The 7 Phases Of The Content Marketing Process

What does a content marketing process look like in everyday life? In our series “The everyday life of an online marketer,” we report, not entirely without a wink, on topics that occupy the mind of an in-house manager. Although the small anecdotes can be perceived as entertaining in their entirety, they also contain some technical and content-related features.
It was easier than expected. My boss was enthusiastic about ​​using content marketing to pick up prospects early in the customer journey. What buzzword bingo: inbound, holistic, retargeting, segmentation, touchpoints. But how else should I explain that? Well, at least I now have a go as a marketing manager to take care of the structure of content marketing. But it didn’t seem as easy as I expected at the time.
Yesterday I spoke to an industry colleague. He leads a team of 10 with “content marketing” in its signature. There are ten blog editors, most of them part-time. That brings us back to the different definitions. Content marketing equals text, and text equals blog? I don’t see it that way.
For me, content marketing should not end with creating the content. The emphasis is on the word “marketing.” After all, I promised in the definition that I would derive a “commercial advantage” from the content. Of course, this content has to be created. This requires ideas, briefings, editors, and content creators. But the process goes much further.

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7 Phases of The Content Marketing Process

I’m spinning my mind again. It will not work like that. Next week I want to surprise my colleagues with an ideal blueprint for the perfect content marketing process. What all has to be done anyway? Everyone always acts like content marketing is a one-time thing. “So, we’re going to do content marketing now.” This starts with an audit, keyword research, the briefing and ends with the creation. A post may be made on Facebook. The post will also rank on Google. All is well and good, but I want my process to be more alive.

Agile Process For Content Marketing

Nothing is as agile in online marketing as content marketing. None of the phases has a fixed start date. All run in parallel – over and over again. For each content asset individually.

It doesn’t take that long until I’ve already collected a few ideas:

• Collection of ideas/backlog
• idea evaluation
• briefing
• content production
• Content compilation and publication
• distribution
• analysis

This is how you summarize the 7 phases of content marketing. Very important: After the analysis, the process starts again from the beginning with the drafting and the briefing. And everything is framed in a clean content marketing strategy so that we all have a guide and go in one direction. But the strategy is another matter altogether.

Overview: This is What The Basic Content Marketing Process Looks Like

I’ve come a long way with that. Of course, a great visualization of these phases should not be missing. Beautifully striking so that it is internalized.

But wait a minute: I can’t develop such a process here. Then everyone tells me: We already have content. And yes, it’s true. We would have this press area, which is wonderful for press people, but our customers are usually not interested at all. And then, my predecessor opened a company blog that is now and then fed with texts. I suggest you use something else; I’ll have to look closer.

Content Audit And Goal Definition as a Starting Point

So it doesn’t make much sense to start collecting ideas. But much more with an inventory. A content audit for Status Quo and keyword research for matching. My art teacher at school always said: “Seeing once is better than hearing ten times.” Well, then, off to the visualization. An initial setup at the beginning, which is only run through once, should silence all objections from colleagues. It makes sense.

The Content Marketing Process In Detail

Then I run through the content marketing process:

• Initially, the content audit is used to see what content is already floating around on the site. In addition, I collect the interaction data from Google Analytics and the Search Console as well as other interesting metrics such as visibility, word length, media type, age of the content, etc.
• Then keyword research is done to get an overview. Finally, everything is compared with the previously set strategy, and an initial backlog is collected.
• Now we come to the agile area. Once the backlog is full, it will be easier for my colleagues and I to collect further ideas. Of course, this can happen all the time. Customer service will always get duplicate inquiries and can place them here, and social media has a look at the comment columns. Colleagues from sales are guaranteed to know about other problems in our area. And the rest, I use brainstorming methods to bring good ideas to them.
• All ideas are then evaluated. Several people best do this at the same time. It’s about estimating the potential for SEO, social media, corporate communications and link building. For this, we use the point value method with individual weighting.
• It is also a good idea to collect content formats and classify them in the customer journey phases. This is especially important later for the briefing and, ultimately, the production. After all, completely different departments are involved in these two phases.

I didn’t get this far today. Now the content can be produced. The twinkle in my eyes!

Campaigns And Content Maintenance

After the content production, this must, of course, be entered. A job not to be underestimated. Which representation, which media support, then the beautiful preparation of the text. A lot comes together. A part of the distribution is already done with the publication but not everything. It would help if you asked yourself the following questions at the end of a content marketing process, for example:

• Can my email marketing use the content for the next campaign or play it out in segments?
• Which social media channels are suitable?
• How do I drive traffic to my content?
• How can I link my content marketing formats in a meaningful way?
• What about your website – on transactional pages, under filters, between products?
• Are there forums, groups, or Q&A sites to which the content could add value?
• Should I text or call magazines or blogs?

Analysis of Success

The last phase is one of the most important. The analysis of the content after a certain time. Content must be checked to ensure it is up-to-date. We can evaluate hard numbers, interaction data and visibility data. And: The content can be further developed. At this point, we should decide whether the content needs to be updated and whether it can go into distribution again. And that’s an important aspect: After all, it considerably reduces production costs. And one sentence should always resonate: content marketing never ends! Nice final word.

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