What Are Content Strategy and Content Marketing?
Two ideas swirling consistently through industry-wide digital marketing discussions are the concept of content strategy and content marketing. In a lot of the articles I've read over the past few months, the delineation between the two jobs has been unclear at best and at worst undefined. A lot of people seem to use the terms interchangeably.
As we continue to evolve our business, I think there are some important distinctions between the two and lessons we need to take from both disciplines.
What Is Content Strategy?
The widely and most broadly accepted definition for content strategy comes from a pioneer in the field, Kristina Halverson. She described content strategy as "planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content." Among Kristina's bona fides, and the reason she gets to be the arbiter of this definition, is the fact that she quite literally wrote the book on Content Strategy -- The crucial idea there is that content strategy is wrapped not in execution but planning. A great content strategist may, in fact, not be a writer at all. Look at that definition again, and you'll not see a word in it about writing anything at all.
That said, what you also don't see in that definition is over emphasis on hard SEO and keyword tactics. What she describes is someone with a diverse set of qualifications that enable them to make strong, user-driven plans around the delivery and type of content to be used. A good content strategist isn't the bricklayer or the welder, but they are the architect. They know how great content is used effectively to motivate an end-user while being competitive and visible in the digital marketing landscape.
What is Content Marketing?
If content strategy is the planning, then content marketing is the implementation.
As defined by this article from the Content Marketing Institute - content marketing is: "a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action". Here we see two very different actions that separate the marketer from the strategist with creation and distribution.
One of the things that stands out to me about the article linked above as well as Halverson's definition of content strategy, and something I hope we increasingly focus on as a business, is the idea of content curation and governance. We live in an age where content volume is increasingly less important in either being visible in the search landscape or in converting whatever traffic you do attract. In fact, accurately and intelligently managing your existing content, having a sound strategy for the management and focusing on application and usability for the end user is increasingly becoming the pathway to success.
Like the content strategist, this discipline also relies on a range of skills to be effective. Yes, the content marketer is likely to be the content creator, but they are also more likely to be the person making the full range of decisions about the substance of that content. Where a content strategist is looking at the 10,000 foot view, the content marketer owns the page and the application of that strategy. He or she must know what drives an end user to "profitable customer actions" and must have the flexibility and authority in the creation and management of content to make that action happen.
Content strategy allows us to be, not surprisingly, more strategic and thoughtful in positioning our clients to succeed from the start. But, it has wrapped within its definition not simply the initial fulfillment of a product, but the necessity of a long-term plan for guiding that product over time. Content marketing in turn unlocks a depth and complexity to the act of content creation that we will need to adopt in the changing landscape of online marketing. It demands that we apply a sound strategy not just with a constant flood of noise and volume, but with strategic creation followed by intelligent content management and curation.
As we continue to evolve our offerings, our value delivery and our very roles, these are models that we would do well to keep in mind.
Book by Kristina Halverson http://www.amazon.com/Kristina-Halvorson/e/B002XW0738.
Book By Content Marketing Institute http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/
As we continue to evolve our business, I think there are some important distinctions between the two and lessons we need to take from both disciplines.
What Is Content Strategy?
The widely and most broadly accepted definition for content strategy comes from a pioneer in the field, Kristina Halverson. She described content strategy as "planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content." Among Kristina's bona fides, and the reason she gets to be the arbiter of this definition, is the fact that she quite literally wrote the book on Content Strategy -- The crucial idea there is that content strategy is wrapped not in execution but planning. A great content strategist may, in fact, not be a writer at all. Look at that definition again, and you'll not see a word in it about writing anything at all.
That said, what you also don't see in that definition is over emphasis on hard SEO and keyword tactics. What she describes is someone with a diverse set of qualifications that enable them to make strong, user-driven plans around the delivery and type of content to be used. A good content strategist isn't the bricklayer or the welder, but they are the architect. They know how great content is used effectively to motivate an end-user while being competitive and visible in the digital marketing landscape.
What is Content Marketing?
If content strategy is the planning, then content marketing is the implementation.
As defined by this article from the Content Marketing Institute - content marketing is: "a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action". Here we see two very different actions that separate the marketer from the strategist with creation and distribution.
One of the things that stands out to me about the article linked above as well as Halverson's definition of content strategy, and something I hope we increasingly focus on as a business, is the idea of content curation and governance. We live in an age where content volume is increasingly less important in either being visible in the search landscape or in converting whatever traffic you do attract. In fact, accurately and intelligently managing your existing content, having a sound strategy for the management and focusing on application and usability for the end user is increasingly becoming the pathway to success.
Like the content strategist, this discipline also relies on a range of skills to be effective. Yes, the content marketer is likely to be the content creator, but they are also more likely to be the person making the full range of decisions about the substance of that content. Where a content strategist is looking at the 10,000 foot view, the content marketer owns the page and the application of that strategy. He or she must know what drives an end user to "profitable customer actions" and must have the flexibility and authority in the creation and management of content to make that action happen.
Content strategy allows us to be, not surprisingly, more strategic and thoughtful in positioning our clients to succeed from the start. But, it has wrapped within its definition not simply the initial fulfillment of a product, but the necessity of a long-term plan for guiding that product over time. Content marketing in turn unlocks a depth and complexity to the act of content creation that we will need to adopt in the changing landscape of online marketing. It demands that we apply a sound strategy not just with a constant flood of noise and volume, but with strategic creation followed by intelligent content management and curation.
As we continue to evolve our offerings, our value delivery and our very roles, these are models that we would do well to keep in mind.
Book by Kristina Halverson http://www.amazon.com/Kristina-Halvorson/e/B002XW0738.
Book By Content Marketing Institute http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/what-is-content-marketing/
