At Kapost, we write a lot about how to build successful content marketing outlines and processes.
But it’s also important to take a step back from time to time and examine why outlining your content marketing strategy is necessary in the first place.
As a marketer, you’re under increasing pressure to drive revenue and leads for your business. If you don’t know how a process like a content marketing outline helps you achieve those revenue goals, you’re likely not going to be very invested in creating one at all.
What Is a Content Marketing Outline?
Before we dive into how a content marketing outline will help your business, let’s first define what it is.
A content marketing outline is your organization’s high-level content marketing roadmap. Stakeholders—such as the sales team, CEO, CMO, customer service representatives, and director of product marketing—help identify major content themes they’d like to focus on. This could be content that alleviates client pain points, or content that suits target buyer personas for specific sale stages. Then, it’s on the marketing team to brainstorm creative content campaigns that will address those themes but also maintain buyer-centricity.
Specifically, the content marketing outline identifies:
3 Ways a Content Marketing Outline Will Change Your Business
- Key content themes your marketing team will address
- Specific content pillars that will support those themes
- Individual content assets that support the identified pillar but also serve the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel
- Deadlines and rollout dates for content publication
- People or creative teams responsible for each campaign
3 Ways a Content Marketing Outline Helps Your Business
1. Drives Traffic and Leads
“A content marketing outline ensures you’ll have content for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel.”
A content marketing outline ensures you’ll have content for the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel every quarter of every year. That means that not only will you drive traffic with “engagement” pieces, but you’ll also provide more valuable, targeted content that ushers prospects toward purchase. And, because every piece of content is informed by the needs identified by internal stakeholders, each asset you create can be used in various departments and overarching strategy of your organization.
2. Promotes Collaboration
Collaborating on content across teams is one of the biggest challenges for marketers. While it’s easier to operate in a vacuum, there are many dangers to doing so, including mismanaged approval processes, multiple editorial calendars, and duplicate content. Establishing a content marketing outline brings together people across departments involved in creating, editing, and distributing content so they’re operating on the same schedule, toward the same goals.
3. Increases Efficiency
Content outlines enhance production efficiency significantly, too. Many B2B content marketers complain of hitting a “performance wall” when employing content marketing strategies. Things like complexities in management of content planning, production, approval, and distribution mar a business’s ability to conduct content marketing to the best of their abilities.
But even a simple content outline will aid in deconstructing this production obstacle. With a content outline, you won’t be bogged down with the process problems that plague disorganized content marketing teams and throw wrenches in campaign launches. Content marketing outlines help establish streamlined workflows, align key members of your content team, and ensure your content gets out the door on time.
It’s not always easy to implement new content marketing processes within your organization, but if you want to drive revenue with your content, it’s a prerequisite. Content marketing outlines are the first step to meeting your business goals with content.