for your content and track your progress towards meeting them. This can help you focus your efforts and ensure that your content is aligned with your overall business goals.
Experiment: Don’t be afraid to try new things and see how they work. This could include testing different types of content, experimenting with different formats or channels, or looking for ways to improve your workflow processes.
Identify bottlenecks: Look for bottlenecks in your content management process that may be causing delays or inefficiencies. This could include things like a lack of clear guidelines, inadequate resources, or overly complex approval processes.
Make changes: Based on the data and feedback you have gathered, make changes to your content management process as needed. This could involve adjusting your content strategy, implementing new tools or processes, or making changes to your team structure.
Continuously review: Make reviewing and optimizing your content management process a regular part of your content strategy.
Streamline Your Content Management
In this article, we’ve covered five tips for streamlining your content management process.
By automating repetitive tasks, utilizing project management tools, setting clear guidelines for content creation, implementing a content calendar, and regularly reviewing and optimizing your process, you can save time and improve the efficiency of your content management efforts.
So take these strategies to heart, and see how they can help you manage your content with ease.
Streamline your content flow
Efficiency is key, my friend
Try these tips today
(AI-generated Haiku)
There once was a content manager, whose job was quite a go-getter.
She streamlined her process, and saved lots of stress,
Now her team is much more productive, no debtor!
(AI-generated limerick about content management)
***
Note: This article is entirely AI-generated. The entire process from start to finish is described in this article: Generate Web Content Using AI.
Learn what effective content management looks like and how it can help to address most of the content-related problems in your business.
What Effective Content Management Looks Like
Here is a picture of what effective content management looks like and how it can help to address most of the content-related problems in your business.
In this article, we show you how the right picture of what an effective content management framework looks like can help you fix and eliminate most of the content-related problems in your business.
Is there a style of management that is ideally suited for managing content effectively in your business?
For example, in the participative style of management (also called the democratic leadership style), feedback, input, and participation from staff are sought in the decision-making process and team members/staff generally try and solve any issues themselves.
Would a participative style of management, then, lead to effective content management?
Consider this scenario:
Let’s say that you notice several articles on your company’s blog are addressing the same or a similar topic, and hence competing with each other for keyword ranking and traffic.
A participative (i.e. democratic-style) manager would probably respond by turning to the editor and saying something like: “you’re the editor…what do you suggest we do? How would you fix this?”
In most situations, encouraging staff members to come up with the solution to a problem by working it out amongst themselves is a great approach and typically works. Staff members are encouraged to think for themselves; they feel empowered when asked for their input; they feel valued for their contribution, and they also feel recognized for their expertise.
The manager also feels and looks good. The participative style of management allows them to quickly lob any issues back over the net and into their team’s court by posing problems as questions for the team to resolve, and this makes them one of “the good guys.”
Everyone feels good and everyone values each other.
That’s great, except for the fact that this style of leadership, which is used across many industries and organizations, doesn’t really help to solve any fundamental issues of content management caused by a lack of strategic planning and the failure to implement effective systems and processes.
For example, if your content isn’t “meeting all the metrics,” the issues may not be related to your team members’ skills, expertise, technical abilities, or their motivation, enthusiasm, and willingness to contribute and participate in helping the business succeed, but to a lack of planning and systems.
To understand this better, let’s go back to the example where you have found several articles essentially covering the same topic, hence potentially competing with each other for rankings and traffic, and let’s assume that the manager has asked the editor to come up with a solution.
For this discussion, let’s imagine that there are three articles involved:
Article “A” is an old post written by a guest contributor back in the day when the company couldn’t afford its own team of staff writers. It’s a well-written post with a catchy title and a decent number of backlinks, and it gets a reasonable amount of traffic each month.
Article “B” is about two years old and written by a staff writer who no longer works with the company. This post is also well-written, with a keyword-optimized post title. This article covers the topic in detail, has a decent number of backlinks, and gets reasonable monthly traffic.
Article “C” is the most recent of all three articles. It was written by the current full-time writer and complies fully with Google’s latest content quality guidelines. As the article was only recently published, however, it’s kind of hard to assess how well it is performing in terms of search traffic and backlinks…we’ll have to wait and see!
