Steps to build your strategy

Define your goals

When creating a content strategy, the first thing to do is to clarify what you want to achieve with your content.  The objectives will be unique to your organization based on what it does and its overall business goals. Defining the objectives is essential to ensure that your content team production supports the business goals of the whole company.

Audit your existing content

After defining the content goals, the next step is to audit the content inventory you already have. You need to know what you’re working with, discover duplicates or missing pieces, determine how your content performs, and form ideas for improvements.

Competitor analysis

One of the proven ways to develop ideas for improvements is to go outside and compare your content with what your competitors have. They can be your direct competitors or similar-class companies – basically, anyone who produces content comparable to yours. You can perform competitor analysis to find best practices, keep up with your industry’s trends, or avoid making mistakes. The analysis may serve as a comparison of how other organizations tackle various user experiences. For example, you may compare how easy it is to view subscription plan prices, who offers to subscribe for product updates, or who publishes customer testimonials.

Determine the channels you’ll use

When you know where you want to get with your content and how to get there, it’s time to identify the channels you’ll be using. Some of your content will stay the same across all the channels, but much of your content needs to be adjusted to the needs of every particular channel and the expectations of people using it.

Map your customer journeys

You need to know your customers to define your omnichannel content strategy and make your content support your business goals. Map your customer journeys across the various channels your customers use. Discover what they do, when they do it, and using what channel. Based on the discoveries of this mapping, you’ll be able to see better what customers expect of your content on each channel during various phases of their journey throughout your content.

Utilize the data

When you perform all the activities listed in this article, you’ll have enough information to define your omnichannel content strategy:

• You know what it is that you want to achieve with your content.
• You did your research on how others solve issues and decisions you’re facing.
• You know what to avoid and what are the current best practices.
• You identified what content you need to create or improve in order to reach your goals.
• You know what channels you will use and what your customers expect and do on each channel.

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