I have written before about a Content Strategy and how important it is to a successful marketing program. But, let’s dive into this a bit more deeply and look at the outline of what a good content strategy will do for you. Here is step one.
Step One: Find 5 to 10 questions that need to be answered before someone will make a decision to purchase your product. Those questions can range from the high level “Why do I need this type of product?”, down to “What functionality makes your product unique?”.
Here are some specific examples of questions that customers of a travel company might be asking:
- What experiences have other people my age and family situation enjoyed?
- If I am looking for light adventure, and some great relaxation what type of destination will provide me with that?
- What problems could I have either getting to the destination or at the destination?
- How will a destination help to insure that I have the experience that I am hoping for?
- Can I personalize this adventure for my family’s needs?
These questions should then be divided into those you answer up-front and those questions that are to be answered once people are inside the sales funnel. I tag them as either “free content”, vs higher value “premium content”. “Premium content” doesn’t mean a person has to pay money for the response, it just means that the content requires the reader to take an action in order to get access to it. An action could be picking up the phone and making a call, or filling out a form.
This is the first step of a content strategy. These questions form the outline to follow as you develop content, with an eye towards developing your sales funnel.
This is just part one of what will be an ongoing series on developing your content strategy for building sales. My next article will address how to define what type of content should be used, and where should that content be published.
If you found this article interesting and would like to engage with a member of the ContentMX team regarding your content strategy feel free to email or visit us at http://contentmx.com.