Six Steps to Building a Content Strategy

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Six Steps to Building a
Content Strategy
presented by:
Erin Edgerton Norvell

Included in this Presentation:
01
Content
Strategy 101
02
Components
of a Content
Strategy
03
Six Steps to
Building an
Effective
Strategy
04
Maintaining
& Growing
Your Content
Strategy
05
Resources &
Templates
www.digitaledgecommunications.us

What is a Content Strategy?
An effective content strategy:
•Defines how you’re going to use content to meet
your business’ goals and audiences’ needs
•Guides decisions about content through its complete
lifecycle (discovery to deletion)
•Sets benchmarks against which to measure the
success of your content
“A content strategy guides your plans for the
creation, delivery, and governance of content.”
creation
governance
delivery
Source: Content Strategy for the Web (Halvorson & Rach) www.digitaledgecommunications.us

Content Marketing vs.
Content Strategy
Many organizations are turning to the creation and delivery of high-value
content in place of traditional advertising (i.e. “content marketing”). But
producing large quantities of content can be counterproductive when not
aligned with your content strategy.
An influx of content can:
• Overwhelm your audience
• Limit your ability to tailor message
to your target audience
• Bury your top tasks, making it
difficult for users to do what they
came to do
• Complicate maintenance activities
aimed at keeping the site current
and timely

When You Need a Content Strategy
Content
Process
Access
Resources
Are you creating content and publishing it to a single webpage?
Does your content represent a collection of unrelated projects?
Is the majority of your content written for the “general public”?
If you’re producing content but not getting the results you want, consider
these questions:
Are various teams creating content independently?
Do you lack clear measures to evaluate your content?
Are you concerned that your users can’t access your content
across multiple devices?
Are you wiling to commit time and resources to aligning our
content with your business’ goals and audiences’ needs?
If you answered “yes,” a content strategy is the right tool for you.
Source: Launch Your Own Content Marketing Program (Content Marketing Institute) www.digitaledgecommunications.us

Your Content’s Maturity Determines
the Focus of Your Strategy
PHASE 01: PILOTING
If you’re in a trial period of
creating new content or testing
new communication channels,
your strategy should help you
define your target audiences and
align content creation with their
needs.
PHASE 04: THRIVING
If you’re using your evaluation
data to inform program
enhancements and adapting
content to rapidly respond to
emerging issues, your strategy
should help you determine
where to focus resources for
expansion and innovation
activities.
PHASE 02: SCALING
If you’re expanding your pilot phase
to ongoing activities or additional
channels, your strategy should help
you develop routine processes for
content creation, dissemination, and
evaluation.
PHASE 03: SUSTAINING
If you’re working from an agreed-
upon content strategy, focusing on
scaling content activities, and
evaluating how your content is
performing, your strategy should
help you look for process
improvements and efficiencies.
Piloting
Phase
Sustaining
Phase
Thriving
Phase
Scaling
Phase
Source: Content Science The Value of Content to Marketing (whitepaper) www.digitaledgecommunications.us

Elements of a Content Strategy
Substance—What
kind of content do
you need? What
messages will you use
to communicate with
your audience?
Structure—How is
your content
prioritized, organized,
formatted, and
displayed?
Workflow—What
processes, tools, and
resources are required
to disseminate your
content successfully
and maintain a high
level of quality over
time?
Governance—How are
key decisions about
your content and
content strategy made?
How are changes
initiated and
communicated?
Source: Brain Traffic www.digitaledgecommunications.us

Six Steps to Developing
a Content Strategy
Define
Your
Content’s
Substance
Conduct
Internal &
External
Analyses
Structure
Your
Content
for Success
Create
Your Core
Strategy
Develop
Workflows &
Governance
Conduct
an Audit
1 65432

Step 1: Conduct an Audit
Tip: If resources are limited, use your content management system to pull an inventory
of pages or, for qualitative assessments, analyze a representative sample.
Unless you’re launching a brand new program, you already have content
online. The first step in developing a strategy is understanding your existing
content by conducting a audit. There are three types of audits:
Qualitative Best Practices Assessment
Quantitative Inventory
Qualitative Strategic Assessment
complete list of your content, including its magnitude and complexity
comparison of your content against industry standards
comparison of your goals and current content state

Content Types
When mapping existing content, assign each piece a content type.
Some common content types include:
• Podcasts
• Press releases
• Products
• Reviews
• Testimonials
• Tips and lists
• Tutorials
Source: Content Everywhere (Halvorson)
• Bios
• Blog posts
• Business listings
• Episodes
• Event listings
• Fact sheets
• FAQs
• Feature articles
• Help/user assistance modules
Source: Content Everywhere (Wachter-Boettcher) www.digitaledgecommunications.us

Step 2: Conduct Internal and
External Analyses
Assessment of Current State
Business Needs
User Personas
Messaging Strategy
Media Mix
Clearance Processes
Evaluation Planning
Next, conduct and document an external analysis that contains the following:
•User data on your target audience(s) needs and how your content meets those needs
•User personas for each target audience; map the intersection between each audience’s needs
and your internal business goals
•Assessment of your competitors’ activities and how their offerings compare to your content
•Partnership tactics that include building relationships with thought leaders, peer influencers,
and/or brand advocates
Conduct and document an internal analysis that contains the
following:
• Cleary stated current business needs
• Target audiences (in priority order)
• Key messaging and/or calls to action for each target audience
• Purpose of each of your current communication channels and a
map of how they are interconnected
• Agreed-upon governance and workflows for content creation,
maintenance and evaluation

