WORKWEEK

I was inspired this week by a few LinkedIn posts highlighting content strategies:

• Alex Lieberman’s about interviewing one SME per week and turning that into a long-term strategy, complete with distro plan. 
• Iryna Vitner’s about her team’s organic search wins by focusing on…book summaries. 
• Alex Birkett’s about the importance of putting a foundational and data-driven content marketing program in place that unlocks compounding value over the medium to long term. 

These posts highlight the best of content marketing:

• Knowing your ICP really really well 
• Understanding your strategic narrative and differentiation 
• A willingness to test different ideas (notice I did not say big or creative)
• And the ability to stay the course while you build out the content marketing fundamentals 

And, they zero-in on one of the most important types of content: Original content, e.g. original research, thought leadership, blog posts, log-form assets, videos, website copy, etc. 

Content marketing in concept is simple. Create assets that earn interest, that educate your target market, that build your brand’s credibility and trustworthiness in their eyes so that when they are in market for your product category, you are top of mind. 

But rarely do you see that simplistic concept detailed succinctly in very, very different strategies that I have no doubt are all effective for their target markets. 

There is a slice of content marketing success pie for us all. Its ingredients include creativity and grit, project management (for sure), maybe a little keyword research and even AI. But its most special ingredient is your commitment to block and tackle your strategy. 

Don’t have a strategic narrative? That’s an issue. Work with your marketing leadership, especially product marketing, to build one out.