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How To Write a 1-Page Content Marketing Strategy: 6 Easy-to-Follow Steps

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How To Write a 1-Page Content Marketing Strategy: 6 Easy-to-Follow Steps

Without a written strategy, your brand’s content marketing won’t reach its potential. Think about it.

Without a written strategy:

  • Your content marketing is less likely to align with organizational goals.
  • You have a hard time securing leadership and budget support.
  • You risk internal, external, and adjacent content teams going in multiple directions.
  • You spend more time onboarding and re-educating your team.

Without a written strategy, you are like most content marketers, just not the most successful ones.

Without a documented strategy, you’re like most #content marketers. Just not the successful ones, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

A documented strategy correlates with success

The Content Marketing Institute asks about documented content marketing strategies in its annual research. Most recently, only 40% of B2B marketers and 39% of B2C marketers said they have one. (And no, the people who say they have a strategy but don’t write it down don’t count. An unwritten “strategy” is whatever anyone says it is.)

But the CMI research shows having a documented content marketing strategy differentiates the top performers from average or poor performers. Consider this stat for overall marketing from CoSchedule’s Trend Report: Marketing Strategies 2022: Marketers with a documented strategy are 414% more likely to report success than those who don’t.

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So why don’t more content leaders write down their strategies?

Writing a strategy takes time. And many wonder whether the time invested will pay off. Will anyone on the team read the whole thing or remember what’s in it?

That’s why I’m a big advocate of creating a one-page content marketing strategy. The abbreviated format means you can create it quickly and explain it concisely. People you share it with will be more likely to read and remember it. (Heck, they could pin it to their bulletin board or make it their screensaver.)

Let’s walk through six steps to create your one-page content marketing strategy. But first, review your business’ operational objectives and goals. Your content marketing program won’t be successful if it doesn’t align with what your organization wants to achieve.

Your #ContentMarketing program won’t be successful if it doesn’t align with what your organization wants to achieve, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Step 1: Set the content marketing objective

Knowing what your business executives want to achieve, consider how content marketing will help. At this point, you’re looking for a general content marketing objective, not specific tactics or topics.

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Example

For this exercise, I’ll use the faux Chickadee Credit Union as the organization creating a one-page content marketing strategy. The credit union is a member-based organization that offers services similar to banks in its community.

Here’s what their pre-step and step one look like:

  • Business objective: To increase the belief that Chickadee Credit Union is a good source for loans (home, personal, and auto)
  • Business goal: To increase all types of loan applications by 10% (year over year) from CCU members
  • Content marketing objective: To become a go-to content resource for credit union members interested in personal finance topics

The business objective is specific (raise awareness and trust in Chickadee as a lender), and the goal is measurable (increase loan applications by 10%). With that understanding, the content marketing team identified an objective that could ultimately help CCU achieve that goal (becoming a go-to resource on personal finance.)

Now, the work begins to define the path to achieving that content marketing objective.

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Step 2: Define the audience

It’s tempting to detail a broad audience – after all, you may think, the more people who consume your content, the more people to help you achieve the business goals.

Resist that temptation because it’s ineffective. It’s difficult, if not impossible, to create content that works well for as many audience segments as possible. Instead, pick one primary audience and, possibly, a secondary audience. To do this, research your potential audiences. Look at the relevant data – demographics, sociographics, interests, needs, and pain points. Detail how and where people in that group currently get information related to your general topic (as mentioned in your content marketing objective.)

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Then, ask who would be most interested in your company’s content topic. If you need to narrow it further, ask who would be most interested in the topic and more likely to take the desired action to achieve the business’ operational goal.

Example

Chickadee Credit Union considered several audiences interested in personal finance content. But when the content marketing team asked which of those audiences would be more likely to apply for a loan in the next five years, they narrowed it down to one – parents with at least one young child.

CCU included these attributes of their target audience (parents with at least one young child) in their strategy:

  • Member of Chickadee Credit Union
  • Overseer of their family’s budget
  • Expect their living and transportation needs to evolve in the next five years
  • Challenged by balancing the family’s space and transportation requirements as the family grows
  • Crunched for time in all aspects of their life

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Step 3: Identify content categories and topics

Knowing and describing your audience opens the window to content. What would this group of people want to read, watch, or listen to that’s related to your content marketing objective?

Brainstorm a list of content ideas – big ideas, specific story angles, or both. As you review the list, put a star next to the ones that would benefit your target audience the most.

Identify several broad themes. List sample story topics that would fall under those categories to help people better understand related ideas and envision new possibilities.

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Example

Chickadee Credit Union opted for three categories – home life, car travel, and free or low-cost fun. All those themes work well for parents of young children who are interested in personal finance and someday might apply for a home, auto, or personal loan. Then, they added specific story angles under each category:

  • Living at home
    • How to create a multipurpose living room (story topics)
    • The best furniture fabric for families
    • Time-saving cleaning tips
  • Traveling by car
    • Emergency tools every car should have
    • Tailgate picnics when your vehicle doesn’t have a tailgate
    • Apps to find the best gas prices
  • Free or low-cost fun
    • Be a tourist in your own town
    • Help your children make their own board games

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Step 4: Detail content types and formats

Deciding on content formats and types is closely tied to step five (distribution channels). Ask two questions:

  1. How would the target audience most want to consume the content?
  2. Which of those formats fit within available resources and capabilities?