Now, suppose that the editor goes back to their desk, reads through each article, and makes the decision to:
Rewrite article “A” and remove some of the content that doesn’t fit with the new article’s approach or angle,
Redirect article “B” to the newer article “C” (even though they are not exactly covering the same topics), then delete article “B”, and
Add links to related content in article “A” and article “C”.
Should the editor have done this?
The answer is … it depends!
Making decisions about what to do with existing content is not that simple.
For example, does the editor know how the articles were performing for certain keywords? What happens if you change the content in the article and traffic suddenly drops?
You wouldn’t know this unless there is a system in place to track changes to the content and monitor its performance before deciding to edit it.
If the newly-edited article doesn’t perform as well as was hoped, who is tracking which elements of the content were changed? Can the editor compare different versions of the article and restore it to how it was before being edited?
If you edit an article and remove certain content, how do you know that the deleted content wasn’t required to be there (e.g. through some form of paid or reciprocal content exchange or agreement?)
What happens when you remove content from an article that was supposed to be there through some prior agreement?
If you delete an article, what happens to the content that was currently linking to it? What will your site visitors experience when they click on links pointing to articles that no longer exist?
Also…what if the old article (containing outdated, irrelevant, or obsolete information) performs better than the new article? If there is a noticeable drop in traffic, how can you tell if it’s temporary or permanent and how long will you wait to find this out? How are you monitoring all this?
As you can see, unless the editor is also responsible for putting systems in place to track SEO and content performance, these are not necessarily editorial decisions.
But there are other areas to consider besides focusing only on SEO.
For example…why were there three articles covering similar topics, all potentially competing for the same keywords and traffic? Why wasn’t this picked up during the content planning stage?
And what criteria is the editor using to prioritize whether to keep, update, fix, or completely rewrite content in existing articles or make decisions on articles and blog posts with similar content? Who established those criteria and did they take into account how their decisions will impact other areas of the business?
Clearly, making the content production team responsible for “fixing” content-related issues is not necessarily the best approach, as it doesn’t address the cause of the issues.
Hence a participative style of management may not be “fixing” anything, especially if the same content-related problems keep occurring.
In other words, if your content is not delivering expected or hoped-for results (i.e. “meeting all the metrics”), the issue most likely has nothing to do with management styles or the lack of skills or expertise of team members, but with the fact that your organization may not have fully grasped the difference between the three levels of decision-making in a business as explained in the Content Management Mindset lesson.
So, let’s recap this concept briefly.
What Effective Content Management Looks Like
Take a look at the diagram below. It may look simplistic, but when you truly understand what it means, you will be able to identify, troubleshoot, and find solutions to fix almost all of the content-related problems in your business.
Every business has these three levels of decision-making:
Every business has three levels of business decision-making…even a one-person business!
While everyone in the business is responsible for helping the organization achieve its objectives and realize its vision, each of these levels plays a specific role in helping the business reach this outcome.
What each decision-making level does in an organization.
Executive-level roles are responsible for making “big-picture” decisions.
Managerial-level roles are responsible for figuring out the systems and processes that will deliver results that match the “big picture” set at the Executive level.
Tactical-level roles (also known as Technical-level roles) are responsible for following the systems and processes set at the Managerial level to achieve the results and objectives set at the Executive level.
So, what does this all mean and how can it help you troubleshoot and fix your content-related problems in areas like content planning, content production, content marketing, and content management?
Let’s take a look using an example.
Suppose your business decides to use content marketing methods like posting regular articles on its blog and social media, email marketing, paid advertising, etc. to promote itself and grow online.
Suppose too that, like many businesses, your company doesn’t have the budget to outsource every content-related role to a digital marketing agency or the financial resources to hire and build a team of content specialists to run everything in-house.
A small budget to spend on content creation and advertising.
The people already hired to work in the business (including you).
So, this is what your business has to work with.
Next, they appoint you as their Content Manager and make you responsible for helping the business grow using “content” and getting results within your available budget and resources.
Now, let’s make things a little challenging but not so impossible that it would make you want to quit your new role.
