A Comprehensive Guide to Launching Content Marketing for Your Business
Learn how to effectively start content marketing for your business with our step-by-step guide
You've probably heard something like, "Just do something to start a blog." While action is better than inaction, what results can you expect if you do things unsystematically and haphazardly? In commercial projects, such an approach doesn't work: every action counts (because you have to pay for it), and chaotic actions are avoided.
In simplified terms, the tasks facing a company that wants to create a media product look like this:
- Create content (writing / filming)
- Publish this content somewhere
- Reap the benefits that content marketing brings.
But what should you write? Why that particular content? What's the purpose? Who will create it? How should you write? Where and how to publish? What if no one reads it - how do you make sure people do? Should you respond to comments? How? These are just a few of the questions that arise when you think beyond "Let's create content!"
Before you start actively posting, you need to do analytical work, which sometimes takes several months. This involves thinking about what to do, why, where, and how, then preparing to implement your plan, and only then - doing it. And after you "do it," the work continues - optimization, development, maintaining regularity, tracking commercial results, and much more.
Develop Your Project Concept
Our first action before active posting is to sit down and think about what we're going to do. We usually start with a small concept - a working document of a couple of pages. Typically, in such a document we describe:
It's quick to write, but the benefits are enormous. It should be concise so that it's easy to read.
- Expertise. We describe our field, key skills, tools we use, and unique approaches in our work.
- Products. What are we selling or planning to sell?
- Our motivation. What benefit does the company/author gain? What are our goals?
- Market. What's currently happening in the market? Why is there a need for our project, what problem are we addressing, and what are other players doing?
- Target audience. We describe who these people are, who will be reading or watching us. What will the reader gain?
- Topics and categories. What main topics do you plan to cover in the blog? Ideas for regular features.
- Content distribution strategy. We describe how we plan to distribute and promote our content.
- Monetization plan. We indicate how we plan to monetize the blog, what our expenses will be, and what investments will be required.
- Special features and circumstances. Broadly speaking, you can include here any points that come to mind at this stage and require attention and discussion (for example, these could be time constraints, team specifics, etc.).
It's quick to write, but the benefits are enormous. It should be concise so that it's easy to read.
Create a Content Strategy
Now we need to go into details - write down what we will specifically do, who will do it, where and when. This is typically called a content strategy.
The output should be a set of necessary instructions for the working group and a plan for further work. This can look different, for example, like a set of links and editorial management space in Notion or a folder on Google Drive with documents.
Sections often included in the strategy:
The output should be a set of necessary instructions for the working group and a plan for further work. This can look different, for example, like a set of links and editorial management space in Notion or a folder on Google Drive with documents.
Sections often included in the strategy:
- Research: We need to deepen our understanding of what we discussed in the concept stage. It's time to conduct comprehensive research on our audience, market, and competitors. The results should be included in the strategy.
- Platforms: Decide on the platforms where we'll publish and promote our content. This often stems from the research in point 1.
- Content Calendar and Topic Matrix: What specifically will we write about and why? How often? How will we resize or repurpose content for different channels?
- Editorial Policy: What will be our writing style and guidelines?
- Editorial Process: How will we produce each piece of content? Here, we need to describe the workflow - what functions we need (to understand what kinds of people and how many we'll need for production). How will we manage it all, who will be our experts, and other related questions.
- Distribution Plan and External Platform Strategy: What opportunities do we have for free and paid promotion? What actions should we take with each piece of content?
- Analytics: How (and which metrics) will we track to measure results?
- Organizational Issues and Economics: How will we find and pay content creators? What are our budgets? What about advertising accounts? Plus a host of other questions that may not directly relate to content but will inevitably come up.
Is this mandatory?
While it's possible to start small and test ideas quickly without an extensive strategy, for larger projects or those requiring significant investment or resources, a comprehensive content strategy is essential for success. For such projects, it's crucial to approach this step thoughtfully and comprehensively. Without a well-crafted strategy and clear instructions, nothing will work effectively - or it might work, but poorly and not as intended.
While it's possible to start small and test ideas quickly without an extensive strategy, for larger projects or those requiring significant investment or resources, a comprehensive content strategy is essential for success. For such projects, it's crucial to approach this step thoughtfully and comprehensively. Without a well-crafted strategy and clear instructions, nothing will work effectively - or it might work, but poorly and not as intended.
Prepare for Project Launch
The task of this stage is to prepare everything so that you can start active work and test how it works now.
What exactly:
What exactly:
- Visual Identity: We need to envision how everything will look and create the necessary templates for our chosen platforms and various content formats. This includes setting up our platforms. How will the illustrations look? How will we reproduce them? What will the website and social media posts look like?
- Team Assembly: Do we have everyone we need for production? If not, we need to find and recruit those people.
- Workspace: Where will we keep track of what's planned and what's in progress?
- Initial Content Creation: This is where we'll refine our editorial policy in practice and realize what changes we need to make to our workspace. Based on the actual content, we'll need to fine-tune the design and address project-specific details that need to be incorporated into the overall look. It's best to keep this stage relatively private (although it can vary).
- Development and Layout: If we don't have a website but need one according to our plan, or if we're developing additional pages, this is where we handle website development and layout.
- Project Economics: Often at this stage, we finalize or update the project's financial projections.
We're ready for the public launch, with a stockpile of content – let's go! We're kicking off full-scale editorial operations: publishing content, launching advertising campaigns, updating key documents like our editorial policy... All the gears should start turning now. Throughout the project, we'll be updating our guidelines, fine-tuning our workspace, and testing new ideas. It's go time!
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