We need more content! And we need it now! This is a cry we often hear within five minutes of meeting prospective clients.

It’s usually uttered by overwhelmed marketers juggling multiple projects and looking to drive profitable action from their audience.

But is more content really the answer? Not in our experience.

It’s generally accepted the world reached ‘Peak Content’ in 2015. In other words, this is the point that the media and internet were producing so much content average consumers became totally saturated.

And still the rate at which we create content is only increasing. Currently people consume more than 500 hours of youtube video, 1440 WordPress posts and 3.3 million Facebook posts every 60 seconds. Everyone and anyone is a publisher.

So what does this mean for content marketers?

To break through the noise and achieve results you need to start thinking strategically. 

It’s obvious quality will trump quality every single time, but these days it takes much more than carefully crafted copy to achieve a desired result.

Content marketing is marathon not a sprint. To make sure you reach the finish line it’s essential to have a fully documented strategy for you and your team to follow every step of the way.

The ‘build it and they will come’ approach is prehistoric thinking and destined to fail in a world where consumers are increasingly aware of the value of their personal data – and are only willing to exchange their details for content that’s valuable to them.

Marketers who have spent the time to understand their customer and create an insights driven, documented content marketing strategy are much more likely to accomplish their goals.

In our experience, the key elements of any successful content marketing strategy are as follows:

1. Objectives

What do you want to achieve and why?

2. Customer personas

Who is your ideal customer and what are their attributes? This needs to be based on validated commonalities and not assumptions.

3. Data and market research

Audience surveys, focus groups, and audience analytics are critical to understanding the needs of your audience and crafting content that meets those needs.

4. Customer journey map

Understanding your customers journey from first interaction to long-term client helps you create a visual map from their point of view. What type of content are they consuming and on what platforms? What are their pain points?

5. Process

A documented strategy makes the process of content creation more transparent and efficient for team members and clients.

6. Optimisation and analytics

The metrics that match your goals both qualitative and quantitative are the important ones to measure and record against.

7. Clearly defined results

Content marketing takes time and can be costly, which means it has to be clearly aligned with business objectives and focused on achieving profitable interactions with your audience.

We work closely with all of our clients to understand their audience and define a clear, results-orientated content marketing strategy that is closely aligned with broader business objectives.

Interested in creating a content marketing strategy for your business? Talk to the Pinstripe media team today.

Stuart Singleton
Stuart Singleton

As Head of Client Service, Stuart uses his significant experience in content marketing, publishing, client service, and business development to ensure client deliverables are met and expectations exceeded. Stuart specialises in defining, developing and delivering results orientated content marketing and publishing strategies.