Creating Your Content Marketing Plan
In this chapter:
• Creating a content marketing strategy
• Aligning your content marketing to your company’s marketing plan
• Business-to-business (B2B) vs. business-to-consumer (B2C) content marketing
• Identifying your company’s areas of expertise
• Collecting and using existing content
• Defining your content marketing objectives
In this chapter, we’ll discuss how to come up with a winning content strategy.
The first order of business is to create a global content marketing strategy. But there is a major step to take before writing that. The strategist needs to understand what marketing as a whole is trying to accomplish and how content will further these objectives. Otherwise, the content marketing program will have no real direction and won’t align to overall business goals. It will lose internal support. Another danger is that output will be a series of one-off pieces that have little promotional value, audience appeal, or internal buy-in.
Overall marketing plan: The foundation
The first step is to read through the company’s marketing strategy. Then gather the answers to these questions:
• What is the company’s marketing objective?
• How does this objective contribute to revenue and profit?
• What are key customer segments?
• Are these segments translated into personas for other digital marketing efforts?
• What promotional tactics are currently used?
• Which tactics have been the most successful and why?
• What key metrics are used to measure success?
• Which products or solutions is the company emphasizing and why?
• What is the sales cycle?
Identifying company objectives that aren’t in the marketing plan
If a marketing plan exists with the answers to these questions, great. But if not, you may have to do some digging.
Here are some suggestions:
• Company objectives: Examine sales goals by company, division, and region. You don’t need to get too deep, but you should have the basics.
Where to look: If your company is publicly traded, read the annual and quarterly reports carefully. Also read any analyst reports. If your company does “town halls,” or employee meetings to discuss the company’s trajectory, look through those presentations. If possible, obtain a copy of an internal sales report.
• Marketing objectives: How will marketing fulfill the overall company business objectives? Look for metrics like “increase leads by 10 percent” or “increase subscribers by 15 percent in fiscal year.”
Where to look: Ask the senior leadership in marketing. Review presentations on marketing strategy. Review company town hall meetings for statements about marketing objectives. Ask also about reviewing any marketing strategy presentations that were prepared for senior management.
• Customer segments: How does the company identify and define its key customer segments? Are they businesses or consumers? How are they distinguished? How does messaging vary among them? What are their needs?
Where to look: Marketing town hall PowerPoint decks, presentations to senior management, any past consultant reports.
• Competitive framework: Who are the key competitors? The answer is often multifaceted, and you should primarily look at your company’s competitors for specific products. Your business may have some partners for certain products who are competitors for other products.
A competitor may compete with certain product lines but not others. For this purpose, you don’t have to know the competition for every product your company has. Focus on the main competitors for the products that your marketing plan indicates you are trying to grow.
Where to look: Look both within and outside your company for information. Start with the sales and marketing teams. You may need to conduct this search by country since competitors differ from location to location. Focus on the regions the marketing strategy emphasizes. Also look at analyst reports, though often their lists of competitors are inaccurate. Read industry reports. Market research reports often provide excellent analyses of competitors. You may have to pay for them so ask for a preview to see if the report is worth the cost.
• Products prioritization: Which products or services is the company trying to push the most? Do different units of the company prioritize different products?
Where to look: Try the various business units’ yearly and quarterly plans, sales plans, and town hall decks, as well as announcements to analysts if your company is public.
Once you have gathered this information, you will use it to build your content marketing plan. It will serve as your guide on what content to use, the intended audiences, and the business reasoning behind the project. In later chapters, we’ll explore how to measure success and garner leads.
Think of the content plan as the house you are building. The marketing plan described above is the foundation. If you don’t have the foundation right or simply skip it altogether, your house will be on shaky ground. Your content marketing may be short-lived.
Now let’s turn to building the content marketing plan.
Content marketing plan: Identifying content topics
Your content marketing plan should define your major objectives and strategies but be succinct—as a rule, no more than five pages.
The first and most essential item in your plan is to define what editorial topics you will cover in your content marketing. This is key because in many ways what you choose as content will showcase the company’s brand. Ultimately, the topics you choose should bring together client interests and needs with what your company has expertise in.
