I was on a call with a sharp marketing director who’d just been told to “create a content strategy.”
She’d read the blog posts. She’d attended the webinars. She knew she needed one. And then she sat down at her desk, opened a blank document, and realized she had absolutely no idea what a content marketing strategy actually looks like when it’s done.
“Er, what does an in-depth, documented content marketing strategy actually look like?”
Let’s answer that.
10 Elements of a Content Marketing Strategy Worth Having
Not a checklist to blindly follow, a framework to think through. Every business is different. But these ten elements give you the architecture.
#1: Document the Who
All good content, sales, and marketing depends on one factor above all others:
Who are we talking with?
Humans are complicated. You could spend months researching your audience, and you’d still have more to learn. The trick is finding the sweet spot between genuine depth and six months lost in a rabbit hole.
I’m partial to interviews and social media listening, Facebook and LinkedIn groups can be remarkably rich. I’ve also gotten great results from review mining, a technique I picked up from the sharp minds at Copyhackers.
You’re looking for beliefs (both helpful and unhelpful), desires, fears, habits, and obsessions. Most importantly, you’re looking for language, the specific words your audience uses to describe their problems and aspirations.
I like to take a novelistic approach here. Create an “avatar” as three-dimensional as a character from a novel you love. When you understand your Who as well as you understand Hermione Granger or Jon Snow, you’re ready.
#2: Explore a Big Enough Idea
David Ogilvy championed the “Big Idea”, a powerful, surprising concept that grabs attention and endures for a generation. These are unicorns. Wonderful when you find one. Not something you can force.
But just because a capital-B Big Idea is rare doesn’t mean you stop hunting.
I think about what I call the Big Enough Idea, lowercase, no caps. An idea about the company that’s fresh, possibly counterintuitive, and above all, beneficial to the Who you’re serving.
Helpful always beats clever. If a brilliant Big Idea doesn’t emerge, a solid statement of the most compelling benefit of your product or service will get the job done.
Mark Morgan Ford came up with an Ogilvy-informed definition worth tacking to your wall:
“A big idea is an idea that is instantly comprehended as important, exciting, and beneficial. It also leads to an inevitable conclusion, a conclusion that makes it easy to sell your product.”
Because content marketing sustains attention over time, you don’t need the next “Think Different.” Important, exciting, and beneficial will do.
#3: Identify 3–5 Cornerstone Ideas
A unifying idea gives your strategy coherence, but you also need the supporting pillars, the most important themes your content will return to again and again.
These become the backbone of your editorial calendar, and they usually evolve over time. Ideally, every cornerstone topic leads naturally back to your products or services.
Your cornerstones focus your expertise into powerfully useful channels, for customers, clients, media, and search engines alike.
#4: Map the Paths to Purchase
Content marketing doesn’t have rigidly defined customer journeys. Instead, your content forms what I think of as Decision Stepping Stones, individual pieces that move a prospect closer to a purchase, each one building on the last.
A blog post, boosted with advertising, leads to an opt-in, which triggers a nurturing email sequence, which arrives at a sales page. That’s one path. There are others.
Understanding how buyers find you is just the beginning. You need to understand each step that helps them see how you can change their situation.
#5: Design Your Cornerstone Content
A good strategy makes specific recommendations for turning your cornerstone ideas into strategic content.
Should your Big Enough Idea become a manifesto? Would your most important cornerstone make a strong email nurturing sequence? Could your ten best posts on a secondary topic become an ebook?
Many sites have key themes running through them, but those themes aren’t expressed in specific, easy-to-consume content. When your most evergreen and useful content is organized around your cornerstones, it naturally guides prospects toward the next action you’d like them to take.
#6: Create Different Content for Different Purposes
One useful framework: the Four A’s, Attention, Authority, Affinity, and Action.
Some content exists to stand out and capture attention. Some exists to educate. Some exists to drive a specific action, an opt-in, a purchase, a registration.
It’s rare that a single piece of content takes someone from stranger to happy customer. Professional strategists understand the different roles content can play and make recommendations for each type based on audience and cornerstone themes.
#7: Sketch Out Sequences and Funnels
The word “funnel” has gotten a bit of a reputation, mainly because it’s often handled with the subtlety of a cattle prod. But there’s still a place for defined content sequences that lead to conversion opportunities.
A good strategist recommends persuasive sequences that respect your audience’s intelligence. They make a solid case to move forward without being pushy. The best funnels feel like the natural next step, not a trap door.
#8: Plan for Repurposing
Creating content takes time and work. Once you have a solid piece, written, recorded, or filmed, it can be repurposed into countless high-quality derivatives.
A good strategist sees the molecules in the material: how a strong interview becomes a blog post, five social posts, a podcast episode, and an email sequence. Not by recycling, by translating into forms that serve different audiences and platforms.
#9: Craft Smooth Transitions
Many marketers struggle with the transition between content and conversion copy. What I’ve observed: the more congruent these are, the better the results, and the better the relationship with your audience.
A wise strategist includes guidance on making those transitions seamless, so readers are never jarred by the moment it’s time to sell. This is why it’s valuable for content marketers to learn the entire persuasion path, rather than leaving sales pages and email sequences to someone else.
Strong content creates a cohesive persuasion environment. It doesn’t dump the hardest work on a single page.
#10: Advise Only What’s True for This Business
Every combination of topic, business model, owner, and audience is unique. Ten businesses in the same topic could take ten different content approaches, and all ten could succeed.
Strong strategy looks at the specific context and makes recommendations that emerge from it. Generic advice is everywhere. Specific insight is rare and valuable.
Beware of anyone dispensing “you must do this” directives who hasn’t looked closely at your situation. That’s why the best strategies are assembled from a variety of frameworks and tactics, then implemented in ways that make them entirely your own.
Your strategy document shouldn’t look like anyone else’s. It should look like the blueprint for the specific business you’re actually building.