Expanding on your Content Strategy

If your content strategy is viewed only as a marketing application, you are potentially limiting its potential. Content is part of every aspect of the business in regards to communication. If there is anything said about your company or brand, it is considered content - and that includes tweets, status updates, press releases, blog posts and comments.

The company creates some of these pieces of content, through article writing for example, but some of it comes externally. It is not about the source of the content but how it affects the public’s perception of your company. The point of this post is to demonstrate the importance of content beyond traditional marketing boundaries.

The two boundaries that should be pushed are in sales and customer retention and expansion. 

The role content plays within sales involves presenting a positive perception of the company. A problem often seen with sales professionals is that they do not always understand how helpful the content strategy can be to them. Sales people should appreciate what the content offers because it reflects the constant change of today’s marketplace.

Due to differences in context and situation, marketers are often unable to provide the same information to the salespeople as they do to prospective buyers. The sales people and the buyers have different expectations and this leads to different questions being asked.

If marketers are able to convince sales teams that the content is useful, marketers will eventually see more requests because of the changes the sales people have come up with.

A goal for marketers is to prove accountability for the brand. Reaching this goal creates more revenue that is better sustained. The sales team will have an easier job convincing a buyer because the marketers have put in the legwork during the initial pitch. It is essential for the marketers to use every available source of content in that first pitch to an audience.

Customer retention and expansion is a different kind of challenge your company’s content strategy faces.

Organisations will often do little more than send a monthly newsletter or hold an annual conference as a way of distributing content to their existing customer base. Companies need to remember that a buyer came to them because their product fulfilled a need, and to make sure the consumer knows they will always be there to fill that need.

Maintaining customers who have already bought your product should be straightforward (if the product is good), but is so often overlooked. Once your product is bought, figure out why this is the case. What problem did the consumers have that made them buy your product? Once you know that, you will have what you need to do to make sure they keep coming to you as a way to fix their problems. Then, create a product that will fix another problem.

Having good content and utilising a number of different platforms - so online and print media - will create a very successful business. It will convince a consumer to buy your product, it will make the customer a loyal one and it will allow your business to grow. The content must be good and must be heard by the public. In the modern era, you must reach beyond the traditional content strategies.