Start with the needs of your industry. What are your clients or customers struggling with?
Start with the needs of your industry. What are the key trends and issues? What are your clients or customers struggling with? Think about any conferences you attended about this industry. What were key topics? What questions came up a lot from the audience? Read trade periodicals and notice what topics reemerge. What are the pain points of the industry you are serving?
Find out who are the key influencers in your industry and visit their blogs. Sites like Followerwonk and AllTop will allow you to identify and engage with them. Read their blogs and consider leaving comments. As you conduct this research, you can benefit by promoting your company in this space. Figure 2.1 (below) illustrates the various kinds of influencers.
Figure 2.1 Different types of influencers. Courtesy of Smartinsights.com blog.
Make a list of at least five influencers in each major part of your business. For example, if your company has three major lines of business, try to find five influencers for each of the three. The distinction is important because influencers are often specific to a particular field. Write down their perspectives on industry issues. What topics do they bring up? How do they propose to solve for them, if at all? Themes will emerge. This will be crucial in building a content platform, which we will discuss later in the chapter.
Social media is a primary vehicle for identifying influencers, trends, and issues.
Social media is also a primary vehicle for identifying influencers, trends, and issues for your industry. Which channels you choose will depend on whether you are a consumer or business-to-business marketer. For the latter, the most important channel will be LinkedIn, which is designed for this purpose. You will also want to review Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, at a minimum, for content ideas. Let’s discuss how to leverage each of these channels for the business-to-business marketer looking for content ideas. Afterward, we’ll look at additional channels for the consumer marketer also in pursuit of content.
Identifying content topics for B2B markets
Follow the influencers you found on LinkedIn. Read through their profile posts and notice the recurring themes. View what LinkedIn groups they are in and join those you deem most relevant. You may have to apply to some groups for entrance. If so, state your case to the administrator and what you can bring to the group.
Try to become a member of about five robust, lively, topical, and well-attended groups. A higher number will be difficult to manage if you are serious about consistently participating. Your objective in joining is to see which topics are resonating with users. When you are at the stage of promoting your content, these groups will play a crucial role. We’ll discuss that later.
Ask the following questions to select the best groups:
• Is the group active? How many posts occur each day and week?
• Is the discussion about topics related to my industry?
• Is there a sizable user base? (A small user group is OK for niche topics.)
• Is much of the discussion about job opportunities or vendors pitching their products?
• Do users ask and answer questions among one another or is the group messaging a lot of one-off posts with virtually no comments?
Remember, less is more. Don’t spread yourself too thin by entering too many groups and then not participating. Choose a few and apply to them if needed. Feel free to post questions to the groups about key issues or trends that they think are important or that their companies are struggling with. After reading through posts and group messages on LinkedIn, jot down additional ideas for content areas.
On Twitter, your challenge will be finding the pertinent information amid lots of noise. Start with finding which hashtags are used in your industry on Twitter. Notice who is tweeting substantive information on topics, their followership, and their influence in social media. By clicking on users’ profile pages, you can see their followership.
At this point, you are trying to accomplish two crucial tasks. The first is to identify key issues for content. The second task is often overlooked but equally important. You are networking among influencers. You want to listen, respond intelligently, and get your company’s name in the conversation. You are lining up contacts to whom you will promote your content. In the ecosystem of social media, your aim will be for these influencers to retweet, blog, and link to your content. We’ll discuss this further later in the chapter.
If your business does not already have a Twitter account, see if you can start one. Ask your corporate communications department if this is possible. If your company already has one, ask if you can tweet replies, direct messages, and retweet. The key point is entering the conversation.
Let’s look at each technique:
• Direct message (DM) replies are private messages to the Twitter user. Your company’s followers will not see them. This is effective for a one-on-one conversation. You may want to direct-message a content creator with any interesting points, comments, or questions. You can also thank the content creator if you found a particular article or infographic helpful. Later, we will discuss promotion of content and how contacts with content creators will prove useful.
