A Proven Content Strategy Template You Can Start Using Today

Producing content is not a strategy in itself, nor is the process by which you create that content. 

Content strategy is knowing what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. The rest is execution. Problem is, most folks start with execution before thinking down the road.

To get a handle on your content strategy, ask, “What should our content do for the brand and the business?” It’s the why behind your content creation efforts. Without that why, you’ll find yourself reacting to the whims of leadership and other departments. Without that why, you can’t tell whether your content is succeeding or failing.

We’re here to talk you through it. This blog will lead you through our proven content strategy template, step by step.

Step 1: Set your evergreen foundation

Step back and align on a few key questions:

• What are the core problems your business solves? 
• How do you deliver that solution in a way that distinguishes you from your competition? 
• Who is your product relevant to, and who buys it? 
• What are the outcomes clients can expect, and what does life look like after adopting your solution or service? 
• What is your brand’s point of view on the industry and the problem? 

You can use these elements to power the core of your content strategy. These are the truths you will constantly talk about in varying contexts and formats. These fill-in-the-blank statements (indicated by the italics) can neatly sum it up for you:

• We believe your perspective or view.
• We provide your offering for your persona targets to help them the outcome they desire.                   
• We want to be known for 3-5 short phrases about your differentiating factors.
• We can prove it through proof you can draw from, like customer results, product expertise, distinctive process, etc.. 

Step 2: Identify your goals and parameters

Now it’s time to build on top of the foundation and set the goals that will define success, and so forth.

What time period are you planning for? A month? A quarter? A year? It’s appropriate to consider both. 

Perhaps one quarter will be devoted to driving awareness around a new feature, conference presentation, or industry report. In fact, go ahead and mark those on your content calendar. Think of these as “immovable objects” that will require attention before, during, and after the fact.

Then zoom back out and consider your content goals agnostic of any particular event. How is content expected to help the business? This will influence the KPIs that indicate progress. 

For example

Goal	Content Contribution	KPI
Generate qualified pipeline	Attract and educate high-intent prospects	Demo requests originating from content, pipeline influence
Build awareness	Increase discovery among a priority audience	Organic search traffic, branded search, reach and impressions
Support sales	Answer buyer questions before and during evaluation	Content-assisted opportunities, asset utilization by Sales team
Customer retention	Deepen customer relationships and get more value from the product or service	Product adoption, renewal influence, support and success

Here’s another fill-in-the-blank statement that can serve as your marketing north star:

During time period, we will use content formats and channels to help audience understand and act on priority, problem, or opportunity, contributing to business goal.      

If your organization is in the middle of some big shift, like launching a whole new product line or pushing into a new industry, you can spend the entire year facilitating that goal. You will be speaking to a new audience for the first time. If not, you can keep it simple. 

Some of our clients focus on a different persona segment each quarter, leading them from top to bottom of the marketing funnel over a few months. This is a great way to stock your content library with assets that speak to the various funnel stages inside your already-ongoing content production strategy. That way, when a more specific goal or need arises for the business, you have a backlog of content to draw from to launch more targeted campaigns. 

Step 3: Create a plan for distribution

Before you start creating content, set a standard for how your primary content will be adapted or re-used across channels. 

Assets that live on the website—like blogs, guides, and case studies—need promotion on social media, newsletters, and emails. By doing so, you can lead your audience back to the website, where they can keep exploring. The trick is having a default distribution plan. It’s as simple as saying:

• For every blog, we will create X social posts and include the blog in the monthly newsletter. 
• For every webinar, we’ll create three lead-up posts, five clips from the video, and three followup posts. 
• For paid media, we’ll create a landing page that includes one blog, one case study, and one webinar link.
• For our yearly report, we’ll create two executive summaries, five lead-up posts, a three-email nurture campaign, and five followup posts. 

A good brand kit can help ease the friction here. For example, a set of pre-designed social media templates can reduce the work of creating a social graphic to mere minutes. You can’t start from scratch every time. It takes too long and creates too much room for brand inconsistencies. 

Next, start building your content calendar. It’s easy to get over-ambitious here, so be realistic (if not pessimistic) about how long it takes to create content, and who plays what part in getting that work done. If you can produce two blogs a month and one case study or guide per quarter, you can run a pretty decent content strategy by systematizing the atomization of your primary content in order to get the most use possible. 

Finally, build in re-shares. No matter how popular your brand or important your product, no one has seen everything you’ve produced. Commit, on your calendar, to re-publishing the successful content that you’ve already paid for at regular intervals.

And if you find two blogs per month and one case study quarter (or whatever your strategy ends up being) is too much, you may need help. We’d be happy to help you meet your production goals. 

Step 4: Plan for timely content opportunities

When new developments occur, your organization should be able to say something valuable pretty quickly. Shakeups, breakthroughs, scandals, wins—these are prime opportunities to take part in the broader conversation and showcase your organization’s expertise.

The thing is, asking your CEO or SMEs “What should we say about this?” usually leads to “Let me get back with you on that.” Then the conversation moves on and you’ve missed the opportunity to say anything at all. 

“What should we say?” to an executive is like a blank page to us marketers. It’s far more useful to say, “ABC happened, and I think we should take the XYZ angle in our response. What do you think?” They’ll either supply a different perspective or give you more color on the one you suggest. If you’ve built trust and buy-in and are aligned on the company’s value proposition, their brief input should be enough for you to take it and run with it. 

This is the kind of dynamic content ideation that Chatter was built to facilitate. Chatter acts as a content intelligence platform that catches new developments and captures the broader conversation around them. What’s more, Chatter considers your unique brand and audiences to suggest angles and perspectives you can actionize right away. 

Stop doing random acts of marketing

Think of your performance last year. Did you accomplish anything, or just post some stuff? 

With a little foresight and strategy, you can stop marketing from a reactive position. You can create a reliable engine for content production that runs smoothly, giving you bandwidth to plan for the future and react to emerging topics with more intention. You can set clear, business-relevant goals and actually make progress toward them. 

At Chatter, we’re here to help by removing the barrier of the blank page. Even if you’re a marketing department of one, Chatter can help you rise above the marketing chaos to achieve your goals. Try a free, no-obligation demo here.