ARTICLE AD BOX
Apr 28, 2022|Read time: 11 min.
Jonas Sickler SEO Manager
Key Points
- A contented strategy is simply a high-level roadmap that guides your contented selling programme and keeps it successful sync with your concern objectives.
- A contented strategy template provides the model truthful you tin draught a broad program much quickly.
- Your contented strategy template should beryllium a flexible papers that contains everything you request to develop, manage, and deploy your content.
If you were tasked with creating a contented selling strategy, past you astir apt consciousness overwhelmed close now. Your caput indispensable beryllium buzzing with questions like: Where bash I start? What should I include? Who should beryllium involved?
We’ve each been there, and it’s scary.
To beryllium honest, astir executives person a constrictive presumption of contented strategy. They deliberation it’s conscionable a database of blog posts successful an editorial calendar. But it’s truthful overmuch much than that. A broad contented strategy template should see personas, travel maps, keyword research, contented audits, messaging frameworks, contented governance, and organisation channels.
If I conscionable made your anxiousness worse, don’t worry.
I’ll explicate everything you request to see successful your contented strategy template. By the extremity of this article, you’ll person an actionable program arsenic good arsenic the assurance to execute it. As a bonus, download Terakeet’s Content Strategy Playbook beneath to get a afloat suite of templates to assistance you draught your plan.
Content Strategy PlaybookBuild a much effective, data-informed contented strategy.Read the Post
Why usage a contented strategy template?
A content strategy is simply a high-level roadmap that guides your contented selling programme and keeps it successful sync with your concern objectives. Without a elaborate plan, you’ll conflict to link with your assemblage oregon determination them done the content selling funnel. As a result, you’ll neglect to execute captious show goals.
However, it tin beryllium incredibly challenging to make a program from scratch. The solution? Use a contented strategy template. It provides a model to:
- Set clear, achievable contented selling goals
- Align your contented with concern objectives
- Identify your people assemblage (and assemblage segments)
- Map contented to lawsuit travel stages
- Decide wherever and however to administer your content
- Establish guidelines for your marque dependable and tone
- Clarify roles and responsibilities
- Define occurrence metrics (KPIs)
The superior payment of utilizing a contented strategy template is that it provides the scaffolding to make a program much quickly. It’s besides highly customizable and adaptable truthful it evolves with your selling strategy.
Finally, a contented strategy template offers a bird’s oculus presumption of each your contented selling efforts. It brings operation and enactment to your contented department, truthful you ever cognize the who, what, where, when, how, and wherefore of your content.
What to see successful your contented strategy template
Here’s a step-by-step usher that covers everything you should see successful your template.
1. Business objectives
Having wide concern objectives is the instauration for each contented selling plan. This includes some objectives for the business, arsenic good arsenic circumstantial selling objectives. If you don’t archetypal intelligibly specify your objectives, your contented accumulation volition beryllium aimless and haphazard. Your marketing ROI volition besides beryllium overmuch little and you’ll person trouble securing the enactment of important stakeholders.
Include the pursuing objectives successful your contented strategy template:
- Generate leads oregon sales
- Build marque awareness
- Increase web traffic
- Engage customers/prospects
- Nurture relationships with customers/prospects
- Improve lawsuit retention
Each nonsubjective should beryllium clear, and they should service arsenic the guiding unit for your contented selling goals. Many of the decisions you marque arsenic you representation retired your contented strategy volition beryllium determined by your overarching concern goals.
Before you execute immoderate different contented selling actions, marque definite you person implicit clarity connected the superior concern objectives.
2. Content selling goals
Your contented selling strategy should enactment your brand’s concern objectives. In different words, each your contented instauration and selling efforts should assistance execute the superior concern goals.
For example, if a superior extremity is to turn marque awareness, however volition the contented you make enactment that goal? There are galore ways your contented program could assistance you execute this, including:
- Creating blog posts that people apical of the funnel keywords
- Running shareable societal media campaigns
- Publishing thought enactment articles connected outer sites
- Creating a podcast
- Appearing arsenic a impermanent connected podcasts
You’ll make antithetic types of contented depending connected your objectives. For example, if you privation to improve your SEO to get more postulation to your website, you’ll request to make and optimize high-quality content. If you privation to get much leads, you request to nutrient applicable contented that’s geared towards sign-ups, downloads, registrations, escaped trials, etc.
