Does your marketing team need help developing content for their web pages? Are you looking to build a content studio of your own, but don’t know where to start? If so, you’ve come to the right place.
We’re not gonna lie to you. Launching a content creation program can be a daunting task. Especially since there are so many moving parts – from defining your goals and objectives, to figuring out how to finance the project, to crafting an effective onboarding program to get your team up and running. But if you take it one step at a time, it’s actually not that tough. That’s what we’re gonna teach you in this article. So sit back, relax, and get ready to write.
Step one: Set your strategic marketing goals and objectives
The first step in the process is to clearly define your overall marketing strategy and objectives. What do you hope to gain from this program? What are you looking to change? Begin by brainstorming about potential issues that may arise from a marketing perspective and brainstorming solutions to address them. You can also ask for feedback from your team members or colleagues to get their opinions on the matter. With a clear idea of what you’re trying to accomplish, you can move on to the next step.
Step two: Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you’ll use to determine your success
In the previous step, you defined your overall marketing strategy and objectives. Now it’s time to pick up where you left off and establish key performance indicators (or KPIs) to track your progress. The purpose of this step is to establish realistic and measurable goals for your content studio. Bear in mind that if you’re measuring your success by the number of articles you publish or the amount of traffic you drive to a website, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. This is because you can’t really control what happens after you publish an article – the world will have its own opinions about your content. But you can set yourself up for success by establishing appropriate KPIs, using objective and scientific measures. For example, you could set a goal to publish a particular number of quality articles or to drive a set amount of traffic to a website. Setting KPIs will also help you identify specific areas where you need to focus your attention – for example, if your goal is to publish ten articles this year, but you only recently started your blog, you might want to set it to Tier 1 in the Content Marketing Institute’s Content Creation Performance Matrix. Doing so will give you a clear idea of how you’re doing and if you’re on track to meet your goal. If you decide to change course and set a different goal, you’ll be able to do so with precision.
Step three: Gather input from across the organization
Now that you’ve got an idea of what you’re trying to achieve with your content creation program, it’s time to bring in the rest of the organization. This step involves getting input from various internal and external stakeholders, including your team, your board, and others. Ask for suggestions and recommendations, and be sure to solicit opinions from people who have no stake in the matter – like marketing or sales staff, for example. This will help you form a more objective viewpoint on the subject.
Step four: Create key compelling messages
The purpose of this step is to distill your overall marketing strategy into concise, easy-to-remember messages that will resonate with your audience. These short, snappy phrases, called ‘meta-messages’, will serve as a foundation for your content – and by extension, your blog posts, social media content, and so on. Ideally, every piece of content you create will have a meta-message. If you decide to create content that doesn’t fit easily into a short, snappy statement, you may end up with a hodgepodge of different messages strung together. Oftentimes, the content you create without a meta-message fails to achieve its intended objective. Why? Because there is no core message to hold it together – you might as well published a stream of unfocused, random thoughts, which, over time, may confuse or misdirect your audience.
Step five: Brainstorm approaches for building your program
In the previous step, you defined your overall marketing strategy and set your performance indicators. Now it’s time to brainstorm ideas for implementing your marketing plan, beginning with the simplest tasks first. For example, if one of your goals is to gain more visibility online, you might begin by assessing your current online presence and identifying areas for improvement. From there, you can brainstorm ideas for increasing your online presence, such as developing a social media strategy or finding and engaging with target audiences through blogging. As you work through these tasks, you’ll form a clear picture of what you need to do to reach your goals. If you decide that developing a social media strategy is not for you, but you feel that blogging would be a great fit for your organization, you can begin to craft a plan to introduce and encourage your staff to write for your organization’s website – whether it’s a corporate blog or an influencer-led blog.
Step six: Identify potential problems
The purpose of this step is to brainstorm potential issues that may arise from the implementation of your marketing plan. As you work through this step, be sure to keep in mind the overarching goal you established in the first step. If your goal is to increase brand visibility, you may run the risk of diluting that brand identity by publishing too much content under your own name. To avoid this, you may want to establish an Editorial Board – a group of individuals (usually consisting of employees, but sometimes including external contributors) – to oversee the publication of content that will further your organization’s goals. If you decide that an Editorial Board is not for you, brand dilution still remains a risk. Another potential issue that may arise is that your plan doesn’t take into consideration the fact that people may not be ready for change. Trying to push content published a few months back onto a freshly-minted social media site may cause you problems. In this case, performing a social media audit and considering the implications of what you find is a good idea – ensuring that your team is using the right keywords and hashtags, for example, or that your content is being shared for the right reasons.
Step seven: Choose one strategy at a time
In the final step, you’ll need to decide which strategy to pursue – the one that seems like a good fit for your organization, or the one that you think will be the most effective in helping you reach your goals. Taking a broad approach and trying to do too much at once can backfire and actually do more harm than good. Why? Because when you rush this step, you may not give each strategy its due attention and can’t assure yourself that what you’re doing is the best approach for your organization. Once you’ve made this decision, take some time to research and implement it. There is no rush to implement your new program – take the time to see it through to fruition.
To help you implement your content-creating program, we’re gonna provide you with a downloadable worksheet containing everything you need. Fill out this form, and we’ll email you the worksheet as soon as it’s available. Take this opportunity to think about all the different aspects of your program – from who’s gonna write the articles to how you’ll publish them – and make a to-do list of everything. This will help you stay on track and ensure that you don’t forget anything important.