“I just started a new company.” “I have a new product and need to spread the word on behalf of my Enterprise.” ” I need to support my sales team with marketing content.” Are you in one such scenario, bothering you about what exactly you have to do?
You can figure out where to start and when to start with content, using this 3×3 grid.
It is often confusing for production owners to figure out the missing pieces of content. The X-axis represents the objective of your content exercise and Y-axis represents the action related to content – production, marketing, or strategy.
Content work begins with the Strategy. But, what are you building the strategy for?
What is the Objective of Your Content?
You could have an objective beyond the ones listed below or you could have more than one objective. But, to start with you could choose one of them.
- Lead Generation
- Sales Enablement
- Branding
1. Lead Generation
Content Strategy: How would your strategy look like for lead generation? This question has a subjective answer. So, the answer completely depends on your business, industry, target audience and need. However, you could predict a few things ahead. You need to work on your media channel strategy, audience strategy and lead nurturing choices.
Content Marketing: If you choose to market content for lead generation, then focus on what type of content is to be created for higher conversions. You may need a direct response copywriter. Use lead qualification criteria all through the sales funnel to create exclusive content templates for each stage and each cohort.
Content Production: Create a necessary series of whitepapers, blog posts, email cadence, optimized web landing pages, etc as a part of this process. Here is where you may also want to add tutorials or interviews in the form of podcasts and videos as a part of your production process.
The number, types and forms of content to be produced will be decided at the strategy stage, and the production stage will be more about executing it.
2. Sales Enablement
Most of the dissonance arises from lack of coordination with the sales team. Sales enablement is an area that needs constant attention of content and communications team.
Content Strategy: Develop a buyer’s journey and communication path for each channel. Discuss these areas of execution with your sales team. Find out where exactly they need help for sales enablement.
Content Marketing: Work on your collateral design and organic search. The more relevant presence you are able to create, especially in the context of Account-Based Marketing (ABM), the more will your sales team be able to use content during their conversations with potential clients.
Content Production: ABM collateral, case-studies, proposal templates, pitches and presentations, and follow-up emails are some of the content expected of you from the sales team. Understand where they would need constant support of customizations and a one-time overhaul.
3. Branding
This is where you build your narratives.
Content Strategy: What is your Brand Story that transcends across the organization? Figure out that single story that inspires your customers and employees as well as can be articulated with ease.
Content Marketing: Figure the target personas and talk about what they want to hear from you. In a way, this is when you would focus on building both, individual and organizational thought leadership.
Content Production: Guest Posts, Coaching sessions/ webinars, in-person training, how-it-works, FAQs, and ecosystem-build-up collateral with partnership communication is what will keep you busy for branding. The most obvious content would be user stories, positioning statements, etc.
Use this 3×3 grid for yourself and your organization, share your output in the comments section. Should you need any help to apply this to your case scenario, feel free to reach out to me either by leaving a note in the comments section or shoot an e-mail to nischalagnihotri [at] gmail [dot] com.
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