Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Ana Branković, Strategic Planner, The Content Studio, Represent Communications
Strategy. A word often used, but rarely understood. It mostly causes two emotions: fear and delight. It causes fear in those who don’t know what to do with it and what it actually “does”, and delight in those who have enough knowledge and skills to design and implement it, listening and deeply understanding themselves (their company) and others (consumers, competitors).
It’s similar with the content marketing strategy. Although a third variety appears with it – those who state that they invest in creating content marketing strategy, but under the pressure of deadlines, crises, different variable factors, let this strategy take the form of a jellyfish – so it becomes diluted and unfocused.
Recent research show that most global companies, about 86% of them, say that they use a strategic approach to content marketing. By definition of the Content Marketing Institute, this is “an approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
This definition is a mouth full, but it best sums up the key things that are important for a content marketing strategy. And those are:
Business plan for content marketing – includes all that you want to achieve with your content program, goals, specific value you want to transfer through the content you create, as well as potential obstacles and opportunities that you might encounter.
Defining the target group – Some call them personas, customers, clients, target public, but in the end, these are all PEOPLE. People with all their feelings, fears, desires, aspirations and needs. The better we get to know them, honestly, without filters, the better we will know how to approach them and what content at what time would be the best for them. It is as when you want to walk up to a guy that you like – you explore everything about him, what he likes, what he doesn’t like, and then you decide to approach him in a way that he would like, but still being yourself and keeping it cool.
Good brand story – People have been telling stories since the ancient times. They expressed themselves through metaphors and colorful narratives, so in that sense, storytelling is nothing new. Depending on how strong, tense, funny the story is – or to say it more simply, how much it touches the heart – depends whether and how deep you will build your place in the minds of consumers. What sets it apart from an ordinary “story” is the need that key messages are very well and precisely designed, that they are relevant to the audience and that in the various stages of consumer journey they get new or modified forms.
Plan of distribution channels – These are no longer the individual channels you will use to tell a good story. It’s an entire platform of different combinations of channels, each having its own target in correlation with the other. The main question today is actually how to coordinate and meaningfully communicate in a world that has such a multitude of digital channels, while remaining relevant to consumers.
In addition to the key elements that every content marketing strategy should theoretically have, I’ll be free to say that at the end of the day, things essentially boil down to:
Healthy psychology – Listen to the people, their desires, expectations, fears and don’t assume you already know everything about them.
Know yourself – The better we know ourselves (our company) and our values, the better we will know how to subtly and without fuss imbue them into what people need or what they feel.
Logic – Be smart enough to connect the dots A and B.
And there’s your story with a happy ending. And you will certainly hear one such story if you visit the Content Experience, first regional conference on content and digital marketing, which will take place on 3 and 4 October at the Hotel Metropol in Belgrade.
