10 Questions to Inform Your Content Strategy
According to Hubspot, one of my favorite marketing information sources, a content strategy is “a plan in which you use content to achieve your business goals.”
That’s just it - don’t let the word “strategy” trip you up! Your content strategy is a plan, and one that can be kept pretty simple if you stay focused on what matters.
Hubspot adds, “A successful content strategy will attract your target audience at every stage of the funnel and keep them engaged even after a purchase.”
When developing your content strategy, keeping your audience and your goals in focus is crucial. It’s easy to get distracted by a desire to create the most compelling, interesting, and exciting content out there. You imagine advertising executives in a Mad Men-style marketing meeting using your content as a shining example. Emily in Paris scours your Instagram feed, seeking inspiration for her next big idea.
It’s a fun daydream, but, in most cases, your content is not your business. Are you being paid to produce blog posts or tweet? Probably not - but you are hoping your efforts inspire people to become paying customers.
So, if the aim isn’t to create the most interesting content… where do we start?
I’m so glad you asked!
Here, I will outline the exact 10 questions I use to develop content strategies for my clients. I’ll share the basic question, its use, and follow-up questions to help you dive deeper for extra credit.
To be super proactive, grab pen and paper to jot down your answers as you read along. When you finish, you’ll be halfway to a developed content strategy!
What are your top 1-3 business goals in the next year?
Use: Return to these goals at every stage of your content strategy development. You can create the best content out there… but if it doesn’t connect back to your goals, there isn’t much of a point.
Dive deeper: How can content help me meet these goals? On which platforms? What data will I need to track to know if my content helping me meet these goals?
2. How do new clients find you most often?
Use: As you determine which platforms and mediums you’ll use, consider where you’re already successful. In marketing, we often feel pulled to try new and shiny tactics, but sometimes the key to more leads is right under our noses. Developing your marketing where new clients are already finding you is often a better use of your time than starting from scratch somewhere else.
Sometimes, you’re already well established and happy with your performance on a platform and are ready to branch out. That’s great, too! In this case, use the answer to this question to figure out your best next platform or content type.
Dive deeper: Where are you already being discovered? Are the clients finding you there your ideal clients? If not, how do your ideal clients typically find you? Is there a segment of your audience you’re not reaching currently? Or, if your audience is already super active and awesome, is there somewhere else they spend time that you could also reach them to deepen your connection?
3. Who is this ideal client?
Use: While we’re on the subject, get really clear about who your ideal clients are. As your strategy grows over time, remember to always market to this client first, even if they don’t currently make up the majority of your client base. Keeping them in focus will help you naturally develop to a place where your base is made up of these ideal clients!
Dive deeper: What is it about them that makes them my ideal client? Where do they spend their time? Which content types are they most likely to interact with?
4. Once someone finds you, what is their next step?
Use: When someone enjoys your content and decides they’re ready to work with you, you want their next step to be crystal clear. Know your calls to action.
Dive deeper: Based on your business goals, do you have multiple calls to action? How will you differentiate when to use each call to action in your content? Which call to action is most important - the end goal? How often will you push this ask?
5. What are potential clients asking before taking that next step?
Use: Your answers to this question are a great starting point for developing content ideas and topics! When you know what your potential clients are wondering about you, you can create content that anticipates their needs and answers their questions. Not only does this make for good content, but it’s also a great attitude for customer service!
Dive deeper: What stops them from taking those steps? What can you do about it?
6. Who is your competition for this audience?
Use: Don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to! Perform a quick competitive analysis. If your competition is using content marketing, note how their content is performing, what you like about it, and where it could be improved.
Dive deeper: What platforms are they using? What types of content get them the most engagement? Is there an opportunity they are missing that you could take advantage of?
7. Whose content is aspirational?
Use: Review content you love for further inspiration. These can be businesses whose footsteps you’d like to follow or ones outside of your industry whose marketing really resonates with you.
Dive deeper: What exactly is it that I like about this content? How can I apply these tactics to my own content in a way that is aligned with my goals?
8. What has your content marketing experience been like so far?
Use: Make sure you’re reflecting on where you’ve been before deciding where to go next! If you’ve spent a lot of time creating a particular type of content with no success, that’s something to pay attention to.
Dive deeper: Who is engaging with your current content marketing efforts? What’s working? What isn’t?
9. How do you describe your brand voice?
Use: Document your brand voice and keep it consistent to build trust and familiarity among your audience. You’ll likely have a team of people creating content, and those people may change over time. Having a template to refer back to is necessary.
Dive deeper: How do you want potential clients to feel when interacting with you? Are there examples of brands using this voice you can use as a template?
10. Finally, what sets you apart?
Use: When developing a strategy, so many of us are tempted to start here. But, you’ll find that the answer isn’t all that helpful if you haven’t decided what to do with it. This is your secret sauce! It will be at the heart of most of the content you develop. You want your strategy to support, prop up, and communicate it beautifully.
Dive deeper: What’s different in the way we approach what we do? What delights our clients about working with us? What seems like common sense to us but is super valuable to those outside of our industry?
Next Steps
Once you answer these questions, you may be surprised to find there isn’t much left to do! Here are your next steps:
Light research if you need to flesh out any of your findings or notes
Document your strategy, being sure to include: Business goals and how you think content marketing will help you meet them, audience, client journey, competitive analysis, content pillars, brand voice, content marketing tactics you’re going to test, what you’ll measure, and when you’ll revisit the strategy to adapt to what is/isn’t working
Implementation!
Your strategy won’t be perfect, especially not at the beginning. The important part? Using it. Use it to create imperfect content, note what you learn, and grow from there. You’ve got this!
If you’re looking for content strategy & management support, start here.