Step 3: Create Your Core Strategy
A core strategy (also known as a “content marketing mission statement”) is
forward-looking, aspirational, and answers these questions:
•What does your strategy need to accomplish?
•What content will we produce for our users?
•What will the organization need to do to support the content?
Content 01
Example: Whether it’s a delicious recipe, an inspiring décor idea or a refreshing approach to organizing,
we strive to help you [Moms] create a home that’s truly your own. Everything we do here is designed to
empower and inspire you to make your home even better, and most importantly, a place you love to be.
- HomeMadeSimple
Source: Content Strategy for the Web (Halvorson & Rach)
3

Step 4: Define Your
Content’s Substance
Your content needs to provide value to your
target audience and meet their specific needs.
For each audience:
•Identify your primary communication channels
•Determine the high-value content you should
offer (a balance between business and users’
needs)
•Define clear and relevant calls to action for
each channel, webpage, or content type
•Document the tailoring strategies (e.g. message
framing, tone, language, use of multimedia)

Find Your Brand Voice
To build an emotional connection with your audience, your brand needs a
clear and consistent voice. Consider these four attributes to find your voice:
Tip: Once tailored with your information, print this graphic for each content creator in
your organization to help maintain brand consistency.
Source: Social Media Explorer www.digitaledgecommunications.us

Step 5: Structure Your Content
for Success
“The more structured content is,
the more findable it is.”
Whether your users are finding your content
via a search engine, accessing your content
across various devices and screen sizes, or
locating the desired content on a page,
effective content is structured content. Follow
these prioritization and planning steps:
• Determine the priority order for each content piece (per section of content, not per page)
• Map various content formats to each of your communication channels
• Develop guidelines for how content will be structured for easy scanning and reading (e.g.
bold headers, brief paragraphs, bulleted lists)
• Develop an search engine optimization (SEO) plan, including specific keywords
• Develop a metadata and tagging taxonomy
• Test content across multiple devices and address issues for cross-platform dissemination

Step 6: Develop Workflows and
Governance
03
02
01
05
04
Editorial
Style Guide
Internal Tools
& Resources
Internal Content
Creation & Clearance
Processes
Content
Automation
Processes
Schedule &
Process for
Content Review
& Archiving
Source: Content Strategy for the Web (Halvorson & Rach)
A strategy is only effective if it’s clearly
communicated to all parties and
consistently implemented.
Governance activities include:
•Define ownership and roles (e.g. creator,
subject matter expert, editor, approver,
disseminator)
•Design workflows and governance
processes for newly created content and
content maintenance reviews/updates
•Develop and share governance
documents
•Assign a lead for the ongoing
implementation of the content strategy

Gathering Internal Support
To succeed, your internal buy-in and support is important at all levels. Without, your
content is at risk.
Team If they prioritize… And neglect to consider… The risks are…
Leadership • Budget/ROI
• Schedule
• Deliverables
• User experience
• Time needed to produce
high quality content
• Content doesn’t meet user needs
• Missed deadlines
Communications • Campaign-driven creative
• Digital and social media
• Highly interactive features
• SEO
• Existing content
• Maintenance post-launch
• CMS restrictions or
requirements
• Content is more flash than substance
• Content is launched then neglected
• Content is delivered in ways that can’t
be indexed or measured
Subject Matter Experts • Scientific accuracy
• Ability to measure response
• Message tailoring
• Audience priorities
• Usability
• Content contains jargon/lacks plain
language
• Content doesn’t resonate with target
audiences
User Experience • Audience needs
• Research
• Visual design
• Current state content
analysis
• SEO considerations
• Strategic business decisions
• Business objectives are overlooked
• Quality content can’t be completed on
time due to lack or source materials or
resources
Technology • CMS development or
requirements
• Production workflow
• Content creators
• Brand and message
tailoring
• Content published before it’s in a high-
value state
• Lack of brand consistency

Deciding When to Outsource
Consider your needs and resources when deciding who your organization’s content
creators should be.
You Should Outsource if you… You should keep it in-house if you…
Want more time to focus on your program Are passionate about, and have time to devote to,
content creation
Don’t have the resources for dedicated staff Have the resources to hire at least one dedicated staff
member
Have an unexpected or short-term need Have an ongoing need to content support
Have a collaborative spirit Have internal agreement on priority content within
your organization
Are willing to make a short-term investment Are empowered to make and implement content
decisions
Can clearly articulate your content needs and goals Have internal agreement on content roles and
responsibilities
Want external credibility and a fresh, objective
perspective
Want dedicated, full-time care and feeding for your
content
Want flexibility and scalability to match your changing
content needs
Want organizational knowledge and to leverage lessons
learned from within the project

So You Want to Hire a Content
Strategist…
A dedicated Content Strategist leads the development of a content strategy
based on business and target audience needs. In addition, for each project
he/she will:
• Map each project to the content strategy
• Gather, audit, and analyze exiting content
• Determine overall content requirements and potential
content sources
• Coordinate content objectives, assumptions, risks and
success factors across internal teams
• Write or manage the development of all content
• Create taxonomies and metadata frameworks
• Establish a plan for maintaining and governing content
post-launch

R E S O U R C E S
Books
•Halvorson, Kristina and Melissa Rach. Content Strategy for the Web (2nd Edition)
•Sara Wachter-Boettcher. Content Everywhere
•Redish, Ginny. Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works (2nd
Edition)
•Jones, Coleen. Clout: The Art and Science of Influential Web Content
Digital Resources
•Content Marketing Institute
•Brain Traffic blog
•Hubspot blog
•The Content Strategy Noob blog

Thank You!

Six Steps to Building a Content Strategy

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