Event recap: Six elements of a content marketing playbook
Scott Severson, President of Brandpoint, a content marketing and distribution agency, shared how to create a toolbox to build a content marketing strategy that fits the needs of your organization and audience. A healthy content marketing plan is a sum of six components: team, tools, audience, strategy, data and content.
1. Team
First, you need the right people in the right roles, and all accountabilities covered:
- Project manager
- Strategist
- Content creator
- SEO/PPC manager
- Email marketing/marketing automation specialist/strategist
2. Tools
Make sure any marketing content tools you use serve a purpose and align with your marketing goals. Your toolbox may include:
- Content management system (CMS): Main web property - hosts 90% of
published content. - Customer relationship manager (CRM): A customer interaction and lifecycle platform that tracks all customer touchpoints.
- Content Marketing Platform (CMP): A single environment for teams to create and collaborate on content creation.
- Social Media Management (SMM): A place to manage social content platforms and conversations.
- Marketing automation and email: A platform to help you create, send and track marketing emails and manage multiple email campaigns.
3. Audience
Know what type of content your audience needs in each stage of their customer journey.
- What questions do they need answered?
- Who’s involved in their decision-making process?
- How and where will you connect to them?
4. Strategy statement
A strong content marketing strategy statement will draw a clear path from your business/marketing goals to the content you create.
- Develop a content marketing strategy statement - include business goals, how you're going to deliver goals, your audience and their needs.
5. Data
Content marketing can impact time on site, bounce rate, click-through rate, social referrals and engagement. There are simple things you can do to measure the impact of your content marketing efforts:
- Look at organic traffic increase
- Measure against paid tactics
6. Content
Create content that matters to your audience – quality over quantity.
- Identify themes valuable to your readers
- How can your content add unique perspective?
Don’t feel pressured to commit to a content type or channel that doesn’t align well with your strategy.