Content strategy that drives measurable growth
Many businesses create content. An inordinately tiny proportion of them will have a content strategy.
Without a strategy, your efforts are likely wasted. Stop creating content that goes nowhere, and develop a content strategy that combines how people actually search (especially with AI changing the game) with the psychology of what humans want to read. The result? Content that moves from resource drain to revenue driver. Transform your scattered, underperforming content into a focused system that generates qualified leads.
It can be hard to understand where your efforts sit among your peers, so for context:
63%
of businesses have no content strategy in place whatsoever
77%
of businesses can’t produce content fast enough
11%
of business spend more than £33,000 per month on content
You’ve spent time and money writing content and it isn’t working?
In 1996, Bill Gates stated that ‘Content is King’. I’m sure you’ve heard that one.
And since then, millions of hours and billions of pounds has been spent creating content for websites — service pages, white papers, case studies, and worst of all, blog posts. On the face of it, they look OK, and fill some blank space on your website. But do they actually fulfil their intended purpose?
A CMI study found that 40% of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy; 33% have a strategy, but it’s not documented, and 27% have no strategy. [source]
32%
of B2B brands rate their content efforts as a success (source)
How I help businesses develop content more strategically
Content strategy can mean a ton of different things, from ‘what’s the point of a blog post’ to a fully-fleshed out ContentOps machine. Understanding what you need at your stage of business can be a challenge initially — you just know you could be doing better. Let’s chat about what would add the most value.
Just getting started
If the phrase content strategy is brand new — let’s take baby steps. That might mean:
- Developing a consistent brand voice and messaging
- Undertaking a content audit to identify current performance and gaps
- A basic content calendar to understand what you need to produce, and when
Getting strategic
You’ve created some content, and know some of it works and some doesn’t. What’s next?
- SEO-driven content strategy, to drive new traffic
- Content processes and workflows, for greater efficiency and volume of production
- Persona-building so that content is highly targeted to your audience(s)
Getting advanced
OK, your content machine is running pretty smoothly. But you want to get serious. Consider:
- Automation and repurposing
- ContentOps – content at scale
- Dashboarding
- International / localisation
- UX optimisation
- Partnerships
- And of course, AI, and that whole other conversation…
Wherever you are in your journey with content…
Start with a content strategy and achieve better results
No two strategies will look alike. Depending on your business objectives, current processes and output, and size of team, niche, and a million other factors, the strategic approach might vary. But typically, you could expect to break it down into…
Planning
Production
Management
Distribution
Analysis
Where does generative AI fit into all of this?
Everybody’s (still) talking about it, so it’d be amiss not to reference the elephant in the room. Generative AI should be a part of your workflow.
If you don’t know where to start, are worried about the quality of outputs, or are using it currently with limited success, let’s get to the bottom of that. Don’t bury your head in your sand, don’t dismiss it, but don’t rely 100% on it.
✅ Things you could be using generative AI for
- Saving time with menial tasks
- Generating insights from big datasets
- Rough starting points of ideas
- Exploring different angles
- Content repurposing
❌ Things you should probably stop using generative AI for
- Writing your blog posts in their entirety
- Creating your website content
- Keyword research
- Saving money on hiring
- Sensitive topics and communications
- Subtle nuances that your business will have
- Understanding your brand tone, mission, and values
Who will benefit from a content strategy?
While a naive business might think that the only team that cares about website content is the marketing department, that couldn’t be further from the truth. With the average business spending £5,000–£15,000 [source] monthly on content marketing, it’s often a significant expense.
Leadership
With marketing budgets relentlessly under attack, understand where resource is being allocated, and the strategic decisions behind it. When rationale is based in solid research and planning, waste and inefficiency is also eliminated.
Having a content strategy in place can unify the whole team and lead organisational change.
Marketing teams
Obviously, having best-in-class content across marketing teams helps to make the team’s job easier.
Having a content strategy in place can help marketers shift from tactical execution to those at the forefront of organisational change, bridging the gap between the business and its customers. As well as helping uncover rich customer data and behavioural insights that only the marketing team can deliver. Also as those often at the mercy of ‘what’s the ROI?’, properly strategic content can — and should — improve the bottom line.
Sales departments
A collaborative content strategy not only equips sales teams with targeted materials that enable consultative and account-based selling rather than generic pitches, but also builds trust with leads, helps to shorten the sales cycle, and allows your sales team to focus on what they do best. From case studies to educational resources, and objection-handling content, a content strategy makes your sales team’s job easier!
What does all this look like — what do I actually ‘get’?
You want tangible outputs, of course. Strategy can be an abstract concept. And worse of all is when it’s a document that gets filed away, never to be seen again. A content strategy is a toolkit of useful outputs that guide your content planning, creation, and performance. It’s also:
- Content calendars/schedules
- Messaging and TOV frameworks
- Audience personas
- Content audits
- Keyword research
- Content pillars and themes
- Editorial guidelines
- User-based content journey maps
- Website structural plans
- SEO content strategies
- Blog strategy and outlines
- Landing page strategies
- Content scorecards
- Search intent mapping
- Distribution plans
- Style guides
- Accessibility considerations
- Training materials for wider staff
- Repurposing plans
- Campaign content plans
- Performance measurement dashboards
- Content governance models
- Content gap analysis
- Competitor content analysis
- Evergreen content recommendations
- Thought leadership content plans
- Content format strategies
- Content performance and refresh reviews
- Testing and optimisation plans
- Keyword gap reports
- Partnership and influencer or UGC recommendations
- Paid promotion strategies
- Process and workflows
- Governance recommendations
- Content lifecycle plans