Killer Content Strategy in 2 Hours

To efficiently get your team to a killer content strategy you need a common framework that can be applied to all your content decisions, as well as a simplified planning process that connects your approach to your audience and business goals. The Conversation Framework We often talk about digital content as a storytelling medium, but that assumes a one-sided relationship with one storyteller and one or many listeners. I prefer to think of it as a conversation that may include stories. In a best case scenario, your content resembles an ongoing dialogue with your audiences that you can learn from over time, just as a good conversation requires listening and thoughtful reaction. If you think about content planning in this context of a natural dialogue you will find there are certain elements that impact the direction and elements of the varied kinds of conversation that we all engage in day to day: Depth of relationship: You talk about different things and in a different cadence and tone with strangers or new friends than with those you know well. Frequency of touch point: Catching up with a long lost friend takes on a different flavor than conversing with another friend that you see more regularly. Passion point: If you have something in common with someone that can often become the central theme of your interactions. Attention: Is it a passing opportunity to chat or do you have uninterrupted hours to spend together? One-to-one or one-to-many: Are you addressing a group or having a private conversation? Utility: Is the focus on getting something specific accomplished? Conversation initiation: Are you initiating the conversation? If so, you carry the burden of the setting the clear direction, pace and tone. Intent: Are you trying to persuade? Entertain? Educate? All require different approaches and info. Channel conventions: What’s accepted and commonplace in some channels may not be in others. Format: Content can take many forms including visual, audio, interactive, etc... and the format will influence the structure and flow of the conversation. Language or tone varies based on norms for the intended audience: Certainly age and other demographics but also take into account regional flavor, language preferences or degree of formality. Investment: Depending on how important the interaction is to your goals you may invest your time or other resources more or less liberally, including using paid media to maximize reach. Content authorship: Are you using your own stories and content or sharing something that someone else created? You can quickly see how these and many other subtleties impact the flavor and flow of our conversations and how they could also influence your content choices. Once you have that conversational framework in mind you can get through the actual planning pretty swiftly. Simplified Content Planning Process Now to break down the two-hour planning process into managable 30-minute chunks. Spend the first 30 minutes defining your audiences. The output should be two to four primary audiences that you can describe by demographics, content consumption habits, size of audience, your access points to them and any of their behavioral characteristics that can help you create personas. You will use the personas as a short hand to describe those key audiences and will reinvent them over time. Spend the second 30 minutes defining your goals for each persona type. Set realistic as well as stretch goals that deliver value for your business. Capture benchmarks for those goals in advance of your program launch. Remember that it is not a goal unless it has an associated time frame and uses KPIs that you can reliably measure and trend. Spend the third 30 minutes cataloging your resources for content creation, distribution and promotion. You may have agency partners or in-house resources but chances are no one source is expert in all areas of content creation, channel development, media buying and social community interaction. Aim to catalogue the true and complete cost of your content creation and dissemination so you can appropriately match the investment to your goals. Spend the final 30 minutes creating a three month plan calendar. Start with some general creative direction that protects the brand voice and guides your team based on established marketing or business plans. The timeframe for the plan will vary but it should be long enough to benefit from some efficiencies in the content production process but short enough to encourage testing and optimization as you see what hurdles you encounter and what formats, messages and approaches successfully connect with your audience. Done! In two hours you should have a clear understanding of who you are targeting, what outcomes you want to achieve, the resources you have at your disposal and a kick off plan to get you on your way. If you approach content as a conversation and apply a simplified content planning outline it should get you to a solid and strategic starting point to begin creating, sharing and measuring the impact of your conversations. The nature of your content strategy should be fluid — like a conversation — and will naturally evolve in productive directions if you know who you are talking to and take the time to listen.

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Killer Content Strategy in 2 Hours

The Conversation Framework

Robin Neifield

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Robin Neifield