Kshitj Tiwari
There are very high chances that you have been on a holiday for quite a while if you haven't heard of the word ‘content marketing in recent times’
Under the aegis of digital marketing, almost any professionally managed digital marketing agency in India is using content marketing and it is is swiftly becoming one of the most overused terminologies in the industry. Now there is no second opinion about the necessity of this practice, however, there is another term just as important (if not more) which has been much underrated as compared to the former one, referred as “Content Strategy.”
But aren’t content marketing strategy and content strategy seem to be the same thing, everyone must be thinking. The simple answer is… no! Content strategy is a 360 degree approach while content marketing refers to a single part of an overall content strategy.
What is Content Strategy?
In layman terms, content strategy is how you plan
to use content in every aspect of your business.
Content strategy is essentially a blueprint that lays
out exactly how the content will be used to
accomplish short and long term goals.
Any digital marketing company in India using in
their content strategy plan must answer the
following questions:
• Rationale and the objective behind publishing
the content
• The platform where the content is going to
be published
• The time when content will be released
• To what audience the content will cater??
• What kind of response we expect from
the audience after they are exposed to the content?
What is a Content Marketing Strategy?
Content marketing, on the other hand, is typically considered to be a soft selling approach to educate, attract and retain them through creating and delivering relevant, meaningful content which would help them apart from making them consume he service. It would be wise to call it as a combination of sales techniques and organic marketing. The trick is to disguise your efforts well enough that your customers don’t know they’re being educated rather than being persuaded to buy the service. In content marketing, you designate very specific audiences that you want to “pitch” your ideas and content to, and once they agree to your content then you work to drive profitable customer action by consistently curating, optimizing and relating the content which ideally will shape their behaviour so as to lead into conversion.
Blogging, releasing videos on various social media platforms, some kind of PR activities and any other form of content on any platform which relates to the industry in which you operate.
So what’s the major line which separates content strategy and content marketing? A content marketing strategy is nothing but simply an adjunct to your overall content strategy as it is solely focussed towards planning, developing and publishing content marketing portions for specific audiences. It faultlessly discourses the “Why” of your overall strategy and what are the beliefs of the customers and what motivates them to engage with the storyteller brand.
A carefully designed content marketing strategy can only deliver the desired results if firstly it has a string backing of a perfect content strategy forming the base for execution and second is the execution itself. Simply speaking, your content strategy should address three things namely “How” to use your content, as well as the “Where” and the “What” aspects of the same.
Going back to the concept of blueprint building analogy, take an example of building a house, no one would ever think of building the walls and roof of a house without building the foundation first.
Same goes for content marketing as well. It works well and only when you have a strong backing of content strategy foundation. This foundation helps in bringing into line the elements of branding, messaging, and pretty much almost all of the aspects of content marketing with the overall content goals of your company before you start the execution and begin to actively market it.
Few things to beware of
Unfortunately, due to the time taken by marketers to create a good content strategy too many people completely skip the long and toiling process and focus solely on playing with content marketing which is usually forms the fun part. While focusing only on content marketing can give you a glimpse of isolated success, it very much possible that it will likely fall short of the overall impact you could’ve made, had you drafted the content strategy and assessed how your content was going to be used and executed on each and every level of your business. In simple terms, you are relying totally on your creative brain without using your strategic brain.
It’s not hidden that it has always been tempting to publish some amazing and interesting content on your website to get it out to the mass audience and get the that feel like you’re doing something content-wise, but only suggestion is that don’t just create content for the sake of it. Create content which has purpose, which is in tandem with your company’s strategic and marketing goals and that has been designed with an objective to produce a calculated and definite response – all of these things you would ideally map out beforehand with a suitable content strategy for your brand. This is one of the ideal and desired way to truly maximize your content marketing efforts.
Conclusion.
A solid and pretty specifically content strategy (paired with a valuable and interesting content marketing strategy) is one of the biggest practice your business can always utilize in maximizing your online reach and influencing behaviour. Make sure that your content strategy foundation has been well chalked out before rolling out your content marketing strategy.
Make the most of time year by planning and designing of your content strategy. By doing this your content will will make more sense and will tend to produce more measurable results in your favour. You’ll be contended by seeing what your own content marketing can actually accomplish when it has a robust content strategy backing it up.
