I’ve been writing every day since I was 16. This includes things like blogging, creative non-fiction, advertising copy, headlines, technical manuals, websites and strategy documents. More recently, it also includes social media strategies.

One thing I’ve never done before, though: content strategy.

Well, I shouldn’t say never. For years, I’ve been doing bits and pieces of what everyone’s now calling content strategy. Just never all in one document and never as its own project; in other words: never formal. So, you can bet that my current project–on which I have a lot of creative freedom–is pretty exciting for me.

As I take all these little bits and pieces from my work throughout the years (and from recent research), I also want to take the time to document what I’m doing. In my humble opinion (as someone researching the topic with some frequency) there isn’t enough information out there about content strategy. Particularly on what it is and how to get started.

So, here begins one content specialist’s experimental, collaborative, perhaps clumsy journey into a formal content strategy.

Part I: What in the world is content strategy?
I like to think of content strategy as a map: a landscape on which you can lay out how your content connects to, interacts with and affects everything else you are doing with your website, blog, social media and other marketing efforts. Where you can also lay out where your content lives and what it’s called.

If you compare your online marketing project to going on vacation–what do you need before you can even get out of town? A map. Vacations without it might be fun for a few hours (“wow, we ended up in the wrong town, but it was so cute and had the world’s coolest home-grown coffee shop!”), but, eventually, when you can’t find the hotel, your friends’ house or even the city, not having something to direct you (feel free to replace map with directions or GPS–I think the analogy still holds) gets pretty darn old.

What does this mean in real terms? It means that content strategy directs and informs the rest of your project.

Building your map
So, if I’m thinking of this as a map, the next step seems to be identifying what goes on the map. Do I want attractions? Which highways do I highlight? How far back do I zoom the map? What landmarks appear? What cities? Are county lines shown?

In content strategy, the “attractions” and “county lines” that we can decide to include or leave out are items like these (some, to be fair, seem to be more permanently fixed):

• Organization goals
• Project goals
• Project risks
• Project overview
• Project calendar
• Content calendar
• A map of content interactions across stages of the project (aka. in the design stage, what is the role of content? what does the designer need to consider in terms of content? etc.)
• Search engine optimization strategy
• Messaging document
• Sources of content/key influencers in your industry/field/etc.
• Style and messaging guide (tone guidelines, style guidelines–aka. do you or do you not use subheaders, an oxford comma, etc.)
• Content properties interaction chart (content flow)
• Content properties traffic chart (content funnel)
• Contribution and training strategy and calendar
• (and, obviously) recommendations (almost missed this one, since I’m not thinking of them as recommendations. Instead, I’m thinking of them as “obvious things we will do to make our online marketing better.”)

As alluded to above, some of these come from our social media strategy format, others from content projects along the way. I’d also love to hear any additional suggestions, documents or “landmarks” I’ve missed.

Today, let’s conduct a little experiment–if you’re up for it.

First, click here and watch the video, then return to read the rest of the article.

Okay, so what did you think? Funny commercial? Well-cast? Silly? Compelling? Now–without going back to the video–what kind of car (make, model, brand) was this video advertising?

I’m willing to bet that many of us don’t remember. And if you did remember–what’s the likelihood of remembering in an hour, two hours or a couple days? Because being engrossed in the humor, style or of a video isn’t the same as gathering product information that leads to a purchase.

Think Hard: What percentage of commercials do you remember a brand from?
Last week I was thinking about this phenomenon: in the past eight or so years, I can remember several commercials that graced a TV or computer screen. Commercials for cars, minivans, pizza delivery–some of them clever, some of them annoying. But the truth is that, for 99.9% of these commercials, I could not tell you what brand they were advertising.

For example: I remember a car commercial where hamsters in wheels were running in place while a cute little car drove past with three non-running hamsters inside. What brand was that car? No clue.

I also remember a pizza commercial with a catchy opera tune (and by catchy, I mean that it kept getting stuck in my head and would not, no matter how I tried, come out). I remember that the background of the pizza parlor was red. And I remember a man with a mustache. But could I tell you what type of pizza they were advertising? No, I can not.

