Content Mapping Strategy

Content mapping strategy:  determine the right shape for your content

Articles, Content, Files, Strategy
Content Mapping Tool: On which platform you publish your content? Will it be a blog, an infographic, it is enough for a white paper or maybe a video? How to make the right choice? Often chosen for the pragmatic option. What is the easiest, fastest and cheapest? Sin! The risk is that the most wonderful content in the wrong jackets and lands on impressing spots. Time to take a critical look at it!

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Knowing more?

Picture in your head: first the content, then the form
The first thing I want to give is that the choice of the content form must always arise from the content and purpose of the content itself. “We have received budget to make a video, but we still do not know exactly what” is the wrong order.

First determine what the content of your content and then look at what content type fits best at that. Some messages lend themselves very well to certain types of content. Complicated issues do not easier by writing about a lot of pages. Perhaps an infographic or animation is exactly what you need. Here you can often make itself smart choices. But have you already thought about that one subject or topic can often (or even should) be developed in different content types?

Folders content, both in content and form!
Like the contents of your content, you can also shape your content folders. The content directories are you doing to correspond as closely as possible to the information needs of your target audience. This requires some explanation.

I work with personas, where I focus on my content. Each persona has different information needs: for example, some want very detailed information about the operation of your product, while others are primarily interested in economic aspects such as price and availability.

Making full content directory

It is also important to realize that the information needs are changing, as the persona moves through the purchasing process. By anticipating here you can create a folder full content, giving you an insight into the overall information needs and the extent to which you provides this with your content. A content item so you can always plot in the content folder on a combination of persona and stage in the buying process.

The same method can also be used for content types. Besides the contents of the content, you vote then the shape of your content in to your persona and stage of the purchase process.

The media preferences of your personas

From my persona he records what their media preferences. So I think if they venture online, or even offline for research into the buying process. They make great use of social media, or not? Keeping them from visual content, or more precisely of textual content. And, finally, they do thorough research, or is it more superficial research?

For each persona I put this in a number of scores, from 1 to 10. So you see (part of) a persona out there about me:

The trick is that you can assign scores in the same way content types. Yes, this is a fairly arbitrary process, but it is not an exact science. Take the following common content types as an example:

1. Blog
2. Infographic
3. Whitepaper
4. Video
5. Knowledge Session
6. Testimonial
7. Web page

From each of these content types you can estimate how far they fit in with the media preferences of your personas, by assigning the same way scores and compare them. Here is an example of the scores of two content types, blog entries, and infographics.

If you’re a content item focuses on a specific persona, that you know he or she is very visual and superficial research does, then score some content types (video, infographic) naturally better than others (blog, white paper).

So if you have decided on what persona you focus on a content item, you can get a first impression of what content type is best to achieve this persona. But we are not there yet.

Further, the depth: align the purchase stage
Like the contents of the content must change as you go along persona in his buying cycle, this also applies to content form. I distinguish myself four stages in the purchasing process:

• Awareness of problem
• Search for solutions
• Purchase
• Retention

As mentioned, the message changes (from generic to specific), but also the shape of content will have to change with it.

In the first stages of the process your challenge is to get on the radar of your target audience. Blogs, guest blogs or possibly advertorials can then work fine. At some point, you hope that the customer lands on your website, so that you can convince him or her to put each successive step. Good web pages, videos explanation, knowledge sessions and testimonials are the right content types.

The table below shows you an indication of what content types may or may not be relevant in every step of the purchase process:

Again, this is an arbitrary score, but it’s the general idea that you have to look beyond your weekly blog and monthly white paper if you want to get real results from your content marketing.

The deal ends meet: insights combine to make the right choice

In my approach to content mapping I assume that I am a content item can always folders to a combination of a persona and purchase one of the above stages. If that fails, the content item is probably not relevant enough. Such content item I decide to combine the right content form by the above insights. Since an algorithm behind that (simplified) like this:

Content Shape Fitness = Persona match score + Buying internship match score + (impact / investment)

Persona match score = extent the content form meets media preferences of the persona that focuses on the content item.
Buying internship match score = extent the content type matches the stage of the buying process where the content item focuses on.
Impact = the potential impact of the content form; a video will have more impact than a tweet.
Investment = the estimated investment in terms of time / money to realize the content form.
The “content form suitability ‘you can calculate for each content type. Thus each content item of the content type to the surface which is most suitable in theory.

Make balanced choices
For most marketers will develop the content itself such algorithm probably going too far. The important thing is that you realize that there are many content types, some of which will work very well for (part of) your target while others do not. So I see regularly organizations huge blogging and online publishing, but also indicate that the majority of sales still comes from offline channels such as trade publications and trade shows. As a content manager, you have to have at least on your mind, so you can make balanced choices.

In addition: to some degree you must also make pragmatic choices. As much as you want, if there is no budget for an animated infographic, then that is probably not. But it is good to get at least on your retina or animated infographic is the best choice, so you may be able to work towards in the future.