If content is king, strategy is the limo
Cracking content without a stellar strategy is King Charles in Norwich city centre: powerful but lost.
A content strategy is all about putting the right content in front of the right person at the right time. Without it, even your best content flounders. And so your investment sinks.
But bring out that content strategy limo, and you’re putting Charlie and your business right where they belong:
On the throne.
“James’s keen insights helped us rethink our content strategy and tailor it to different sales funnel parts, engaging our potential customers and driving conversions.”
Ben Collier, co-founder of Ocasta
So what is content strategy?
Imagine a cheat sheet that tells you what to create, why and when to create it, and what to do with it once it’s made.
That’s a content strategy.
It’s a detailed plan that outlines how you can use content to achieve your business objective.
No more wasted money on “um, we need an idea for this week’s blog”. Every step in your content production is a part of your plan.
Because, without that focus, your content team is like poor Norwich City after the goal’s been taken off the pitch: they can have a nice kickabout, but they won’t be getting back into the Premier League any time soon.
“James is certainly someone you want and need as part of your content strategy.”
Jane Margetts, Marketing Director at Restore Records Management
What does a content strategy look like?
Kinda tall, handsome, wind-swept and interesting with a glint in its eyes that promises good times ahead.
Your content strategy will be made up of:
- Content audit
- Customer research
- Customer personas
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- Customer journey
- Content topics
- Content briefs
- Content calendar
- Distribution plan
In short, your content strategy will tell you what to write, when, where, and how to share it. You’ll squeeze every drop of value out of your content investment, and get results that earn you a pat on the head and a big raise.
(Sorry, my legal guy just told me not to make that promise. Not even the pat on the head. He’s not much fun at parties.)
“James is both incredibly lovely and properly knowledgable. The kind of knowledgable where you can just relax and trust him to lead the process and produce the goods.”
Penni Pickering, Co-Founder of Kabo Creative
How do I get my content strategy?
Each strategy project is a precious snowflake. Because each one’s different, not because they melt on the tongue.
But whether you need me to build everything from the ground up, or you need someone to take your various assets and forge them into something that will work, the process will usually look a little something like this.
Faceytalk
We’ll set up a call to discuss your business objectives, your customer base, and your desired customer base (not always the same thing). The point of this session is to determine what you’re trying to achieve, so I can figure out how content can help with that.
Sessions and workshops
If you haven’t got a handle on your customer personas, tone of voice, or style guide, we’ll set up some sessions and workshops with the relevant stakeholders. I run these to help create the assets that will form the basis of your strategy, which you can use for your own projects as well.
Review
The next step is to review the content you’re currently planning to write and/or publish.
That’s because we don’t want to stop content production while we work on your strategy, but we do want to make sure the content you produce will work within the final strategy.
Otherwise you’ll need to delete content you already paid to produce, or spend more time and money rewriting it to fit the strategy. No thanks.
Interviews
Who knows what kind of content your prospects want to see?
Your prospects.
So we’ll set up interviews with some of your customers to understand what they like to see, how they think, what problems they’re facing, what problems they know you solve and what problems they don’t know you can help with.
Research and findings
I’ll also go away and do some independent research on your competitors, your customers, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and more.
I then present you with the findings that came out of all this work, as well as any assets such as personas or style guides.
Content plan
Once the research phase is complete and signed off, I’ll outline what kinds of content are needed in order to help achieve the business objectives. The outline will include topics, goals, CTAs, journey position and persona targeting.
Content briefs
If this is something you’ve asked for, I’ll produce content briefs for the pieces I’ve recommended. These will be written to match the skill level of the writers you’re planning to use.
And you’re set up for success
With that, you have everything you need to create the content that will get your results.
You won’t just be a king of your category; you’ll be sat on your throne, getting the results you and your business deserve.
Award-winning results
So here’s what Ocasta’s Ben Collier had to say when I worked on his content strategy.
Brief FAQs.
You’ve got burning questions.
I’ve got ointment Answers.
How much will my content strategy cost?
That’s why you want your copy, righter.
Content strategist projects begin at £5,000.
Does my content production have to stop while we're working on strategy?
How long will my strategy take?
That’s why I take a practical approach. A key part of my process is to review and optimise your content production, so it can not only continue but improve, bringing in better results straightaway.
We can also break your strategy down into modular mini strategies, so you can roll out mini strategies and get results faster.
Can you write the content too?
Can you do a social media strategy too?
I read that customer personas are useless?
The truth is that you can do a persona wrong (i.e. Mary is 54, likes baking, and wears brown brogues) or you can do it right (i.e. Mary is a sales manager overseeing a team of 10+ and needs a way to track the activity of her sales people).
Look after your footwear
Stop dragging your heels and get in touch.