If you’re not focusing on content, you’re instantly at a competitive disadvantage. Don’t take our word for it, just look at the data:
According to The State of Content Marketing 2019 by SEMrush, 91% of marketers, surveyed across 39 countries, are investing in content marketing.
However, it’s not enough to just create content in the hope that it connects and generates the results the business needs.
Successfully utilising content as a marketing business growth tool requires operating an enterprise-level content strategy – one that is:
- Knowledge-intensive and high value for intended audience
- Supported by the senior team
- Clearly communicates the visions and values of the brand
- Has clear and defined end goals or success criteria
Are you operating an enterprise-level content strategy?
Previously, we’ve discussed shifting from content for content’s sake to high performing content. Are you simply ticking the content box or are you mastering content at enterprise level? If you’re wondering where your content sits, let’s take a look at some of the elements that help to set successful content strategies apart:
Reducing barriers to the boardroom
Content has many contributors and different teams (marketing, PR, digital) have their individual roles to play. However, for content to work at enterprise level, there needs to be an upward communication funnel and a dotted line back to the boardroom.
The benefits of content marketing – stronger customer relationships, increased engagement, better brand loyalty and so on – stem from gaining a greater understanding of your audience and their needs.
Are these findings being discussed at boardroom level and is this knowledge being used to grow, develop and makes decisions within other areas of the business?
While content should serve customer needs, the marketing function should also support the wider business plan, which will naturally feed from the top down. Where there are barriers to connecting content to the boardroom, brands will fail to fully benefit from the knowledge and insights that content can offer, and the harder it will be for content to truly reflect the ethos of the business.
The more you know about your audience and their needs, what they respond to and how they think, the better equipped you will be to convert sales.
So, is your content being used in the right way to grow the brand?
Just as knowledge garnered through content can affect decisions made in the boardroom, top-level decisions also have a resounding effect on your content and content strategy. This is especially true when it comes to reflecting the visions and values of the business – one of the fundamental factors to achieving High Performing Content.
Reflecting the vision and values of the business
High Performing Content is content that both delivers benefit to the brand and is intrinsically linked to the key objectives of the business. To accomplish this, content must reflect the core visions and values of the business as well as the products or services for which it is most famous.
Where values shift, content must invariably follow suit. Let’s take petrol brand, Jet, as an example. In an interview with The Drum, Jet’s managing director of marketing, Mary Wolf, opened up about their ongoing refresh, as they strive to change brand perception and address environmental impact for a greener future.
With the vision of the business changing, this has filtered down through their content and communications. Wolf comments:
“In the last year, we’ve changed our ads in the trade press from just talking about fuels to talking about some of the things that we’re doing to specifically highlight the various initiatives.”
The direction that the business is moving in is being matched by the way the brand is being marketed and presented. In changing their content, they are re-establishing what they are famous for, while cementing their updated brand values. Simultaneously, they are responding to consumer need by addressing environmental impact and allaying concerns over usage of their product.
Jet is also making the critical step of moving away from being a traditional product-first business, where they talk about the features and benefits of their products to a people-first business that talks about the key concerns that people within their target market want to know about and hear about.
Can you think of recent examples where content has mirrored a specific decision in the boardroom and, if not, are there opportunities that could be revisited?
Content planning, collaboration and execution
Content planning is essential but there should always be flexibility in the schedule. Successful content is authentic, thought-leading and pre-emptive but also reactive and, importantly, timely.
There’s little point commenting on an important news agenda three weeks after the occurrence.
It is the thought leaders who become the go-to brands and the voices of authority. Schedules are in place for clarity and direction but should be regularly re-visited, re-assessed and expanded upon to ensure they remains in sync with the business and its core activities. If the business changes or adapts, so too should the content plan.
The way to do this effectively is to have in place regular (we recommend monthly) Content Planning Sessions where ideas are shared from any relevant stakeholders. From this comes a Content Plan, along with a Content Calendar. Every department should be clear on what content is being produced and when.
Another important element is the Forward Features List. This concept is taken from the traditional publishing world and will include content ideas for future weeks, months and quarters.
There are many benefits of this, such as being able to plan ahead and give everyone involved enough time to contribute, ensuring you don’t miss out on key events within the business or your industry and most importantly, staying ahead by staying organised.
Another factor is ensuring all relevant departments have sight of the content plan, with teams aligned and working collaboratively towards the same end goals. In past experience, we’ve come across brands where different teams have had their own individual agendas. Part of what we work on with businesses is a bespoke Content Matrix, a concept that we have consulted on and installed in various companies across different sectors and industries.
The Content Matrix enables organisations to realign focus and ensure all stakeholders are working to the same base values.
When was the last time you looked at your content strategy at an operational level?
As a starting point, do you know exactly who is working on your content and, more importantly, are they the right people? In our experience, strategy often takes place at management level, yet execution frequently falls into junior hands. When a wider goal is to achieve the key objectives of the business, can you be certain that the brand’s visions and values are filtering down the chain? What does your sign-off process look like and are all the right people involved?
Metrics and measurements for understanding success
Measuring and reporting on content is critical to determining how your schedule should evolve and develop. Without knowing whether content is achieving results makes it difficult to know which direction to head in. As discussed, metrics and measurement also link back to the boardroom and the decisions taken off the back of results.
Success from content is dependent on objectives outlined at the start of a campaign. If the objective is brand awareness, then a percentage uplift in traffic or Google searches may be a good indicator. On the other hand, if it’s the launch of a new product then success might be based on enquiries or sales for that quarter.
Agreeing the methods of measurement in advance will help to determine how effective your content is. Five of the top metrics, include:
- Web traffic – leveraging Google Analytics to analyse the relationship between content and online traffic and identifying main traffic sources
- Conversion rate – establishing links between your content and any changes to conversion. To get an accurate picture, it’s important to factor in any additional influences that may be affecting results e.g. competitor activity, price promotions etc
- Dwell time – When content is part of the customer journey, does engagement increase? The time spent reading content created is an indicator of how engaged that customer is
- Enquiries and conversations – are new leads affected while content strategy is in play and is your content creating opportunities for two-way conversation?
- Open and click rates – both online and within email campaigns. Which links or content are most popular? This is an indicator of how engaged your audience is and the type of content that resonates with them. How can this knowledge be used to create successful campaigns in the future?
These are just some of the ways we have helped our clients to understand and report back to the boardroom the positive impact of content and its importance as part of the sales process. Leveraging tracking technology enables teams to understand the type of information that is most in demand and to harness this knowledge to tailor and refine future content for optimum results.
Through better understanding your audience and their needs, you can tailor not just the content itself but its timing, length, channel, style and format. The more you know about your audience and the way they consume information, the easier it will be to schedule and deliver a more effective and targeted content plan.
We hope this article has provided some food for thought when it comes to your own content. If you are looking to take your content to the next level then our experienced team at GoldSand Digital is on hand to assist. Get in touch by emailing the team in the first instance on info@goldsanddigital.com.