Content Strategy Step Eight: The Right Content in the Right Channel

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Step 1: Know Thyself
Step 2: Know Your Customer
Step 3: Determine Your Content Marketing Goals
Step 4: Search Engine Optimization
Step 5: Perform a Content Inventory
Step 6: Content Mapping
Step 7: Creating Content
Step 8: The Right Content in the Right Channel
Step 9: Measuring Your Content Strategy’s Success
Some Final Thoughts

There are dozens of channels available to publish your content in, but the “spray and pray” approach to pushing out content isn’t strategic and will likely not generate the kinds of returns you’re hoping for.

Going back to our personas and understanding how your customers and prospects consume content and how they make their purchasing decisions will inform where you publish your content and in what forms. 

For example, if one of your buyer personas is C-level executives whose primary method of researching products is through analyst reviews and customer testimonials, then you probably don’t need an infographic for that persona. Conversely, infographics can work very well in other channels your customers frequent, so it may still make sense to create infographics. 

Primary channels for delivering your content include

Your website and landing pages. From a digital marketing standpoint, consider hosting some of your gated content on micro-sites apart from your main web site. Using crosslinking, you can build your website rankings and potentially have more of your digital properties showing up in search results.

Social media platforms. This is a no-brainer for today’s businesses. Still, posting content on social media isn’t as simple and sharing a thumbnail version of an ad you’re running on an industry publication site. Each social platform is different and how you format and deliver content—both paid and organic—on each will vary.

Email is still a viable marketing channel. Despite news to the contrary or even your personal feelings about email marketing, the truth is, email can still work. It’s true that it is very difficult to generate positive metrics cold-emailing prospects, and recent anti-spam legislation has only made it even more difficult. Still, if you can obtain opt-in email contacts through your other marketing campaigns and channels, then email outreach is a way to deliver targeted content directly to people who have indicated an interest, and to your existing customers. 

Blogging and podcasts. Blogs and podcasts fall into the “owned” (versus “earned”) category of marketing channels, because even though people can find these properties on their own, these are still channels you control the message on. That said, blogs and podcasts give you the flexibility and freedom to discuss anything at all. Unlike Press Releases or even industry articles you contribute to, blogs and podcasts work best when they are a little irreverent and unbuttoned. 

Earned media can make or break your business. Since we mentioned owned media channels above, we can’t not discuss earned media. Some might disagree that earned media is a channel because you technically can’t create it. I’m going to respectfully disagree. You can create content and run programs designed specifically to foster organic, earned media. The most obvious example is your media outreach program. Likely, you have an agency helping you reach out to various media outlets pitching ideas for content. Any buzz and traffic resulting from those efforts are earned. Also consider industry analyst sites that allow vendors to self-post their products and allow customers to leave reviews, for better or for worse. Technically, you don’t own that channel, but you were directly involved in its creation and any resulting positive reviews or traffic back to your own properties should be considered earned. 

Search engine optimization drives search results. SEO isn’t a channel per-se, but if your SEO is poorly implemented, two of your main channels–organic and paid search results–will suffer. You should already have a documented list of your most popular search terms and those terms and phrases should be strategically used throughout your content. If you’ve done that correctly, your target audience will find your content organically. But, supplementing organic search with paid search results (PPC) is always a great idea. And trust me, your competition is already doing it.

Paid advertising. The two big platforms serving the online paid advertising space are Google and Facebook. Yes, Facebook is a social media platform, but advertising on Facebook’s platform is completely different from simply posting on Facebook. Both platforms allow you to create ads and target very specific audiences. Again, having your personas developed is extremely important here, as is having done your homework around SEO so you know how prospects look for solutions like yours. 

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