Types of Content Strategy: Matching the Right Writer to the Right Plan

Who are the content producers at your enterprise?

We’ve all heard the saying content is king. No matter if you accept it as the truth or it makes you roll your eyes, there’s no denying content’s growing importance as a business tool. All around the world, companies are creating content — using different types of content strategy — to attract and retain potential customers, build their brand, and ultimately forge stronger and more profitable relationships with your target audiences.

And it’s a trend that continues to accelerate. The pandemic increased content usage by 207%, which means there’s never been a bigger demand for creating great content. And yet, what we haven’t seen is a corresponding spike in the number of writers and editors in the world. And that begs an important question: Who’s actually creating all of this extra content?

The short answer is just about everyone, and that has important implications for your business.

The content writers behind your brand

When you look at how companies are creating content these days, there are three common approaches, which often get intertwined and blended together:

1. Employing full-time content professionals

It seems as though just about every company employs at least one person — typically on the marketing team — who has some kind of editorial chops. That might include content marketers, writers, editors, and communications professionals. At large corporations, there can be hundreds or even thousands of writers working to support the company.

While that’s all well and good, it can also be concerning. The issue is that many companies increasingly rely on marketers and communicators to create and publish content. Someone who is a content marketer or in corporate or technical communications may not be 100% comfortable with writing.

Additionally, lots of companies are relying on subject matter experts when it comes to creating effective content. Ideally, subject matter experts would be consulted during the content creation process, but they wouldn’t actually create the content themselves. Because of that, content quality can suffer as it’s missing the polish of a professional writer or editor.

2. Outsourcing to third parties

Many companies rely on freelance writers, content agencies, and other third parties to ramp up content production. While it’s often a cost-effective way to scale, and you’re usually benefiting from the help of professional writers in the process, working with third parties also adds complexity.

The challenge becomes adopting your company’s unique style and tone of voice. Whether it’s using all the correct terminology and adhering to all of the little nuances, your content needs to sound like you. Sure, you can share your style guidelines and offer feedback and training, but at larger agencies serving many clients, there’s room for potential mistakes. That means it’s up to someone in-house to review the content and ensure it aligns to all of your standards.

3. Relying on other non-writers in your organization

In most organizations, plenty of other people get involved in the process of creating content. Sales teams create pitches and decks for use with prospects, product teams contribute blog posts and product overviews, HR teams create content to attract and retain talent. And the list goes on and on. While it’s wonderful to have so many different people creating content on behalf of the company, this may not be their area of expertise. You need to ensure their content complies with your company’s style guidelines and preferences.

Having so many different people contributing to your company’s content calls for a better way to manage its quality and consistency. So whether it’s a social media manager or a technical documentation author creating content, it’s always high-quality and impactful.

Building a content marketing strategy framework

Building a content marketing strategy framework is crucial for the success of any business. Start by:

• Defining your goals and target audience.
• Researching your audience’s needs and preferences to create relevant content.
• Identifying the best channels to distribute your content.
• Creating a content calendar to plan and organize your content creation and distribution.
• Deciding which writers are best suited to create different content types.
• Remembering to measure the performance of your content to make necessary adjustments.

A well-structured content marketing framework will help you reach and engage your audience effectively. It also helps you determine which writers should write specific content pieces, depending on content type and theme.

Types of content strategy: Choosing the right writer for each

When it comes to different types of content strategy, choosing the right writer for each is important for success. Each type of content strategy requires different expertise, so it’s essential to choose the right writer for each to ensure the best results. Let’s take a look at some examples!

Pillar-based marketing

For pillar-based marketing content, in-house writers or agencies with a deep understanding of the brand are ideal.

Subject matter expert authority

Subject matter expert (SME) authority content should be created by writers who have expertise in the specific industry or field. From there, your professional content writers can polish the copy to make sure it uses your brand’s tone of voice.

SEO

SEO-focused content requires writers who understand search engine optimization best practices. Depending on whether you have an SEO consultant in-house or use an agency will impact who should write your SEO content.

Social media strategy

Social media strategy content should be created by writers who have a good understanding of the target audience and are skilled in crafting engaging and shareable content. This will most likely be a member of your marketing team or a professional copy writer.

Harnessing technology for content governance

Now that we’ve established that most organizations have lots of people creating content, many of whom aren’t actually writers, it’s worth pointing out why that matters.

It matters because, as a result, you can easily wind up with content that’s inconsistent and doesn’t align with your brand. Worse yet, you can wind up with content that just isn’t well written and therefore detrimental to your brand.

The solution is to find a way to build some guidance and governance into the process as a way of adding checks and balances. With a content impact platform, for example, you can consolidate all of your company’s preferences in terms of style, tone of voice, and terminology. You can then put processes (or governance) in place to ensure content creators adhere to those preferences. You can even offer them guidance so they get the help they need to write in a way that aligns with the standards you’ve set for them.

In a world where everyone writes, but very few people are actual writers, it’s a great way to ensure that all of your content is of the highest quality and accurately represents your company and brand. Get your playbook on content governance.