Your content team is comprised of two other team members including you. We’ll call them Ash and Pat.
All three of you agree to share the responsibility of regularly writing and publishing content on the blog.
Pat has excellent design skills, so Pat will also look after social media.
Ash has a marketing background, so Ash will handle things like creating email campaigns, send email promotions, run newsletters, grow and maintain a list of subscribers, etc.
Your budget will be used for outsourcing your advertising campaigns to a professional agency.
Other people in your organization are also happy to offer assistance where required (e.g. reviewing content in their areas of expertise, suggesting new content topics, etc.)
Finally, you, Pat, and Ash agree to have a production team meeting once a week to discuss how the work is progressing. You also agree to meet regularly with the General Manager to provide updates and reports and to discuss any issues.
With this basic plan, you and your team begin the work of creating and publishing content.
Each week, you meet with your team. You all come up with new content ideas. You then assign article topics for Ash, Pat, and yourself and aim to get at least two new articles published every week, plus send an email roundup to your subscribers (Ash) and post social media updates (Pat).
Now, what happens if you experience issues with content production like:
Running out of content ideas?
Being unable to complete projects due to circumstances outside the control of your team?
Published content not performing as well as expected?
Well, if you understand the three levels of decision-making mentioned above, then you would have a starting point for troubleshooting and addressing these at the appropriate level.
For example:
Running Out Of Content Ideas
The content team (Tactical Level) is not responsible for making sure that the content production pipeline never runs dry.
The Managerial Level is responsible for creating the Content Plan and developing and implementing the systems and processes responsible for creating a self-sustaining content pipeline.
The Managerial Level, however, can’t create this content plan, unless and until the Executive Level has defined and created a Content Strategy for the business.
So, running out of content ideas is ultimately an issue that needs to be addressed at the Executive and/or Managerial Level.
Being Unable To Complete Projects Due To External Circumstances
If your articles or blog posts depend on new product features being released or services being available and there is a hold-up in product development, then the content team may have no choice but to put their projects on hold.
Again, this is not an issue that the content team (Tactical Level) is responsible for or can resolve. It has to be addressed and resolved at the Managerial Level or higher.
Published Content Not Performing Well
If your published articles or blog posts perform poorly, the issue may be your content team’s responsibility only if the editor has not provided the team with an adequately prepared content brief.
If the content brief is found to be adequate, then the problem may lie in a poorly-constructed Marketing Plan (Managerial Level) or Marketing Strategy (Executive Level).
So…why is your content team not responsible for solving any of the issues described above?
Well, if you understand the three levels of decision-making in a business, then you will see that:
Executive Level roles are responsible for setting a clear business vision and formulating a business strategy, a marketing strategy, defining an overall budget to cover the cost of hiring people to fill roles and invest in resources, etc.
Managerial Level roles are responsible for turning strategies into plans (e.g., a business plan, marketing plan, etc.) implementing documented systems and processes (e.g. for training and onboarding people into their roles, content production, content promotion, etc.), and making sure that guidelines and procedures are created for Tactical Level roles to follow (e.g. content briefs, branding and style guides, etc.)
Tactical Level roles are responsible for making sure they follow the systems and processes they are given to deliver the work as specified in the strategies, plans, and guidelines they have been given.
Think about it…
If you are asking a content writer to come up with content ideas and topics to write about so that your content pipeline doesn’t run dry, then you are effectively putting someone who doesn’t have the bigger picture of your business (i.e the business vision) in charge of defining your content strategy and creating your content plan.
It is only inevitable that this will lead to the issues described above (and those listed in the Content Troubleshooting Guide).
Setting Tactical-Level KPIs
If the Executive and the Managerial level roles have delivered what is truly required of them, then tactical-level roles like editors, content writers, media creators, etc. can simply plug into existing systems, follow established processes and procedures set out in documented strategies, plans, and guidelines, and deliver work to the standards and results expected by the business to meet its overall goals and objectives.
In this scenario, then, setting realistic and fair KPIs and benchmarks may include the following:
Content Production – Is the business setting realistic workload targets and quotas? Are these being met and delivered on time?