• Retweeting is your company tweeting someone else’s message to your followers. It’s a way of amplifying the original poster’s message. It’s also a way for an influencer to take notice of your company’s Twitter handle after you have retweeted consistently. You can add your own messaging to the retweet, though character limitations may prevent writing much.
• List building is an important way to cut through the clutter of Twitter. Go to Hootsuite and enter the Twitter handles of the people who write about the topics you’re interested in and who have a sizable followership. To create this list, you will have to peruse through many tweets to decide which users are most relevant. Much of it will be noise—a myriad of press releases, irrelevant product information, and unrelated information. Think of your list as a trusted source for carving out the most relevant ideas for building your editorial content.
YouTube and Facebook
YouTube is also crucial. Search for any videos of influencers you found on the other channels. View videos from conferences in your industry. As you visit the YouTube channels, observe how they’re organized. In which subject areas are videos grouped? Are they grouped by themes? Which videos received the most views?
Also make sure to visit the Facebook profiles of users or companies with stellar content, though many business-to-business marketers tend to overlook Facebook, relegating it to the consumer realm. But many industry leaders post links to some very engaging articles, points of view, and blogs here. Many of these links will direct back to their websites, which contain rich sources of information.
Don’t rely solely on social media
Besides social media, you’ll want to look at any market research that your company has done about your clients’ interests. Watch videos or read through reports of any focus groups completed in the past few years. Surveys providing quantitative and statistically significant information are also very helpful if your company has done them.
Informally interview some of the front-line sales leaders. Based on their client and prospect interactions, what have they found to be the most pressing issues? To borrow a cliché, “What keeps their clients up at night?”
On the other side of the coin, on what topics do salespeople want content to drive the conversation with clients and prospects? Part of the reason for content marketing is to position salespeople as problem solvers and industry experts rather than just product pushers. After all, clients are paying for expertise.
Part of the reason for content marketing is to position salespeople as problem solvers and industry experts.
I recommend that you choose two or three sales leaders and ask them these questions in a 20-minute meeting. Just mentioning it to them in the hallway or emailing them questions may not get a positive response. Moreover, you want to ensure that the answers are structured and not haphazard.
Identifying content topics for consumer markets
Your job here is to create content that will educate, wow, enlighten, and drive consumers within your industry. You must find out the needs of your customers: What information are they looking for? Why are they seeking it? For example, if you’re a travel company, you probably know that consumers are looking for deals. But that’s limited to transactions. With content, you want to go deeper. What information do customers have about travel planning? Some may ask why they would need a travel agent at all in the digital age. Still others may want to get the best recommendations on travel sites, lodging, and eateries to try.
These consumer needs lend themselves to great content ideas. Continuing with the travel agency example, a suitable article may be “How to plan a multigenerational trip” or “How to best work with a travel agent” or “When booking trips on the Internet will not cut it.” These topics address customer questions. They also align with the specific areas of expertise for a travel agency. If all the articles were about tourist sites to visit in Budapest, Hungary, the content would be competing with travel guides, books, and articles. The way to handle this is to curate content, which we will discuss later in the chapter.
In a commodity space, content differentiates a company as a problem solver.
Importantly, this content differentiates the travel agency within the industry. In a commodity-oriented space, the agency can stand out as a problem solver. It positions the agency as providing counsel rather than merely booking trips. After all, that is one of the reasons a customer would visit a travel agent rather than simply booking on an online site.
The travel agency is one example. Any consumer product or service can develop and leverage relevant, robust, and consistent content. We’ll discuss how to promote it in a later chapter.
Use listening tools to identify customer needs
Social media can be a highly useful source for gathering information about consumers’ needs and preferences. I recommend your company invest in a listening tool to methodically collect this information. A good listening tool will aggregate social media entries grouped by your search terms, allowing you to understand what your customers, prospects, and competitors think about various aspects of your business or any other topic. You may ask, why not just do Google searches and set Google alerts? If your budget is very tight, free Google tools may be your best option. But if your budget can afford one, a listening tool will pick up what users are communicating in a more streamlined and consistent fashion than the free tools will.
