Why Content is King Again and Again
We increasingly hear that adage, “Content is king!”. We agree and might we add “Long live Content!”. We spend time and effort creating awesome content, but it doesn’t seem to drive the bottomline - increasing conversions. We’re not running Content down, but elevating it to its rightful place. Remember, a king without a kingdom and a council of ministers, is well, a figurehead (with a shiny crown for effect). So if you believe Content ≣ King, then…
Content’s Kingdom ≣ Target Audience
For your content to be useful, it has to be relevant. To architect relevant content, you need to go beyond understanding your business and product features, to understanding your target audience. Only then will all the great information about your features translate into benefits that resonate with your customer. The understanding of your audience should drive your content ideation and management, and not the other way around.
How do you understand your audience? Personas and Journey Mapping are a great way to create relevant content that connects your business/service with your target audience.
Content’s Council of Ministers ≣ Content Strategy and Marketing
Now that you’ve established your kingdom, it’s time to plan for it with and then market it.
The content plan helps ideate and create relevant content across the sales funnel. Develop a content calendar that spans channels and customer touchpoints.
The content marketing framework furthers the process by helping to deliver all that great content to your target audience. Consider the entire content marketing toolset before picking the ones that fit - SEO, blogs, PR, social media, advertising, events, email, newsletters, third-party publications, etc. Review your marketing campaigns and revise your strategy based on the feedback.
The guidance and foresight of content strategy and content marketing, optimizes your content. Only then can it get content to fire the holy grail of this entire exercise: driving sales and conversions.
An Example of Kingship in Action
- Using Personas and Journey Maps you’ve understood your target audience (Tom, Dick, and Jane), channels (blogs, social media, video) and the way the two interact.
- Then start with the content strategy - map out your Sales figures and funnel and create content placeholders for various stages -awareness, research, consideration and purchase.
- Align your business features with customer benefits and use this to create relevant content across channels - blogs, videos, whitepapers, infographics, etc..
- Put into place a strategic content marketing plan that takes into account SEO optimization, social marketing, website/channel analytics and email marketing.
And then get ready to watch your beautiful content transform into leads and conversions.