Work Quality – Is the work delivered meeting their brief? Are documented guidelines, procedures, and specifications being followed?
Role Competency – How much of the completed work is being performed by the person responsible for that role? (e.g. with content writers, is the writer doing most of the work and submitting a draft that requires only editorial refining to advance to 2nd and final drafts, or do other people have to get involved and assume the writer’s workload to help get their content over the line?)
Team Participation – Are team members willing to participate and contribute ideas and suggestions for improving processes, and take on additional tasks and responsibilities?
If executive and management-level roles do not provide tactical-level roles what is required, however, then assessing performance can end up being skewed, unrealistic, or unfair.
For example, content writers should NOT be penalized or assessed unfairly if:
Targets set by management are unrealistic.
Writers are expected to deliver X articles per week but there are regular holdups in product or business development so their articles can’t be completed on time.
There is no new content in the pipeline (as discussed, writers don’t create the content plan to meet strategic objectives, management is responsible for delivering this)
Writers are not given a well-researched and detailed content brief outlining objectives, specifications, or requirements.
Timely delivery needs additional roles involved in the content creation process (e.g. supplying testing data, videos, technical diagrams, code samples, performing technical checks, etc.) and these aren’t made available or supplied in a timely manner.
Writers have been given too many additional responsibilities other than writing because there are not enough resources available in the company to handle those.
There are other performance issues directly related to a lack of clear communication, documented guidelines, training, essential tools, resources, etc.
There are other factors outside the writer’s control.
Summary
Understanding the three levels of decision-making in a business will help you to identify, troubleshoot, and find solutions to fix almost all content-related problems and issues in your business.
In this module, we provide a practical overview of content strategy as it relates to the role of a content manager. We recommend going through the links, resources, and references in this section for a more in-depth understanding of the key concepts presented here.
This module covers the topics outlined in the table of contents below:
Additionally, we recommend subscribing to our free content management course email lessons if you haven’t already, as these provide a practical step-by-step way to implement the lessons in this course.
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What Is A Content Strategy?
A content strategy helps you define your target audience, understand their needs and interests, and create content that addresses those needs and speaks to their interests.
It also helps you determine the most effective channels for distributing that content, such as your website, social media, email marketing, or even offline channels like events or print materials.
A simple way to think about content strategy is to ask the question “how do we achieve our business goals using content?”
This is important because a content strategy is a component of the business marketing strategy and specifies who, what, where, when, and how it plans to connect with its audience.
Businesses need a business strategy and a marketing strategy before creating a content strategy.
A content strategy can be defined as…
“Getting the right content to the right user at the right time through strategic planning of content creation, delivery, and governance.”
Now that we have a basic understanding of what a content strategy is, let’s take a look at why businesses need one.
Why Do You Need A Content Strategy?
Businesses need a content strategy to:
Set And Reach Goals – A documented content strategy helps define marketing goals, set priorities plan the work, and ensure that all marketing efforts translate into tangible results.
Track Progress – A strong content strategy outlines the metrics to track, analyze, and determine if the content marketing efforts are producing results.
Identify New Opportunities – A good content strategy outlines all the avenues that can be used to follow news and trends and find story ideas and prevent the effort put into discovering new opportunities from being uncoordinated and reflecting poorly on a brand’s publications and tone.
Cut Costs – Content strategies help define how much money to spend per project, how to spend it, and how to find ways to cut costs if required to avoid excessive spending on individual projects.
Optimize Its Marketing Team – A documented content strategy sets out performance metrics for team members, and defines a work schedule for content creation, guidelines on the management of social media accounts, maintenance of marketing automation system, and other content-related processes. Without this, the marketing team won’t know how much content to produce, where to post it, how to repurpose it, and how to work as productively and effectively as possible.
Produce Content That Converts – Content that consistently converts comes from a content strategy that understands who its target audience is, what type, style, and format of content its audience wants to consume, its ideal content tone, and how to leverage different distribution and promotional channels.
In simpler terms, a content strategy can help your business realize its vision.
A content strategy gives a measurable and quantifiable way to help your business realize its vision using content.
