
A Content Marketing Strategy - verbly
https://verb.ly/blogs/brand-strategy-writing-and-marketing/the-10-step-content-marketing-strategy
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pembrook
How did you guys manage to push this low quality article onto the front page
of HN?

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lootsauce
What makes this a low quality article?

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TurkishPoptart
For starters, it's extremely hard on the eyes, what with bright icons on a
white background with low-contrast lines of text strewn between.

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verbly
The blog layout is not the best i agree – some typography changes would be
good, and the images may not be the best since sliced bread. The 10 steps
though are proving effective for 2 companies I'm working with.

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xwowsersx
Not sure if I'm speaking just for myself, but it just comes across as kind of
sleazy, but I guess that's the nature of this game. I'm not even sure what it
is about it. I think it might be that it's accomplishing something that feels
like it ought to be based purely on knowledge/expertise/competency and
achieving based on a very robot/formulaic approach. I dunno. Feels like in the
same vein as all that growth hackery stuff.

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xwowsersx
You do need to change the font color though lol. It is seriously hard to
read..ultra thin sans font with a shade of grey that is like baaarely legible.
It hurts to read.

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lootsauce
Our organization has embarked on a content marketing strategy that looks
exactly like this and it seems to be paying off. Our sales pipeline is better
than it has been in years. Our sales and marketing people brought in a content
marketing company to help us and although it seems obvious and simple having
the formula laid out clearly without a wall of text does not translate to low
value in my mind.

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petewailes
This is __not __a strategy.

Strategy is planning five things:

* SMART objectives covering the next 12-36 months;

* Choices around how to compete and win in chosen areas of the market to achieve the objectives set;

* Positioning your organisation and its offering to be both distinct and differentiated to the audience;

* Selecting comms channels and messages to use to communicate with potential and current consumers/users;

* Altering your organisation to deliver the work all the above entail.

This is a not great article giving a list of things to execute a single
tactic. Not a strategy.

Do not confuse the two.

I'd strongly suggest anyone interested in strategy read this:
[https://hbr.org/2014/01/the-big-lie-of-strategic-
planning](https://hbr.org/2014/01/the-big-lie-of-strategic-planning), by the
excellent Roger L Martin

You can also read my far less expert thoughts on strategic thinking here:
[https://toughcompetent.com/dcxd/strategic-
thinking/](https://toughcompetent.com/dcxd/strategic-thinking/)

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lootsauce
You seem to be describing strategy writ-large for a company, this is about
"content marketing" strategy.

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petewailes
Strategy nests hierarchically, with each layer supporting the ones above. For
digital content marketing specifically, you'd detail those questions as:

* What are your objectives covering the next 12 months (SMART format), to outline what the efforts should achieve, how they'll be measured, success/failure criteria etc.

* What's your content going to look like in terms of media, what's the rest of the market doing, what are users, content consumers and customers all looking for...

* How will the comms translate your brand positioning and differentiation/distinctiveness to the audience? What should they take away from each piece and from the overall viewing of the many pieces of content which will be created?

* What channels will be used for promotion z and how will they be utilised?

* How will that content be produced, analysed and refined? What's the production lifecycle & management.

It's always the same five questions, with subtly in the detail of the thing
being planned.

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verbly
Hi Pete, It’s not really intended as an overall strategy – but as a ‘how to do
content marketing’. Whether or not to attach the word ‘strategy’ is perhaps
debatable; I think it works with the word ‘content’ – I wouldn’t have called
it ‘marketing strategy’; but I did call it ‘content strategy’.

Three of the principles within it are:

1\. Getting the most out of pillar content (e.g. 20–50 pieces relating to each
pillar)

2\. Getting the most out of social networks (e.g. tailoring pieces across
different social networks with paths to the pillar)

3\. Listening to reactions and accounting for those reactions in further
content that is produced

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iovrthoughtthis
In RTS we’d call it a ‘build order’. Which is a strategic template used to
guide the order in which you build or create things to support your overall
strategy.

In the same way, this is a strategic template for what to build, when and in
what order to support your overall marketing or customer acquisition strategy.
Choosing this template yo deploy would depend on other criteria that would
push you to choose this over other possible strategic approaches.

I think all that is missing from the above article is some discussion of when
it’s not appropriate to deploy such a strategic approach.

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QuadrupleA
Something incredibly depressing about this. How to churn out a torrent of
shallow content to add to the flood.

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tozeur
This article appears to borderline plagiarize Gary V’s well-known content
model: [https://www.slideshare.net/vaynerchuk/the-garyvee-content-
mo...](https://www.slideshare.net/vaynerchuk/the-garyvee-content-
model-107343659)

I highly recommend looking through that deck for anyone interested in modern
digital marketing strategy.

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gk1
The "pillar" or "hub-and-spoke" content model is standard practice these days
and is recommended by everyone from HubSpot to Brian Dean to, yes, Gary V.

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bravura
Is this intended for finding your market during customer development (before
product market fit) or only for the growth phase?

Do people typically use their personal social media accounts, or create new
ones for the company/brand?

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verbly
Definitely for the growth phrase. And could be before product-market fit,
depending on many factors. If you know a particular niche and you know you are
going to serve that niche, then I’d start content marketing early. If you
might switch niches (for example your background is not in a niche you’re
trying and your technology could serve other niches), then I wouldn’t go all
in on content marketing with that niche until you know you’re sticking with
it.

The content you’re publishing doesn’t need to relate directly to your product.
Of course, you want to show expertise in that area. But so long as the content
is useful for your niche, you can go more broad with it. For example, you
might do an interview with someone who produces another technology for your
niche.

Generally people do create a page for the brand; but this can be just a
repository for content. Personal accounts are – of course – more personable;
but also they have much more organic reach on some networks – notably
Linkedin. If you post something from your personal account and the same thing
on your company page, more people will see the personal post (assuming zero
sponsored post spend).

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xwowsersx
So this is how thought leadering works? Huh

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TruffleLabs
This is a pillar piece ;)

