Does content marketing deserve a place in your plan?
Content earns a place in a marketing plan when it helps a relevant customer make progress towards a decision. It might explain a problem, compare approaches or show how your business works. Start with that job, then decide which material is worth creating and how it will reach the right people.
Editorial responsibility: Nardus Oelofse, Chief Consultant.
By Chase & Marshal
Find the questions that slow a buying decision
Ask sales and delivery teams what customers need to understand before they proceed. Review questions raised in enquiries, proposals and onboarding. Look for recurring uncertainty that can be addressed clearly without a separate conversation every time.
A topic can attract attention while having little connection to the work you want to win. Prioritise questions that matter to a suitable customer and allow the business to contribute something useful. That creates a stronger brief than a requirement to publish a fixed number of posts.
Choose material your business can substantiate
Build from practical knowledge, approved examples and a clear point of view. Explain decisions, trade-offs and conditions. Where you describe a result, show the context and the part your business played. Avoid filling a calendar with claims the team cannot support.
In an illustrative specialist service, a guide to preparing a useful brief may help customers recognise the work required and improve subsequent enquiries. A case showing how a difficult decision was approached could answer a different question. Each piece should have its own purpose.
Plan distribution and the next step
Identify where the intended reader will encounter the material. It may support a service page, a sales follow-up, an email programme or a relevant campaign. Publication alone is not a distribution plan.
Connect the content to a sensible next action. That could be reading a related case, understanding a service or discussing a specific problem. Keep the invitation proportional to the reader's situation. Useful educational material can build understanding while still making the route to commercial help clear.
Evaluate usefulness and maintain the asset
Review who uses the content and what happens afterwards. Ask the sales team whether it answers questions or improves conversations. Look at relevant visits, enquiries and assisted buying journeys where the evidence allows, without assuming every influence can be attributed precisely.
Keep important material current and remove or revise content that no longer serves its purpose. A smaller set of useful assets can be easier to maintain and apply than an expanding archive of general commentary. The investment should create knowledge the business can use repeatedly in attracting and helping suitable customers.
Questions answered
Do we need to publish every week?
Choose a rhythm the business can sustain with useful material. The quality, purpose and distribution of each piece matter more than a schedule adopted without a clear customer need.
Related
Sources
Sources supporting the factual statements in this article. Findings should be read within their stated dates, geography and scope.
- Helping Kiwi businesses succeed - Business.govt.nz. www.business.govt.nz. Publication date not supplied.
Create content that answers a buying question
We can help turn your expertise and customer questions into a focused content plan, then produce the material needed to support the buying journey.