If your business has a clear vision with clearly defined objectives and a sound business and marketing strategy, a content strategy provides a measurable and quantifiable way to determine how using content can help you achieve those objectives.
Your content strategy drives your content plan, defines the focus of your content production efforts and content promotion activities, and specifies what systems your business needs to put in place to manage all of your content-related processes effectively, including the content itself.
Content Strategy Goals And Objectives
Common content strategy goals and objectives include:
Audience understanding: The goal is to understand the target audience and create content that meets their needs, interests, and preferences. This can be achieved by conducting market research, creating buyer personas, and analyzing website traffic data.
Brand alignment: The goal is to align content with the company’s brand messaging and values, and to create a consistent brand voice and visual identity across all content. This can be achieved by creating a brand style guide, conducting a brand audit, and training content creators on your brand’s messaging and tone.
Content creation and distribution: The goal is to plan, create, and distribute high-quality, relevant, and engaging content to reach and engage the target audience. This can be achieved by creating an editorial calendar, creating and publishing blog posts, creating and publishing videos, and creating and publishing infographics.
Content optimization: The goal is to improve the visibility and performance of existing content through search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. This can be achieved by researching and including relevant keywords, optimizing meta tags, and creating internal and external links.
Content measurement and analytics: The goal is to track and measure the performance of content in terms of engagement, conversion, and other key performance indicators (KPIs). This can be achieved by using Google Analytics to track website traffic, using social media analytics to track engagement, and using A/B testing to optimize conversion rates.
Content governance: The goal is to ensure that all content is accurate, up-to-date, and compliant with legal, ethical, and brand guidelines. This can be achieved by creating and enforcing a content style guide, regularly reviewing and updating content, and ensuring that all content is accessible and inclusive.
Continuous improvement: The goal is to continuously improve your content strategy by analyzing performance data, gathering feedback, and making adjustments as needed. This can be achieved by conducting regular content audits, gathering feedback from stakeholders, and testing and implementing new content formats and distribution channels.
Additionally, you should take into account these three truths of Content Strategy by Professor John Lavine of Northwestern University, which shape and limit our content:
There is an ever-rising tidal wave of information and it will continue to rise forever.
Everyone you want to reach has 1440 minutes in their day; not a minute more.
The world is becoming ever more complicated, but people will give you their time and attention if you give them more of what they want.
Benefits Of Having A Content Strategy
There are many benefits to having a clear content strategy, including:
Consistency: With a content strategy in place, you can ensure that your content is consistent in terms of quality, tone, and style. This helps to build trust with your audience and establish your brand as a reliable source of information.
Improved audience targeting: A content strategy helps to identify the target audience for your content and ensures that the content is tailored to their interests and needs.
Increased brand awareness: Consistently publishing high-quality content can help to increase awareness of your brand and establish it as a thought leader in your industry.
Greater customer engagement: By providing valuable and relevant content, you can engage and build relationships with your customers, leading to increased loyalty and customer retention.
Higher search engine rankings: A content strategy can help to optimize your website’s content for search engines, leading to higher search rankings and increased organic traffic.
Enhanced reputation management: A content strategy can help to proactively manage your brand’s reputation by ensuring that all content aligns with your brand values and message.
Increased sales and conversions: By providing valuable and relevant content, you can drive traffic to your website and convert visitors into customers.
Improved internal communication: A content strategy can help to align the goals and messaging of different teams within your organization, improving internal communication and collaboration.
Streamlined content creation: A content strategy helps to define the types of content that will be created, who will create it, and how it will be distributed, streamlining the content creation process.
Reduced costs: By having a content strategy in place, you can avoid wasting time and resources creating ineffective or redundant content and focus on creating high-quality content that resonates with your target audience.
Content Strategy Vs Marketing Strategy Vs Content Marketing
It’s important to distinguish between Content Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Content Marketing and the differences between a Content Strategy vs a Content Marketing Strategy.
Content Strategy vs Marketing Strategy
A marketing strategy outlines the marketing steps you’ll take towards your ultimate goals, like growth and increasing revenue, a content strategy focuses on defining which content is created to support this marketing strategy, as well as how you’ll promote it.
