AND HOW TO ACTUALLY CRAFT ONE

About a year ago I finished a new brand and narrative strategy for a client here in Miami. He had hired a social media management company to take over his Instagram and paid ads campaigns, and he had requested that I review the proposals the company had sent him. They had been provided with everything I designed and strategized for him, so all they needed to do was work within those parameters to develop his social and ad strategy.

As I flipped through the proposal plan, I was a little stunned. Under “Strategy” was written “gain more followers” and “more bookings.” Well, obviously. But was that really a strategy? Or were those the client’s goals and objectives?

Why the confusion?

I’ve then gone on to see this repeated a few more times and I think for some people there may be some confusion about what a content strategy IS and how it’s different from your objectives.

It’s absolutely fine and necessary to set goals for your business. Number of followers, percent increase in traffic, increase in conversions are all excellent goals to set for yourself. However, think of these objectives as your final destination. Your content strategy then is the roadmap you use to get there, it’s what tells you step-by-step how you’ll arrive at your destination.

And it can certainly change along the way! You may set off on one course and then readjust later as you go, depending on what works, how your audience responds to it, and how quickly/slowly you’ve arrived at your destination. But the end goal is your objectives. That road map is what is going to get you there.

Step 1 – Identify your objectives.

This one will be easy. Set realistic goals for your business, in 6 months, 1 year, and then 5 years down the line. Not just in terms of metrics and sales, but where do you want your business to be in 5 years? This is a great exercise I often do with clients, because it helps them visualize beyond their bottom line.

Do you imagine your brand being large enough to have a deal at a major retail location? Do you imagine yourself doing non-profit outreach to help your community with the profits from your business? Whatever those goals are, it helps to imagine some short-term and some long-term ones.

Keep in mind that they should always align with your brand values and mission.

Step 2 – Get familiar with your audience.

Ideally, you should have your audience identified. This will make it much simpler to do the following steps. Who is your audience? Is it mothers? What kind of mothers, first-time anxious moms, or 3-time veteran moms that feel confident?

We use archetypes to describe our audience more profoundly than just by demographic data, so we recommend you try to do a deep dive into who you are trying to talk to. It very well may be multiple audiences! But they must be clearly identified because each will need a slightly different approach.

Step 3 – Your Tone and Voice

Once you know who you are speaking to, now you can decide how you’ll speak to them. Your brand should have a clearly defined tone and voice that is unique to you. But how you speak to each audience may vary just a little. Imagine for example talking about a trip to Italy, you would tweak how you talk about it to your coworker or you 6-year-old niece. You’re the same person and the trip was the same, but different audiences need something slightly different from you.

Your voice should also flow naturally from your brand and narrative strategy. In previous blogs I’ve spoken about how there is a popular fashion brand with a social media voice that is disconnected from it’s mission and branding. Try not to do this if you can avoid it. It will be way easier to use a voice that suits your branding than to try to force a trendy one just because others online are having success with it.

Step 4 – Create your content pillars.

Your content pillars are what you speak about. They give your communication strategy some scaffolding, and therefore make it easier to know what to post. “Education” can certainly be a pillar, for example, and knowing that it’s one of the pillars of content you can talk about makes it easier to come up with ideas that fit that pillar.

For this, try not to use the obvious ones. For some clients education is absolutely vital, but for others it can become cliché. Ultimately, this will depend on your specific niche and what your audience needs from you most. When I had a client in bridal, for example, we did a ton of educational content and brides really responded well to it because dress shopping is a big purchase, and they didn’t feel confident.

For other clients, like a luxury moving service client, for example, wouldn’t need education because their clients won’t be doing their own moves. They have no need to learn tips and tricks for moving if you want them to pay you thousands of dollars to pack and move their home. For those high-end clients, a different strategy is necessary, perhaps showcasing how seamless and low-stress outsourcing a move is.

Work it all together.

This is a rough list of what you need to keep in mind when building your content strategy. Once you know these different elements, now compare them to your objectives and see how you can connect them towards your goals. If I want those first-time moms to buy my product, what do I need to do? I need to identify my voice, which is comforting and supportive, and educate her about how safe my product is and how much easier it will make this time for her. This will get you your sales and conversions.

STILL UNSURE OF HOW TO DO IT?

If you’re still not sure, we’re here for you. New Lore specialized in branding and content strategy, and we’ve helped small entrepreneurs, large corporations, and non-profits to find their narrative strategy and turn that into a content strategy that can help them reach their goals. If this sounds like what you need, send us a message to get a conversation started.