Every extremity you see successful your contented strategy template should beryllium connected to a concern objective. Don’t pursuit vanity metrics (likes, shares, followers, etc.) that don’t connection tangible benefits to your brand. Instead, stay laser focused connected what you’re truly trying to accomplish.
3. Team responsibilities
Content selling is simply a squad sport. In different words, nary 1 idiosyncratic tin make palmy contented selling campaigns by themselves. It takes a collaborative effort from assorted contented squad members, each playing their ain circumstantial role.
For example, deliberation astir each that’s required conscionable to write, publish, and beforehand 1 blog post:
- Topic and keyword research
- Competitive analysis
- SERP analysis
- Content brainstorming
- Adding contented ideas to editorial calendar
- Outline creation
An effectual contented strategy template intelligibly defines each person’s responsibilities successful the contented instauration process. The responsibilities volition alteration depending connected the benignant of contented you produce, but communal ones include:
- Creating and managing the content calendar
- Topic ideation and selection
- Creating (writing, video shoots and production, recording, etc.)
- Editing
- Design
- Promotion
- Performance analysis
Additional Resources
4. Establish workflows and processes
After squad responsibilities person been determined, found workflows and processes that volition guarantee you ever make large contented and that thing slips done the cracks.
For example, you mightiness person a process successful spot for however topics are selected and assigned to squad members. This could see conducting a monthly brainstorming gathering wherever everyone connected the squad pitches ideas. Then, aft the ideas person been collected, the contented selling manager tin delegate topics to contented creators and others connected the selling squad based connected their strengths, interests, and availability.
The processes should besides specify lengths of clip truthful that cardinal dates and milestones tin beryllium established and placed connected the contented calendar. For example, the taxable ideation and enactment process could hap the archetypal week of each quarter. Topic duty could hap instantly pursuing that, and truthful on.
What is indispensable is that everyone knows erstwhile circumstantial tasks request to beryllium done, who is liable for those tasks, and what steps request to beryllium followed to support everything moving smoothly.
5. Audience personas
One of the astir important aspects of a palmy contented strategy is knowing your audience. If you don’t cognize who you’re penning for, past it’s intolerable to make contented that attracts, resonates with, oregon compels them to instrumentality action.
Audience personas assistance you specify your perfect customers and recognize their needs, symptom points, and desires. As a result, you’re amended equipped to nutrient contented your assemblage wants and values. They assistance you recognize the goals, desires, aspirations, and symptom points of your audience, allowing you to signifier your contented selling efforts accordingly.
Even though personas are fictionalized representations of those successful your lawsuit base, they should beryllium based connected existent data. This information usually comes from a assortment of sources, including:
- Analytics
- Customer interviews
- Feedback from your income team
- Insights from lawsuit service
- Market research
Once you’ve gathered capable data, you tin statesman to assemble your assemblage personas. The accusation you see volition beryllium connected your industry, audience, etc. Your personas mightiness see things like:
- Demographics
- Age range
- Income / revenue
- Job title
- Priorities
- Goals
- Challenges
Interests
Industry
Pain points
Products desired
Features desired
Sources of information
Preferred societal media platform
The intent of creating personas is to spot things done the eyes of your customers and guarantee that you’re creating the close contented that appeals to their needs and interests.
6. Content types
After you analyse your audience, the adjacent measurement is to find what types of content you’ll create. Consider your assemblage personas, concern objectives, and contented selling goals.
You should besides do a contented audit to measure your show and place gaps successful the lawsuit journey. Retail brands often person plentifulness of existing contented for the bottommost of the funnel. But they thin to disregard the apical of the funnel.
Let’s look astatine a TOFU, MOFU, BOFU strategy below.
Top of the funnel
The contented you make for the apical of the funnel should absorption connected helping prospects amended recognize their occupation oregon objective. It shouldn’t necessitate a important concern of clip since radical astatine this signifier are inactive trying to recognize the basics of the situation.
Common apical of the funnel contented includes:
- Social media posts
- Blog posts optimized for TOFU keywords
- Byline articles
- Informational videos
- Infographics
Middle of the funnel
As radical determination further down the funnel, they go much informed, and their interests commencement to narrow. Content for the mediate of the funnel should proceed to amended prospects connected the quality of their problems, arsenic good arsenic imaginable solutions to it. You’re not trying to merchantability them your merchandise oregon work yet, but you are trying to show that your solution is superior to different solutions.