Content strategy is the roadmap that guides your content marketing. Content marketing is the process of organizing, scheduling, creating, publishing, and promoting content pieces. Content marketing is the tactics that follow from the content strategy.
36% are focused on generating leads through content marketing
27% of respondents want increased sales and revenue
23% strive for improved customer loyalty and engagement with their brand
Here are a few examples of strategic business goals and objectives using content and content marketing:
To create a content marketing strategy that increases website traffic by 50% within the next six months.
To develop a content calendar that consistently delivers high-quality, relevant content to our target audience.
To increase brand awareness and engagement through social media by creating and sharing engaging content on a regular basis.
To establish our company as a thought leader in our industry through the creation and distribution of educational and informative content.
To improve search engine rankings through the optimization of our website content and the creation of high-quality backlinks.
To develop a content marketing campaign that generates at least 100 qualified leads within the next quarter.
To create a content marketing strategy that increases customer retention and loyalty through the creation of personalized and valuable content.
To establish ourselves as the go-to source for industry news and trends by creating and sharing timely and relevant content.
To improve customer acquisition and conversion rates through the creation of targeted and persuasive content.
To create a content marketing strategy that supports the overall goals and objectives of our business.
2. Types Of Content
After defining goals and objectives, the next step is to decide what type of content the business will use to achieve these.
This can include using blog posts & articles, social media posts, how-to guides, videos, email newsletters, ebooks, whitepapers, and reports, podcasts, infographics, webinars, case studies, etc.
Content formats. Source: Semrush.com. Click on the image to view an enlarged version.
After specifying the type of content the business needs to create to achieve its goals, the next step is to define how it will create and distribute this content.
Content distribution channels. Source: Semrush.com. Click on the image to view an enlarged version.
According to Kurve, the three pillars of a successful content strategy are brand focus, user experience, and content distribution.
Brand Focus ensures that the content is consistent with the brand strategy of the business and that it remains on-topic and relevant to both the business and its customers.
User Experience involves developing an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) so that you can create highly targeted content.
Content Distribution defines where and how you will publish content to make the most out of the media types you will publish and deliver your content in. We cover this in more depth in the Content Promotion module.
Who Is Responsible For Creating A Content Strategy?
In the Content Manager Mindset lesson, we discuss the three decision-making levels of a business and how these are responsible for creating, implementing, and managing different areas of the organization.
This includes the overall business strategy and its digital strategy.
Different decision-making levels are responsible for creating, managing, and implementing different aspects of a Digital Strategy.
If we apply the three decision-making levels to the digital strategy of a business, for example:
The executive level creates its digital content strategy.
The management level implements and manages its digital content plan.
The technical/tactical level performs the work required to create the content specified in the content plan (e.g. writing articles, recording videos, etc.)
Ideally, executive-level roles of the business would create a content strategy for the organization as part of developing its overall business strategy and digital strategy.
The Content Manager would then take the content strategy and use it to create and implement a content plan.
This content plan would then be used to drive the content production process.
As we have seen in the Digital Business Setups lesson, however, many small and startup businesses do not have the resources to either create a digital business strategy or hire a content strategist to create one for the organization.
In this case, the content manager will need to be directly involved in the process of creating a content strategy before creating and implementing a content plan.
We mentioned earlier that there are key differences between a content strategy and a content marketing strategy. Many businesses confuse these two.
Keeping this in mind, it’s good to know and keep up with the latest content marketing statistics, as these can be helpful when creating or reviewing your content strategy.
Infographic: What makes a content strategy successful? Source: Semrush.com. Click on the image to view an enlarged version.
Content Strategy – FAQs
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about content strategy:
What is content strategy?
Content strategy is a plan that outlines how content will be created, managed, and distributed to achieve specific business goals, such as increasing brand awareness or driving conversions.
It also ensures that there is usable and useful content, which is well structured and easily found, appropriate to the needs of the user, and that it enhances or improves the user experience of a website or brand interaction.
Why is it important to have a content strategy?
Having a content strategy provides direction, consistency, and efficiency in content creation and distribution efforts. It helps businesses effectively reach and engage their target audience, build brand authority, and drive desired actions, leading to better ROI on marketing investments.