There are very high chances that you have been on a holiday for quite a while if you haven't heard of the word ‘content marketing in recent times’
Under the aegis of digital marketing, almost any professionally managed digital marketing agency in India is using content marketing and it is is swiftly becoming one of the most overused terminologies in the industry. Now there is no second opinion about the necessity of this practice, however, there is another term just as important (if not more) which has been much underrated as compared to the former one, referred as “Content Strategy.”
But aren’t content marketing strategy and content strategy seem to be the same thing, everyone must be thinking. The simple answer is… no! Content strategy is a 360 degree approach while content marketing refers to a single part of an overall content strategy.
What is Content Strategy?
In layman terms, content strategy is how you plan
to use content in every aspect of your business.
Content strategy is essentially a blueprint that lays
out exactly how the content will be used to
accomplish short and long term goals.
Any digital marketing company in India using in
their content strategy plan must answer the
following questions:
• Rationale and the objective behind publishing
the content
• The platform where the content is going to
be published
• The time when content will be released
• To what audience the content will cater??
• What kind of response we expect from
the audience after they are exposed to the content?
What is a Content Marketing Strategy?
Content marketing, on the other hand, is typically considered to be a soft selling approach to educate, attract and retain them through creating and delivering relevant, meaningful content which would help them apart from making them consume he service. It would be wise to call it as a combination of sales techniques and organic marketing. The trick is to disguise your efforts well enough that your customers don’t know they’re being educated rather than being persuaded to buy the service. In content marketing, you designate very specific audiences that you want to “pitch” your ideas and content to, and once they agree to your content then you work to drive profitable customer action by consistently curating, optimizing and relating the content which ideally will shape their behaviour so as to lead into conversion.
Blogging, releasing videos on various social media platforms, some kind of PR activities and any other form of content on any platform which relates to the industry in which you operate.
So what’s the major line which separates content strategy and content marketing? A content marketing strategy is nothing but simply an adjunct to your overall content strategy as it is solely focussed towards planning, developing and publishing content marketing portions for specific audiences. It faultlessly discourses the “Why” of your overall strategy and what are the beliefs of the customers and what motivates them to engage with the storyteller brand.
A carefully designed content marketing strategy can only deliver the desired results if firstly it has a string backing of a perfect content strategy forming the base for execution and second is the execution itself. Simply speaking, your content strategy should address three things namely “How” to use your content, as well as the “Where” and the “What” aspects of the same.
Going back to the concept of blueprint building analogy, take an example of building a house, no one would ever think of building the walls and roof of a house without building the foundation first.
Same goes for content marketing as well. It works well and only when you have a strong backing of content strategy foundation. This foundation helps in bringing into line the elements of branding, messaging, and pretty much almost all of the aspects of content marketing with the overall content goals of your company before you start the execution and begin to actively market it.
Few things to beware of
Unfortunately, due to the time taken by marketers to create a good content strategy too many people completely skip the long and toiling process and focus solely on playing with content marketing which is usually forms the fun part. While focusing only on content marketing can give you a glimpse of isolated success, it very much possible that it will likely fall short of the overall impact you could’ve made, had you drafted the content strategy and assessed how your content was going to be used and executed on each and every level of your business. In simple terms, you are relying totally on your creative brain without using your strategic brain.
It’s not hidden that it has always been tempting to publish some amazing and interesting content on your website to get it out to the mass audience and get the that feel like you’re doing something content-wise, but only suggestion is that don’t just create content for the sake of it. Create content which has purpose, which is in tandem with your company’s strategic and marketing goals and that has been designed with an objective to produce a calculated and definite response – all of these things you would ideally map out beforehand with a suitable content strategy for your brand. This is one of the ideal and desired way to truly maximize your content marketing efforts.
Conclusion.
A solid and pretty specifically content strategy (paired with a valuable and interesting content marketing strategy) is one of the biggest practice your business can always utilize in maximizing your online reach and influencing behaviour. Make sure that your content strategy foundation has been well chalked out before rolling out your content marketing strategy.
Make the most of time year by planning and designing of your content strategy. By doing this your content will will make more sense and will tend to produce more measurable results in your favour. You’ll be contended by seeing what your own content marketing can actually accomplish when it has a robust content strategy backing it up.