Content marketing is awesome. It’s even more awesome (and effective!) when your business has a solid plan in place to guide your content creation efforts. Thoughtful content strategy helps you understand why content marketing is important to your business, how content creation & promotion can help you meet your goals, and how to measure your results to see what’s working well and what still needs to be fine-tuned. This session will take you step-by-step through the process of creating a basic content strategy plan for your WordPress website. Presented at WordCamp Minneapolis 2016.

2. What is Content Strategy?
“Planning for the creation, delivery, and
governance of useful, usable content.”
-Kristina Halvorson, Brain Traffic

3. In Other Words…It’s A Map
Credit: U.S. Army Europe Images

4. The map that leads to you users

5. Strategy Matters
Alignment builds trust
Users know what to expect and what comes next
Resources used most effectively & efficiently

6. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Content
Content creation without strategy lacks theme & purpose
Lack of purpose confuses your audience
Confused audiences don’t convert

7. Don’t Waste Resources
Credit: Grant Hutchinson on Flickr

8. Good Content Is…
Useful
Solves a problem
Has context
Considerate
Consistent

9. If there’s no substance…
you’re just creating noise.

10. Generic Gets Overlooked
• People don’t pay more for generic
• People don’t get excited about generic
• People don’t share average,
they share greatness

11. Developing Your Content Strategy

12. Allocate A Budget & Timeline
Like any company initiative,
this is going to take time and resources.
Plan for it.

13. What Are You Budgeting For?
• Content audit
• Analytics review
• Identification of problems
• Smart guesses
• Experiments
• User testing
• Evaluation
• Implementation

14. Forecasting & Projections

15. Start With Where You Win
A small catering company
has a 50% conversion rate
for calls about their funeral
luncheons.

16. What Comes Before That?
Current website generates 5 calls per month.

17. Lead Value
Average order value x conversion rate = lead value
$1000 x 50% = $500

18. Content Value
average # of leads x average lead value
5 x $500 = $2500

19. Estimating The Value Of Improvements
Content isn’t magic - use realistic estimates

20. Quantifying The Possible Impact
Landing page redesign to get 2 more calls each month.
Two new leads = $1000/month incremental value

21. Costs: Content Creation Isn’t Free
Time x Resources = Cost of Content
6 hours x $50/hr = $300

22. Net Upside
$1000 - $300
= $700 first month + $1000/month thereafter
…and that’s for just one landing page

23. What If It Doesn’t Work?
Maximum Gain - estimated amount you’ll save
Maximum Loss - what it costs to create/fix the content

24. Calculating Probability of Success
Max Loss: Estimate of project cost x probability of failure
$600 x 25% = $150
Max Gain: Estimated gain x probability of success
$800 x 75% = $600

25. When you add up all the potential savings, it’s easier to
understand where Content Strategy fits in your budget.

26. Set Objectives
Define what you want to accomplish
Set realistic goals & stretch goals
Plan how you’ll measure

27. Research, Research, Research
Market, user, and competitive research
Quantitative and qualitative Data
Get used to asking WHY

28. User Stories
Who’s the user?
What do they want?
Why?

29. Content Audit
There are tons of templates available online -
choose what makes sense for your biz, your goals,
and your budget.

30. Fix What Needs Fixing
Does it match the audience wants/needs?
Is it clear, easy to follow, and understandable?
Does it make it easy for the reader to take the next step?
Is it accurate and up-to-date?
Can we do better?

31. Find The Gaps

32. Client: Grieving Martha

33. Flesh Out Your Content Map
Remember the map - how do your customers get from
point A to point B?

34. Plan For Different Types Of Content
Pages
Blog posts
Product listings
Landing pages
Social Images

35. Include In Your Content Plan
Who are we creating this for?
What do we want them to get out of it?
Where is it going to be posted?
When is it going to be published?
Why are we doing this?

36. Outline Your New Content
Primary message
Target audience
Key terminology
Supporting messaging
Voice & tone

37. Create Your Editorial Calendar
CoSchedule
http://coschedule.com/editorial-calendar-template
HubSpot
http://offers.hubspot.com/blog-editorial-calendar
Vertical Measures
http://www.verticalmeasures.com/content-editorial-calendar-template/
Google Docs templates
https://drive.google.com/templates?q=editorial+calendar&ddrp=1

38. Measure, Analyze, Iterate
Remember those objectives we started with?
Compare your performance to your goals.
Did it work? Why or why not?
Do it again or try something new.

39. Questions?
@jenjamar
collaborate@jenjamar.com