How does content strategy align with business objectives?
A content strategy should directly support business objectives, such as increasing brand awareness, boosting sales, or improving customer engagement. Each piece of content should be crafted with these objectives in mind to ensure it contributes to achieving the overall goals of the organization.
What are the key elements of a content strategy?
Key elements include clearly defined goals, a deep understanding of the target audience, content auditing and mapping, developing a content calendar, content creation guidelines for creating high-quality content optimized for SEO, and metrics for performance evaluation through analytics. It should also encompass content management and updating processes. Each component should also ensures alignment with business objectives and audience needs.
How do you develop a content strategy?
Developing a content strategy involves researching audience preferences, defining clear objectives, conducting competitive analysis, selecting appropriate channels, creating a content calendar, assigning responsibilities, and continuously refining based on performance data. It’s essential to have a documented strategy to guide content creation and distribution efforts.
Content performance effectiveness can be measured through key performance indicators (KPIs) such as website traffic, engagement metrics (likes, shares, comments), conversion rates, lead generation, sales attributed to content, user feedback, SEO rankings, etc. Analyzing data from web analytics tools like Google Analytics and social media analytics platforms provides insights into what content resonates with the audience and what needs improvement.
How does content strategy differ from content marketing?
Content strategy focuses on the planning, creation, and management of content to achieve business objectives, while content marketing specifically aims to attract and engage an audience through valuable, relevant content to drive profitable customer action. They are closely related but serve different purposes within a marketing strategy.
Content strategy is also a broad discipline that includes defining how and why content will be collected, managed, and archived, whereas content marketing focuses specifically on using content to attract and engage audiences, leading them towards a specific business goal.
How often should I update my content strategy?
You should review and update your content strategy regularly, at least annually, or more frequently depending on changes in business goals, audience needs, or market dynamics.
Summary
It’s important that businesses have a clear content strategy, as this will guide and drive all the content it creates to achieve their goals.
Without a content strategy, planning, creating, promoting, and managing content can lead to ineffective results and wasting valuable resources.
Action Steps
If you are the person responsible for managing content in your organization, it is vitally important to make sure that there is a content strategy in place. If not, look for ways to help create one.
Useful Resources
In addition to completing the lessons in this module, we recommend the following resources:
This concludes our overview lesson on content strategy.
Please complete all lessons in this module before proceeding to the next module (Content Planning).
Next Lesson
Go here for the next lesson in the Content Strategy training module: How To Create A Content Strategy or click on one of the other lessons in this module in the section below.
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This is Part 3 of our free How To Create An Effective Content Strategy For Your Business video course.
By identifying key characteristics of our target audience such as demographics, their interests, and their pain points, we can then create content that will speak directly to their needs, desires, and motivations.
In the next lesson, we’ll look at setting content goals to create an effective content strategy.
Now, there are obvious and not-so-obvious challenges to managing content effectively.
Now, the not-so-obvious challenges of managing your content effectively don’t become apparent until you actually start trying to manage your content effectively.
Your content strategy is part of your content management system, so if we start creating and promoting content before developing our content strategy and putting systems in place to manage our content effectively, then what’s the point of having a content strategy?
Let’s go back to our definition of a Content Strategy from module 1.
So, without a content strategy, we are just creating content blindly with no real direction or ways to measure and track our content’s performance, so it’s all going to be hit-and-miss and guesswork and assumptions.
The first challenge is that a content strategy involves all areas of our business because content impacts all areas of our business.
The next challenge is that creating high-quality content and managing our content effectively requires quite a sizeable team.
This leads to the next challenge, which is that it takes significant resources to create high-quality content and manage this content effectively.
And finally, the last of the “not-so-obvious” challenges only becomes obvious when we try to start putting our content strategy together.
So, let’s recap what we need to know and do before developing a content strategy for our business.
So, that’s the end of this lesson.
Content management is a crucial aspect of running a successful business or organization. It involves creating, organizing, and distributing content across various channels and platforms.
In this article, we show you how the right picture of what an effective content management framework looks like can help you fix and eliminate most of the content-related problems in your business.
In the previous module, we looked at 