Effective mediate of the funnel (MOFU) contented includes:
- In-depth blog posts oregon articles
- Webinars
- White papers
- Podcasts
- Product pages
- Case studies
- Retargeting
In a caller survey done by Content Marketing Institute, 58% of respondents noted virtual events, webinars, and online courses provided the champion results.
Bottom of the funnel
At the bottommost of the funnel, prospects are well-informed, person decided connected a solution, and are acceptable to bargain a circumstantial merchandise oregon service. However, they often request 1 last nudge to instrumentality action. Content astatine this signifier should absorption connected however your merchandise oregon work solves the customer’s problem.
Bottom of the funnel (BOFU) contented often includes:
- Live demos
- Free trials
- ROI oregon TCO calculators
- Competitor comparisons
- Coupons
Keep your audience, superior concern objectives, and contented selling goals successful caput portion you representation retired the types of contented you program to create. Every portion of contented indispensable align with these 3 things successful summation to helping prospects scope the adjacent signifier of the funnel.
Additional Resources
7. Content organisation channels
Your contented strategy template should see a wide content organisation strategy. Decide which channels to leverage and outline your program to amplify visibility.
When choosing which organisation channels to use, see 2 cardinal factors: wherever your assemblage spends their clip and what signifier of the funnel prospects are in.
Your assemblage probe should springiness you a bully thought of which channels your assemblage prefers. For example, if you’re targeting Gen Z, you whitethorn take TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, oregon influencer selling arsenic your superior channels.
If you’re targeting C-Suite executives, you mightiness absorption connected creating enforcement briefings and promoting them connected LinkedIn.
The organisation channels you take volition besides beryllium connected which signifier of the funnel you’re targeting. At the apical of the funnel, absorption connected channels that thrust consciousness similar societal media oregon informational keywords. For prospects successful the mediate of the funnel, make email selling campaigns, in-depth articles, oregon webinars. Finally, for conversion-focused content, people side-by-side comparisons and merchandise demos.
8. Brand dependable and tone
A bully contented strategy template clarifies marque dependable and tone. Brand dependable is your brand’s personality. Tone, connected the different hand, is the emotion conveyed successful your message.
It’s important to specify marque code and dependable to support consistency crossed your integer selling channels. When respective strategists collaborate connected long-form content, your messaging could go fragmented. Regardless of wherever a idiosyncratic encounters your brand, you privation them to person the aforesaid experience.
When deciding connected the dependable and code you privation to use, see the pursuing questions:
- Do we already person a defined dependable and tone, whether explicit oregon implicit?
- Do we privation to support our existent code oregon is it clip for a shift?
- What are our halfway values?
- What dependable and code champion acceptable those values?
- How does our people assemblage speak?
- What dependable and code volition resonate champion with them?
Your answers to these questions volition assistance you determine connected the close dependable and code for your brand.
9. KPIs to measurement contented selling ROI
Finally, your contented strategy template should see cardinal show indicators (KPIs). Use these metrics to measurement the occurrence of your contented selling efforts implicit time. Do your champion to link KPIs straight to your contented selling goals.
Some communal contented selling KPIs include:
- Website postulation from
- New website visitors
- Leads generated
- Social media engagement
- Content downloads/views
- Conversion rate
- Time connected page
- Page views
- Sales that travel contented consumption
- Backlinks
It’s besides important that your KPIs align with the lawsuit journey. For example, adjacent if your extremity is to make much conversions, you shouldn’t measure top-of-the-funnel contented by conversion rate.
Rather, usage metrics that bespeak whether you’re efficaciously connecting with prospects successful the consciousness signifier and moving them connected to the adjacent signifier successful the lawsuit journey.
For example, TOFU KPIs could include:
- Social media engagement
- Organic postulation for TOFU keywords
- Click-through-rate (CTR) to landing pages
- Leads generated done landing pages
What matters is that you measurement contented show by the close metrics astatine the close time. Otherwise, you’ll person a skewed presumption of however your contented selling efforts are truly going.
Customize your contented strategy template
To get the astir retired of your contented strategy template, customize it to acceptable your industry, brand, audience, etc. Use the supra elements arsenic a starting constituent and past marque modifications truthful that the template is adjacent much utile to you.
Obviously, a contented selling strategy template can’t bash the enactment for you. But it surely makes it easier to cognize wherever you’re headed and what you request to include.
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