What are some ways to demonstrate strategic thinking in content marketing?

When we talk about marketing, whether it's content marketing or in any other form, it's about having a strategy. Especially in the realm of B2B marketing, a precise strategy is essential. What do we aim to achieve, sell, or accomplish, etc.? Whom do we want to reach? Who is our competition? What is our competition doing to achieve its goals? How do we intend to reach the target audience? Consider the needs, preferences, and issues of your target audience. Think about the Amazon strategy—eliminate all customer pain points and charge a premium for it. Until then, it's entirely independent of the product we're selling. Nothing can squander time and money as easily as non-targeted marketing. This investment will never come back.

Defining objectives in content marketing is like setting the GPS for a road trip. It's not just about deciding the destination, but also understanding the best routes and what you want to see along the way. For instance, if you aim to boost brand awareness, your content should resonate with your audience's values and interests, making them more likely to share it. If conversion is the goal, your content must align with specific stages of the buyer's journey, providing the right information at the right time to nudge them towards a purchase. Remember, each piece of content should serve a purpose in your larger marketing map, whether it's a blog post driving traffic or a video enhancing customer loyalty.

A really helpful way to get started setting objectives with a content marketing strategy is aligning your work to a target customer and a core product message or theme. If you have an understanding of these two things, you have a pool of potential topics and creators to pick from that can inform goals. For example, if you are a fintech company with a budgeting app and your strategy is to increase marketshare or awareness with "over-spenders under 30", you have a structure to start from. You know who your audience is, what potential topics could interest them, and you can find out what formats might be best to reach them.

Strategic thinking in content marketing involves planning with a clear vision and goals. First, align content with broader business objectives, ensuring each piece contributes to these aims. Research and understand your audience deeply, tailoring content to their needs and preferences. Utilize data and analytics to inform decisions, adapting strategies based on performance insights. Innovate and experiment, but keep consistency in brand voice and messaging. Regularly review and adjust your strategy to stay ahead of market trends and audience shifts.

In my experience understanding the audience is key to delivering a strategic marketing campaign. Being able to understand pain points, interests, and how they use their time everyday is essential in developing relevant content.

By analyzing customer feedback and engagement on your competitors' platforms, you can spot patterns and preferences in your target audience. This insight enables you to craft content that resonates more deeply with your audience's needs and interests. Additionally, identifying gaps in your competitors' strategies can be a goldmine. Say they're strong in blogs but weak in videos; this could be your cue to create compelling video content, filling a void and capturing an engaged audience.

The realm of social media presents a vast landscape for gathering strategic insights. Infiltrate their follower circles, observe engagements, and decode the efficacy of their hashtag spells. But, remember to keep it low-key—think James Bond, not a spy in plain sight. Being subtle helps you really get what they're up to on social media.

As the barriers to entry become lower and lower for brands to enter, it is critical that brands are looking in their 'wing mirrors' to keep and eye on market, competitors and most importantly changing consumer needs (not trends). One thing we like to do each week is have a session we call 'lunch with the competitors' where each week the Marketing Manager shouts the team lunch and we bring in all the competitor products, taste them, test them, sign up to their edm's, check out their recent content and just generally have a chat about how we believe our propositions differ. Its a great development tool for the team, holds the whole organisation accountable for understanding our customer, and at times give us great ideas!

I can't stress enough how understanding your audience deeply should always be a top priority. What they like, need, and where they hang out online. Then, tailor your content to fit those insights. Also, always keep an eye on the long game: how your content today builds towards bigger goals, like brand loyalty or thought leadership. And don't forget to measure and tweak based on what the data tells you.

Before engaging in the content war, reconnaissance is paramount. I would deploy my intelligence units to scour the landscape, understanding the terrain, studying the enemy (competitors), and identifying any gaps in their defenses. Some Action Steps: Conduct thorough market research to understand audience needs and preferences. Analyze competitor strategies to identify strengths and weaknesses, learning from their victories and defeats.

Demonstrating strategic thinking in content marketing involves a well-planned strategy aligned with clear objectives. Decide on themes, topics, and formats that resonate with your audience, and choose the right channels for distribution. Creating a detailed content calendar is essential, outlining production, publishing schedules, and promotion tactics. This approach shows a coherent roadmap for content creation and delivery. It’s also crucial to regularly review and adjust your strategy based on audience feedback and performance metrics. This adaptability reflects a deep understanding of market dynamics and the ability to effectively manage resources for optimal impact.

In my experience getting very tight on the hypothesis is the the critical part of the planning phase. PHASE 1: We use the process of 'owning a city block'. which essentially means if we were to hyper target our brand to own one city block, where would it be in the world? Why? What consumers are there? What do they do? What problem's do they have? How do they think? What do we think they will respond to? PHASE 2: We then build out content plans that we A/B test for 2 weeks and learn what is working and what isn't working and then continue to build out strategy from there. Once we have nailed the city block, then we scale the content strategy.

