How to Leverage Your Customer Journey for Your Content Strategy

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More content material shouldn’t be all the time an excellent factor. I as soon as labored for an organization that had over 30,000 items of content material, most of which was launched to the audience in a single fell swoop with no strategic plan. Only 2% of that content material was ever seen. What that instructed me was individuals have been creating content material with out intent. Who is the viewers? What have been they trying for? How ought to or not it’s disseminated? How did it match into the general go-to-market and content material technique? How to maintain it going? There’s a a lot smarter manner. Let’s discover, lets? We’ll have a look at the next 4 areas: Understand your viewers via your complete buyer journey.Understand what content material is required at any given level alongside the client journey.Do a content material audit: Keep, modify, archive or create.4 R’s: Repeat, Reuse, Recycle and Repurpose. Map Your Content Strategy to Your Customer Journey Let’s face it, most content material is underutilized, if used in any respect — as my 30,000 instance above demonstrates. Maybe it’s as a result of it wasn’t what our viewers was trying for. Maybe it’s as a result of nobody can really discover it. Or possibly it’s as a result of it was not thoughtfully developed with the viewers and go-to-market technique in thoughts.Most firms don’t have a go-to-market technique, not to mention a content material technique. But content material is vital to getting individuals into and thru the advertising and marketing funnel, in addition to onboarding, adopting and utilizing the product or answer. Here are some simple steps to make sure you leverage your content material to its fullest extent, whereas aligning with company targets.Related Article: How to Unleash Your Omnichannel Content Strategy Understand Your Audience Through the Entire Customer Journey When defining each the topic and format of your content material, take into account your complete buyer journey. Start with the product, then via advertising and marketing and gross sales, and at last via the client success and lifetime of that buyer. Who is your viewers at every of those steps within the journey? Let’s say your organization is the market chief of cloud-based software program that back-office monetary processes for SMBs. The first cease alongside the client journey is individuals recognizing a necessity for any such answer and the options, features and advantages.They have a ache, and your answer fills a market want or hole. Maybe that first touchpoint is with an individual who simply spent 22 hours reconciling one thing they know may be automated. Or possibly it’s the small enterprise proprietor who needs to give attention to their core enterprise, not administrative malarky. As this potential account or consumer makes their manner via the funnel the IT division will get concerned as a result of they’ve to combine it. Then gross sales talks to all of those people as well as to a number of companions within the ecosystem. Then the top person, somebody on the finance staff, together with the IT particular person, begins the onboarding course of with buyer success. Understand What Content Is Needed at Any Given Point Along the Customer Journey The answer described above is comparatively easy and cheap, but there are already 5 or 6 individuals concerned within the discovery, buy and implementation. You want to be sure to perceive your completely different audiences alongside the client journey, what their ache factors are, and what forms of content material they’re trying for. The finish person goes to want to perceive if the answer alleviates their ache, how greatest to use the answer, and what they need to be trying for when it comes to outcomes. They possible additionally need to see it in motion and see greatest practices, use instances and case research from clients who’ve an analogous course of. These forms of content material span your complete buyer journey. Whereas, the IT particular person would possibly are available in firstly of the method to assist outline necessities wanted for integration after which as soon as the answer has been bought, return to undergo the onboarding course of. They are trying for specs in addition to potential growth and product documentation, possibly how-to movies, and a few examples of how others have efficiently applied. The champion of the answer is sticking their neck by advocating for a particular answer, so that you want to assist them validate the choice they’ve made in selecting your answer. Each of those individuals, at completely different levels of the client journey, are trying for various kinds of content material to assist transfer them from prospect to blissful buyer, AND to be certain that everybody concerned understands from their perspective what the provide is, what it is going to do for them and the way to use it.Related Article: The Customer Journey: Content Marketing for B2B Software Buyers Do a Content Audit: Keep, Modify, Archive or Create Now you realize your viewers, their journey, and the forms of content material they are going to want to assist make selections and undertake a content material plan internally. This is a good alternative to consider what content material you have already got. In some instances, you might have what you want. In different instances, you would possibly want to modify what’s there and replace it with new outcomes. And in some instances you may need a spot and can want to develop new content material. Everything else is simply noise, so you may archive it or do away with it whether it is actually out of date. Repeat, Reuse, Recycle and Repurpose Let’s say you might have a video that exhibits how to use a characteristic that was not too long ago new and improved. Can you edit it with the brand new characteristic, or does the video want to be created from scratch? I’m an enormous fan of taking what already exists and increasing its life by being sensible about the way you initially develop it and the way you employ that piece time and again. Imagine creating one actually stellar piece of content material a yr as a basis, calling that your pillar piece, and leveraging that piece over 100 instances — in a number of applications and channels, and for all of your goal audiences and segmentations. Creating it with a little bit of flexibility for when instances name for a fast adjustment? And possibly even personalizing it a bit? By strategically fascinated about what content material is required and who the content material is for, mapping it straight to the client journey, you may develop higher content material and fewer of it, which may be repurposed and reused.Related Article: Structured Content Gives Companies Room to Scale How to Implement the Above Tactics With a brand new viewers — This one is straightforward. Just begin sharing content material with them.With new advertising and marketing channels — Try your pillar piece in a distinct channel. See if it really works higher on Facebook versus LinkedIn. With a brand new marketing campaign — Think about how one can repurpose one thing for a brand new marketing campaign. With new forms of content material or mediums — Take a number of weblog posts and switch them into an e-guide. Or transcribe your podcast and switch it right into a “suggestions and tips” weblog put up. In new markets — Thinking of increasing into new markets or areas? Leverage your content material, particularly your predominant pillar piece, to take a look at these areas. By creating fast hits — Need extra prospects within the pipeline? (That was rhetorical.) Leverage good-performing content material in new applications for fast hits.By modularizing — Turning one thing into bite-sized items can exponentially enhance your attain and extensibility.By aggregating — Consider compiling a number of items right into a “new” doc. The Bottom Line: Less May Be More Now you realize why extra content material shouldn’t be all the time an excellent factor. Once you do your content material audit and uncover which items to maintain, modify, archive or create, you’ll give you the option to totally see your buyer via their complete journey. Better but, once you repeat, reuse, recycle and repurpose you’ll save your self time whereas studying how to create content material with intent that’s helpful to your outlined viewers and aligns properly along with your product or answer. You’ll give you the option to perceive what your viewers is trying for and the way they need to greatest obtain it. Best of all? Your buyer will thanks!
Christina Del Villar is a Silicon Valley advertising and marketing govt, marketing consultant and creator who geeks out on serving to firms rework, develop and scale, leveraging expertise with 25 years of expertise at Fortune 100 firms and greater than 10 startups. Christina has developed go-to-market and advertising and marketing methods for exponential development, new product launches, acquisitions and IPOs, significantly for high-growth firms the place she leverages her expertise and trade perspective to take them to the following degree.

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