How to create a Content Strategy?

When?

It could be done at any time during the design process but best is to have a Content strategy in place before starting the design.

Before: Research
After: Design

Getting Started

Creating a content strategy ensures that users get the right info, at the right time, in the right place, and in the right format. This includes making sure that the content works well with the overall product design. Hence, the strategy also needs to align with visual design, brand strategy, and functionality of the product. 

The content strategy impacts 

• Product copy

• Marketing

• Social media outreach

• Customer support

Content strategy ensures clear and consistent messaging across different touchpoints with the users and customers.

Why?

Content strategy is important for businesses and organizations that aim to create and publish effective, relevant, and valuable content that meets their objectives and goals. A well-planned content strategy helps in achieving the following:

1. Establish a clear direction: A content strategy helps to define and communicate the organization’s visions, values, and goals. It helps in establishing a clear direction for the content creation process, ensuring that all content is aligned with the organization’s goals.

2. Meeting user needs: A content strategy helps in identifying and understanding the target audience’s needs, preferences, and behaviors. This enables the creation of relevant, engaging, and valuable content that meets the user’s needs and enhances their experience.

3. Consistency: A content strategy helps in maintaining consistency in tone, style, and messaging across all content platforms, ensuring that the organization’s brand and message are conveyed consistently.

4. Efficiency: A content strategy ensures that the content creation process is efficient and effective, with clear guidelines and workflows in place. This saves time and resources, enabling the organization to focus on other important aspects of their business.

5. Measuring success: A content strategy helps in setting clear metrics and goals for measuring the success of the content created. This enables the organization to track the performance of the content and make data-driven decisions for future content creation.

6. Helps in marketing: Before the customers buy a product they need to be told how it is useful for them. This is done with the right marketing.

Elements of Content Strategy

1. Clear Business Goals: This helps to define the purpose and objectives of the content and ensures that all efforts are aligned with the overall business strategy.

2. Target audience research: This involves identifying the audience's demographics, interests, behaviors, pain points, and preferences to create content that resonates with them.

3. Content planning: This involves identifying the audience's demographics, interests, behaviors, pain points, and preferences to create content that resonates with them.

4. Content creation and distribution: Create relevant content and use the most effective distribution channels and strategies to reach the target audience.

5. Measurement and optimization: This involves tracking key metrics such as engagement, conversions, and ROI and using this data to optimize the content strategy for better results.

How to?

1. Define your goals: Identify the primary goals of your content strategy. Be specific about what you want to achieve and make sure your goals are measurable.

2. Identify your target audience: Determine your target audience, their interests, and motivations. Conduct market research and collect data about your audience’s demographics, interests, and behavior patterns.

3. Conduct a content audit: Analyze your existing content to determine what’s working and what’s not. This will help you identify gaps in your content and opportunities for improvement.

4. Develop a content plan: Develop a plan to create and distribute content that is aligned with your goals and targeted to your audience. This may include identifying topics, selecting content formats, and determining the frequency of content publication. 

5. Create a content style guide: Create a content style guide that includes the brand's voice, tone, grammar, level of formality, vocabulary, etc.

6. Apply style guide: Apply the content style guide across different touch points the product has with the users throughout the product life cycle. 

7. Create and publish content: Create high-quality, engaging content that meets the needs and interests of your target audience. Be consistent in your messaging, tone, and brand identity across all your content.

8. Promote content: Use social media, email marketing, and other channels to promote your content and reach your target audience.

9. Audit: Track traffic engagement and conversions to evaluate the effectiveness of your content strategy. Use this data to refine your strategy and optimize your content over time. 

10. Improve: Improve your content continuously with feedback received from users, stakeholders, product bugs and support calls, response to marketing campaigns, etc. 

 

Do’s & Don'ts

 

Do’s	Don’ts
Have a tone of voice for the content. Continuously improve the content. Engage with customers to evaluate usability of content on different channels. Have a timeline and plan for applying the content strategy. Create engaging and interactive content. Optimize your content for search. Measure effectiveness of your content strategy.	Don’t write product copy in isolation. Don’t create content without considering the content style guide. Don’t create content without a strategy. Don’t assume your user needs while creating a content strategy. Don’t sacrifice quality for quantity. Don’t ignore data. Don’t be afraid to experiment.

 

 

Templates 

• Need a style guide? Copy this template. from Writer <https://writer.com/guides/style-guide/> 

• How to Define Your Brand’s Tone of Voice (+ Template) from Semrush <https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-to-define-your-tone-of-voice/> 

• Content Strategy Template from Moz <https://moz.com/content-strategy-template> 

Suggested Tools 

Content Management

• GoogleSheets

• MS Excel

• GatherContent <https://gathercontent.com/> 

Content Creation 

• Grammarly <https://www.grammarly.com/> 

• AirStory <https://www.airstory.co/> 

• CoWrite <https://writer.com/product/cowrite/> 

• PepperType.ai <https://www.peppertype.ai/> 

References 

• Complete Beginner’s Guide to Content Strategy from UX Booth.
• What is Content Strategy in UX? from Technical Writer HQ.
• What is Content Strategy in UX? from AVO Agency.
• What is Content Strategy? From Frontitude.
• The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane.
• Content Strategy 101 from NN Group. 

Other Related Best Practices

• User Research

• Prototyping