Why Can’t We Remember the Brands?
Several reasons come to mind:

1. There’s too much noise. Our world is saturated with advertising–billboards, commercials, website ads, t-shirts–the works. And people have adapted to this. We don’t read every ad, glance at every billboard or pay attention to every commercial. We’ve learned to ignore, tune out, stop listening. That’s why we’ve got things like Tivo–which lets us skip commercials–and the rest of us just use that commercial time as bathroom breaks, food breaks or chat-with-the-other-person-in-the-room breaks. Even when we’re paying attention to a commercial, it’s likely that it’s only partial attention. Of course we don’t remember the details.
2. We’re engrossed in a gimmick. Because of the amount of advertising noise out there, most commercials are relying upon some sort of gimmick to get your attention. When we do pay attention to commercials it’s because they’re funny or interesting or capture us somehow with loud noises, bright colors or surprising actions. With this kind of advertising strategy–the brand becomes secondary. This is why I can remember the hamsters running in their wheels alongside the car, but I can’t remember what the car is.
3. We aren’t interested. Due to the nature of commercials and the breadth of audience watching them, you’re bound to get a lot of audience members who just are not interested in your products. Again, you may have attracted their interest with an interesting gimmick, but if they’re not in the market for a minivan, the details (such as your brand) don’t matter to them.

Now, here’s where the hope for blanket advertising mediums (like commercials) comes back into play. There is a small segment of the commercials’ audience that is in the market for a minivan. This is the segment of the audience who might pick up a pen and write down the name of your minivan and then go on to do research on that minivan, perhaps ultimately leading them to purchase. For this minority customer, your ad has achieved its goal–they’ve taken down information about your product. But, the question is begged: is this really the most effective way to reach that same audience?

To find out, you need to think about where the audience (in this case, for a minivan, in your case, for your product, place or brand) spends its time. Yes, Americans in general spend a lot of time watching TV. You may reach a family audience by choosing to target family shows. Or, for a fraction of the cost, you could target these Americans somewhere else that they spend time–like Google, Facebook or family-oriented websites.

Google, Facebook and the Web
The beauty of the internet is this: targeted marketing. You can buy key words on Google that your minivan audience is searching for. You can have ads on Facebook that target users that have been posting statuses and information about searching for a minivan. You can find car-purchasing websites or car-information websites (like Edmunds or Consumer Report) and do some advertising there.

In doing this, you are narrowing your audience. But rather than just reducing the number of eyeballs–you’re targeting the eyeballs that matter. You’re targeting the minivan buyers.

Okay, So Where Do Commercials Fit In?
I don’t think this means that commercials are of the past. But I do think it means that it’s more important, for your brand, to gain a qualified audience, rather than a broad audience, when possible.

When you think about advertising: think strategically. Think about who you are reaching out to and what they’re looking for and where they are. Blanket advertising can work–especially if your product (like a restaurant, clothing store, etc.) is something that a very broad audience may be interested in. But, if you know your audience and you know that they congregate in a certain place (book lovers at GoodReads or Amazon.com, car searchers at Edmunds, etc.), reach out to them there.

As a part of my firm’s ongoing marketing efforts for Playground Destination Properties Inc., we completed a number of small take-away cards advertising condos for sale in Winter Park, Mammoth Mountain and Napa Valley. These buzz cards were placed in guest rooms and designed to drive foot traffic to Playground’s sales offices, all of which are within walking distance of the rentals where these cards were placed.

Originally posted on the Atlas Advertising blog:

“People don’t buy what you do: they buy why you do it.”

Ready to try something new with your product? Your marketing plan? Your service?

Click below to watch a fantastic TED video about how people make decisions and how great leaders reach people on a level that inspires action. Simon does an excellent job explaining why we often think about our marketing/sales in the wrong direction–because people don’t buy from you because you do something–they buy from you because they believe in what you believe in, and what you believe in drives what you do.

Previously posted on the Atlas Advertising blog, here are some fantastic quotes from well-known authors. As you are thinking about writing content for your website, take their advice:

Never use a long word where a short one will do. – George Orwell

Never use the passive where you can use the active. – George Orwell

Never use a foreign phrase, scientific word, or jargon if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. – George Orwell

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. -Kurt Vonnegut

Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia. – Kurt Vonnegut

Sound like yourself. – Kurt Vonnegut

Say what you mean to say. -Kurt Vonnegut

Keep your exclamation points under control. -Elmore Leonard

Get to the point. – Stephen King

Be relatable and honest. -Stephen King