The Content Strategy Best Practice Guide provides marketers with the practical guidance they need in all aspects of content strategy.

The role of content has never been more important within digital marketing practice. Businesses that do it well are more likely to have happy, satisfied customers who go on to become advocates.

But content is a constantly changing practice, with evolving dynamics around technology, content production and distribution, not to mention customer behaviour.

This report has been written to reflect how the landscape is changing while providing guidance on contemporary content marketing best practice. It covers:

  • The fundamentals of good content strategy, including the intersection of technology, data, operations and customer experience
  • How to develop detailed personas that inform content generation and deployment
  • The importance of linking content strategy back to business strategy, and how to keep these aligned
  • How to establish an optimal content ecosystem, while considering the role of different formats through the customer journey
  • Future trends in content strategy, including the increasing potential of augmented reality, new social and video formats, along with AI and machine learning.

Executive summary

This report outlines some key definitions, processes, tools, frameworks and practices that can enable an optimal content strategy. It covers:

  • Foundations and context: Clear definitions for content and content marketing, the context for the growing importance of content in marketing and the increasingly central role of technology, data, operations and customer experience.
  • Strategy and process: The fundamentals of good strategy and how to apply this to content, as well as a solid campaign process for developing and deploying content-driven communication and campaigns.
  • Working from the customer backwards: The essential elements of good customer segmentation and the development of detailed personas to inform content generation and deployment. This report also covers the importance of reflecting functional and emotional drivers in persona creation and how tools such as empathy mapping can add new layers of understanding.
  • Governance and alignment: The importance of linking content strategy back to business strategy and how to ensure these are well aligned, as well as the need to support consistency of creation and execution. This report looks at best practice in strategic alignment but also in content and tone of voice guides.
  • Applying customer journey mapping: How to ensure journey mapping can most usefully inform content strategy and align business needs with those of the customer. The report also covers how journey mapping can reveal opportunities to identify the key role for channels, opportunities to engage, and a good balance between emotion and utility through the journey.
  • Content ecosystems and formats: The report features a robust model for setting out an optimal content ecosystem, also considering the role of different formats through the customer journey.
  • Successful measurement and data-driven decision making: How to develop a testing culture around content, using hypothesis-driven approaches, and a key measurement framework to align measures to objectives and enable true learning.
  • Future trends in content strategy: The increasing potential of augmented reality, new social and video formats, artificial intelligence and machine learning in supporting exceptional customer experience.