Top 5 content marketing strategies you should be using

Blogger Josh Ritchie @joshritchie, Co-founder and CEO of Column Five @columnfive, recently shared an outstanding post about 10 hard-learned content strategy lessons. If you have the time, read it! He affirms what most of our clients report to us: Creating and maintaining a content strategy is “tough work”. And he offers up 10 tips that we back 100%. Here are the top 5 we think you should know with some additional insights from NK&A:

  1. You need to know your audience. He advises: “Their wants, needs, and desires should guide everything you do” and suggests to spend time with them to ensure you really know them. We are big fans of face-to-face but have found surveys are a fantastic source, too.
  2. Build out “content themes”. You don’t have to outline each piece of content in your strategy, rather make sure each piece aligns with themes that are relevant to your audience. And we suggest building off this advice by coupling those themes with action that advances the reader’s progression to the results you desire (awareness, audience engagement, feedback, etc.) Think about how your content can help move your audience to take action, ask questions, and engage with you.
  3. His 4th tips echoes what we preach (so much so that you will find it on our business cards). In our words: Anyone can come up with a good idea, but the only ones that matter are the ones you can implement.  Make a plan that is actionable.
  4. Showcase what makes you unique through your content.  Strike a voice that reflects your brand, culture and beliefs.  We would add on to this theme that you don’t have to be liked by everyone.  Think of your content as both attracting the right clients and repelling the wrong ones.
  5. Experiment often. AMEN!  We preach and practice that any good strategy has 4 repeating elements: plan- do-measure-iterate (-repeat).  So often our clients want to skip measurement.  But how can you experiment, advance and have confidence if you don’t know how you are doing?  Measuring helps you stop doing things that don’t work and narrow your focus on the things that do.

Thanks Josh Ritchie @joshritchie for this great article.  He offers many more ideas and tips in the full piece.

We are always finding ways to learn.  Have any tips or “rules of the road” that have helped your content strategy or development?

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