If you choose this path, I recommend that you ask the vendor for a free trial for a month so you can test it out. One of the hardest parts is selecting keywords. You will want to make sure you are entering keywords that your customers actually use. Listening tools aren’t just for generating content ideas—you can also leverage them to systematically view what customers are saying about your brand, products, competitors, and industry.
Identifying your company’s expertise
Now you have a host of ideas of what your customers’ and industries’ content needs are. Let’s turn to the other side of the coin. What subject matter expertise does your company have to meet these needs?
I recommend that you conduct an internal audit of thought leaders. Start by viewing any industry conferences where your company’s managers have presented. Look for videos or decks of these talks or panels that you can screen or review.
For other leads of internal resources, ask your communications department as well as sales or product teams. If your company uses a public relations firm, inquire for recommendations on thought leaders within the enterprise.
The key questions are:
• What are the company’s areas of expertise?
• What does the company want to be seen as an expert in?
• Who in the company can provide this?
If you are an agency or consultant helping your client, you may be at a disadvantage in that you will not know many of the people. Ask your client contact to provide you with a list of possible internal thought leaders to interview.
Thought leaders don’t always know they are thought leaders
Many potential subject matter experts at your or your client’s company may not be used to seeing themselves as thought leaders. They may even respond, “I’m not an expert in that.” But they may not realize they are. If they have been doing a certain kind of work for many years, understand the larger industry implications of their work, and can speak articulately about it, they may be whom you are seeking.
Another benefit of using internal subject matter experts is wider exposure for the company. To accomplish this, make sure your subject matter experts’ online presence is relevant and updated. You would be surprised how key employees have a half-baked LinkedIn profile or no other substantive online domain. We’ll discuss in a later chapter how to enhance these properties for subject matter experts or key salespeople.
Creating a thought leadership platform
Now you are ready to create your thought leadership platform. Ask the following questions:
• What are the top five subjects for thought leadership?
• Are these areas distinct? Are they broad enough to be categories yet still focused?
• Are these subjects mere trends and likely to be unimportant in a few years or are they likely to be important for at least several years?
• Are there subject matter experts at your company who can speak or write about these issues?
It’s OK to use outside experts—but you still need to add value
Importantly, you don’t have to have subject matter experts within your company to cover a topic in your content marketing. You can look for this knowledge in partners, select vendors, or outside consultants. But the use of outside experts is not without a price. Your company will not get knowledge equity from white papers written by outsiders or YouTube videos made by consultants.
Knowledge equity is the industry recognizing your company as the originator of a particular idea, trend, insight, or phrase. One of the goals of your content marketing should be for your company to receive credit for its contributions to thought leadership. This is especially important if your product is based on your company’s industry expertise or you offer consulting services for your clients. Your firm’s knowledge equity helps justify why a prospect should choose your company over competitors, because it proves why your company is more knowledgeable and can guide clients better. Without knowledge equity, information is being distributed to the industry, but your firm is not getting any credit for it.
The solution is to cobrand content with partners. Think of other companies that may have content experts who can contribute material. You have to think of what your company will bring to the table in this cobranding arrangement. It could be a strong brand, money to pay for production of materials, or promotion strength.
Reuse content in many forms
Another important consideration is scalability. You want to create content that you will be able to refurbish in different formats. If you go through the trouble of writing a white paper outlining key issues with charts and figures, you should reuse this material for other applicable formats. You may create a few short videos for your company’s YouTube channel on this topic. You may also want to create an infographic from the material or a shorter deck for SlideShare.
Defining subject areas and topics
When you have identified your five subject areas, the next step is to compile examples of topics within each area. Write a list of at least five topics for a total of 25. (Note that smaller companies may want to start with fewer.) Then for each topic, consider what your formats will be and who the subject matter experts will be. It should align with the objectives of the overall marketing plan we reviewed earlier. This will form the basis of your content marketing plan. (See Figure 2.2 on page 22 for an example of a topic framework.)
Your topics, formats, and experts should align with the objectives of the overall marketing plan.
Figure 2.2 Example of a topic framework. Illustration by Robert Pizzo.