It’s important to choose a couple of conversational topics or causes—ideally just one—that you want your brand to be known for. This is a big decision, and a long-term one, so you may want to get alignment from other stakeholders in the org. While you’re pitching your content vision, stay confident but flexible. Leave yourself a little room to pivot, especially if you’re working on a new or developing product, and support your content vision with direct quotes and data from the research you’ve conducted.

In order to demonstrate strategic thinking in content strategy, it is recommended to take unconventional paths. Deepen your understanding of your audience by going beyond standard demographics and exploring their hidden needs. Dare to create edgy content that addresses topics others avoid. Experiment with unusual formats such as provocative memes or podcasts to break the mould. Use unexpected channels such as TikTok to reach new audiences. Combine data-driven approaches with creative freedom to develop innovative ideas that don't yet show up in the data. By taking these bold steps, you'll differentiate your content strategy and demonstrate true strategic thinking.

El contenido es escencial en cualquier comunicación. Qué decimos, cómo y a quién se lo decimos, en qué momento es lo que definirá si el objetivo planificado tiene éxito. Encuentro una pésima costumbre en quiene asesoran a las marcas, y es el no pensar empáticamente en el receptor del mensaje. El uso constante, y exclusivo, de las RR.SS. como catálogo de producto, atenta contra su propia definición de "sociales". La casi gratuidad de publicar en redes, tienta a muchos "expertos" en ofrecer el mismo "paquete de publicaciones" sin importar el tipo de cliente, usando a las redes SOCIALES simplemente como un medio de comunicación económico.

Strategy is a significant term enveloping the entirety of a brand's content. Yes, this is important. But when it comes to executing a strategic idea, it comes down to actually putting the strategy into action through small (but mighty) tactics. An example would be your brand wanting to strategically engage Gen Z. You can talk all day about what Gen Z likes (preferably backed by data), but that's not demonstrating strategic thinking; that's just strategic thinking. Pick a data-driven tactic (like Gen Z being more likely to engage with IG stories over the feed) and rely on your team to go in on the hypothesis. Give them the resources to create unique, engaging content for this placement. Then, analyze its effectiveness.

It's crucial to blend creativity with analytics. Imagine crafting a series of blog posts that echo your brand's voice and incorporate trending keywords, making them both compelling and searchable. Similarly, creating interactive content like polls or live Q&As can significantly boost engagement if you're focusing on social media. What's essential here is consistency in quality and voice across all platforms, ensuring your brand's message is clear and impactful.

Execution is what separates the people that get results from the ones that don't. In my experience content execution is the hardest part because you are dealing with multiple stakeholders, teams, contributors, freelancers, etc. It is paramount to develop a content creation process that is scalable and repeatable. Most people don't spend enough time planning this process. The more you thought you put into designing the process the better the outcome is going to be. After designing the process you need to "test drive" it and refine it as needed. Don't go into full production until your process has been tested and calibrated.

In executing the content strategy, precision in content creation and adaptability through continuous monitoring are crucial for achieving overall victory in the digital battlefield. Create and Distribute Content: Craft compelling, high-quality content tailored to the audience. Deploy content across diverse channels for maximum reach. Maintain a consistent brand message. Monitor and Adjust: Use analytics tools for real-time performance monitoring. Establish a feedback loop for audience insights. Analyze metrics against KPIs and adapt strategies accordingly. Optimize future content based on performance data.

Sometimes your audience will surprise you: when you think your content is fantastic, it will flop and when you think it's barely good enough, it will go viral. That's why you need to take the time to evaluate each campaign and learn from your findings. Then double-down on what's working for the next quarter.

Often times marketers will only “double down” on what’s working while they neglect the broken pieces of their content strategy. And this can really help you win big…for a while- but a lot of your content gems can be developed from the broken pieces of your content strategy (sometimes even the most valuable pieces). Getting your team in a room to truly understand a flop can help them spin straw into gold. The key is to carve out the time for both: identifying what’s working to do more of it, and analyzing the flops to zero in on the untapped opportunities.

Strategic content marketing focuses on creating content that is relevant and valuable to the target audience. This means understanding the needs and interests of your audience and creating content that addresses those needs.

You'll always find surprises, and it's ideal to determine why they were surprises: was it a moment that caught on due to more global circumstances or trends? Or is it repeatable? Did you post similar content or campaigns at different times that performed significantly differently? Which is more accurate? There's always context to be found when evaluating, and it's important to include and consider when crafting the next steps forward.

What I believe strongly is we have to evolve constantly in content marketing. Even with the best strategy, the landscape is ever-changing—your audience, technology, algorithms, everything is in flux. Thus, so should you. Simple as that :)

Injecting Personal Touch and Passion: In my journey as a competitive marketing expert and director, each campaign becomes a personal quest. I immerse myself in the art of storytelling, infusing the content with not just information but emotion. Like a battle-hardened veteran, I draw from personal experiences, weaving anecdotes and real stories into the narrative, creating a connection with the audience that transcends the digital world. For me, content marketing is not just a strategy; it's a passionate pursuit of conquering hearts and minds on the battlefield of the strategic thinking desert.