Be realistic. For example, your audience might enjoy videos. But if no one on your team has video skills and you have no budget to hire or outsource, don’t choose video as one of your formats.

Example

Chickadee Credit Union found that parents value multiple formats. It identified five for its content marketing strategy, including a mix of digital content types and print:

  • Blog articles
  • E-newsletters
  • Social media posts
  • Print newsletter
  • Video

Step 5: List distribution channels and frequency

Often, your chosen format will lean toward a general delivery channel. But be as specific as possible in detailing where your content distribution priorities lie.

For example, you might distribute an article on your company’s blog or a third-party website. You might distribute a social media post through Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

At this point, you also need to look at the available resources to create, publish, and promote the content. What is the minimum amount of each content type this group can produce?

TIP: Don’t be overly ambitious. Pick a frequency you can realistically meet. You can always increase it later.

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Example

Chickadee Credit Union’s strategy specifies frequency and distribution channels for their content formats:

  • Blog articles: 3 times weekly; CCU website
  • E-newsletter: 1 time a month; CCU subscriber database
  • Tweets: 1 time a day; CCU handle
  • Facebook: three times weekly; CCU Facebook page
  • Newsletter: two times a year; CCU & partner physical locations
  • Video: two times a year; CCU YouTube channel

With the format, platform, and frequency determined, CCU detailed the categories (from step three) for each format and planned to:

  • Rotate the three categories for each blog post as well as social media posts
  • Include all three categories in the e-newsletter and print newsletter
  • Make the travel-by-car category the theme for videos

Step 6: Connect to the business purpose

Now, you’re ready to go back to the beginning. It’s time to add the goals to your content marketing objective (step one).

Consider:

  1. What do you want your audience to do after consuming a piece of content?
  2. How will you measure success?
  3. What are the specific goals (remember to tie them to the business’ operational goals)?
  4. How long will you have to achieve them?

Example

If you recall, CCU wanted to increase loan applications by 10% year over year. To help contribute to that goal, the content marketing team wanted to become the go-to resource for personal finance. Here are their measurable content marketing goals:

  • To increase awareness of CCU as the go-to resource for family-focused personal finance topics
    • Increase visits to blog pages on site by 10% each month
  • To grow the database of members who want content from CCU
    • Increase member e-newsletter sign-up number by 20% each quarter
  • To convert member subscribers into loan applicants
    • Grow the number of member subscribers who also apply for a loan (personal, home, or auto) by 5% over a year

Notice how their measurable content marketing goals ultimately lead to the business operational goal.

Now, CCU has its one-page content marketing strategy:

AUDIENCE (clearly defined)

CCU members who are parents/guardians of at least one young child; oversee their family’s budgets; likely to see living and transportation needs evolve in the next five years; are challenged by balancing a growing family’s space and transportation requirements; crunched for time

CATEGORIES/TOPICS (content angles relevant and valuable to the audience)

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  • Living at home • Traveling by car • Free or low-cost fun opportunities

FORMATSDISTRIBUTION CHANNELS – FREQUENCY (deliver in relevant channels consistently)

  • Blog – CCU website – 3x a week
  • E-newsletter – Database – 1x a month
  • Print newsletter – CCU physical location – 2x a year
  • Video – YouTube – 2x a year
  • Social Posts – Twitter 1x a day; Facebook 2x a week

CALLS to ACTIONS w/ MEASURABLE GOALS (customer action)

  • To increase awareness of CCU as the go-to resource for family-focused personal finance topics
    • Increase visits to blog pages on site by 10% each month
  • To grow the database of members who want content from CCU
    • Increase member e-newsletter sign-up number by 20% each quarter
  • To convert member subscribers into loan applicants
    • Grow the number of member subscribers who also apply for a loan (personal, home, or auto) by 5% over a year

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One more thing: Plan to revisit the content marketing strategy

Once you complete step six, your content marketing strategy is documented and ready to use. But I recommend an honorary seventh step. Too often, content marketers get so focused on execution that they forget to review their documented strategy regularly to make sure the goals and decisions remain valid.

Revisit the strategy when:

  • Goal timeframes have concluded
  • Triggers or events happen within your organization (i.e., a reduction in content marketing resources, the addition of new technology or platform)
  • Triggers or events happen outside your organization (i.e., a pandemic, a shift in consumer behavior)
  • Operational strategic planning is changed or updated (i.e., a new business goal, a new vision plan)

Don’t forget to review your #ContentMarketing strategy regularly to make sure goals and decisions remain valid, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

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Start writing

OK, now you know documenting a content marketing strategy isn’t overly difficult. You probably have a lot of the answers already. So set aside time to pull it all together in one document, then share it with all the stakeholders involved.

And next year, you’ll find yourself on the right side of the survey. You’ll have a documented content marketing strategy that helps you achieve your content and organizational goals.

Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute



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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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