So far, we have covered the creation of original material. You can also use curated content, meaning repurposed existing material. There is excellent content that you can promote through your channels, which we will discuss in a later chapter. At least two-thirds of your content should be original, the other third curated. If you go over that ratio, your content will appear unoriginal. That said, curating is an effective way to increase your flow of content.
At least two-thirds of your content should be original—under that, you’ll appear derivative.
Cite your sources
Curation does, however, come with a few pitfalls to avoid. First and foremost, it is essential to credit any chart or other visual or original quote you use. You can do this through a courtesy line for the asset you are using. For original quotes, consider using an endnote to give credit to the company that created the quotation. You can also have a sources section. It’s a fine balance. You want to cite properly, but you also don’t want your work to be overly academic. In some cases, you will need to ask permission from companies before using their assets. If you would like to use proprietary data or an original diagram in your white paper, deck, or video, you should ask the company that created it for permission to do so. Speak to your legal team about any contract that would need to be signed. In some cases, the company or creator of the asset may ask for compensation. That’s usually negotiable.
Find content by linking to trusted sources
An easier and more common way to curate content is simply through linking to preexisting content. On your social media platforms, you can create a list of trusted sources. These are both individuals and companies you believe would make valuable contributions that you would like to share. These sources are also known to have accurate and reliable information. It’s important to filter out the noise and plethora of inaccurate, overly salesy, or biased sources.
I recommend that you build your list in a few ways. First, ask your communications department and businesses what sources they use. Review the Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook pages of those they recommend. What percentage of these sources’ content is original? Is their content relevant for your audience? Are these sources considered authorities in this field? Who is following and commenting on their sites—and should these commenters be included on your list?
Several times a week you should go to these social media pages and share the best and most pertinent comments with your followers. You are trying to accomplish several items here:
1. You want to expand your editorial offerings with high-quality, relevant curated content.
2. You want to inform your followers about this excellent content that they likely would not find on their own.
3. You want to establish your company’s value in the industry as a thought leader.
You want to increase your site’s search engine optimization (SEO). The more you establish these relationships and share content, the easier it will be to acquire backlinks from these high-trafficked domains you are visiting and sending users to. Establishing backlinks is a key part of SEO enhancement. We will discuss SEO more in chapter 17, “Organic Search Results.”
Content marketing plan: Objectives and justification
Let’s recap where we are and what needs to come next. You have the overall marketing plan and objectives. You now also have robust, well-supported ideas for content categories as well as topics for each. You know the format you want to try and how to scale one larger piece of content into different kinds of formats for various user segments with varying needs.
The missing piece is connecting your marketing plan to your content. What are you trying to achieve with your content and how? Think of the grand marketing plan we discussed earlier in the chapter as the highest level and the content topics as the way to communicate them. You need to link the two.
Explain your objectives for doing content. How would you measure these?
Explain your objectives for doing content. Do you want to increase brand awareness? Enhance your company’s influence? Generate leads? If you want to accomplish more than one objective, rank them in importance.
How would you measure these objectives? Has your company done any brand awareness or media perception studies where you can compare pre- and post-content execution? For lead generation, how are you defining a lead? It may be difficult at this stage for you to quantify a goal of how many leads. But you can put a stake in the ground. At the very least, your plan should describe the process of lead generation, including how you will capture leads, score them, and promote to them. We’ll discuss those facets in subsequent chapters.
You can also spell out the quantity of content you are planning and its intended effect. For example, “Through three white papers and associated videos per quarter, I will grow net new leads by 20 percent.”
Remember this quote: “The benefit of content marketing for your company must be quantified and linked to your management’s marketing metrics in order for content to get a seat at the table.”
Your plan should also address targeting. Think in terms of customer segments. Which customer segments are you reaching with each topic? Who are they? What do you know about their needs? We’ll discuss this later when we look at “business types” or “personas.”
Achieving content marketing is tricky. Few may be aware of it. Even fewer know of its benefits. You will need to sell content marketing to your or your client’s management and likely sales team. We’ll discuss how to do this effectively in chapter 23, “Communicating to Senior Management.”
Now that you have your content marketing plan, let’s look at how to put it into action.
