What can be a “strategy” in content creation?

Crafting a strategy is the initial stride toward forging impactful digital content.  Firstly, it ensures that content aligns with overarching business objectives, whether it's increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, or generating leads.

Secondly, it provides a framework for consistency and cohesion across all content channels, reinforcing brand identity and messaging. Lastly, strategy empowers creators to measure success and refine their approach based on data and insights, leading to continuous improvement and growth.

It’s important that once you've crystallized your objectives, you can commence formulating a strategy to propel you towards attainment.

According to Minimum Run, when crafting your content creation strategy, you have to consider these key factors:

• The target audience: Who are you trying to reach? What are their interests, needs, and challenges?

  
  

• The distribution channels: Where will you share your content? Will it be on your website, social media platforms, or elsewhere?

  
  

• The publishing schedule: How frequently will you release new content?

  
  

• The tracking KPIs: What metrics will you use to assess the performance and success of your content?

  
  

However, from our experience creating strategic content for our clients, we also believe you have to consider these factors as well:

• The content format: What types of content will resonate best with your target audience? Will it be blog posts, videos, infographics, podcasts, or a combination of various formats? This is the second step after defining the channels. 

  
  

• The brand voice and tone: How do you want your brand to sound and feel to your audience? Establishing a consistent brand personality, that impacts voice and tone across all content helps to reinforce brand identity and build trust with your audience. It may sound obvious if you are currently managing your social media, but if you start growing how would you communicate your personality to your new community manager? WRITE IT DOWN, that exercise is amazing for discovering how you truly communicate and what works better with your audience.

  

  
  

• The content repurposing opportunities: How can you repurpose existing content into different formats or for different channels to maximize its reach and effectiveness?

  
  

• Content governance and workflow: What processes and workflows will you implement to ensure content creation is efficient, consistent, and aligned with your overall strategy? This may include content calendars, approval processes, and content management systems.

Noodlesoup’s process for creative content creation

At NoodleSoup Studio, we pride ourselves on a meticulous, creative process, that we like to catalog like a: variety of skills in a bowl. From personal brands to large businesses, our bespoke approach ensures that messages not only reach but resonate with the target audience. Here’s a deep dive into our studio process, a journey from conceptualization to execution and beyond.

Let's break it down, step by step: 

Planning 

1. Diving in

We start by immersing ourselves in your world. Whether you're starting from scratch or have an established brand, we dive deep to either unearth or refine your Brand Strategy armed with your: personality, value proposition, and buyer personas. This isn't just about knowing who your audience is; it’s about understanding their pulses - their interests, behaviors, and the nuances that make them tick, this is profound User Research at its best. This foundational phase is critical, as it informs the strategy, content themes, and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) we aim to impact.

2. Channel exploration and format evaluation 

With the groundwork laid, our next step is to pinpoint where your audiences spend their time and how they prefer to consume content. Whether it's social media platforms, blogs, newsletters, or emerging digital spaces like Slack channels, we meticulously evaluate each channel's potential. Our analysis extends to determining the optimal content formats, publication times, and frequency to ensure maximum engagement and performance.

3. Strategic pillar creation 

Armed with a robust understanding of your audience and preferred channels, we then craft the main content pillars and sub-themes. These pillars serve as the backbone of your content strategy, ensuring a cohesive and consistent narrative. We meticulously plan the frequency of each pillar's publication within a monthly calendar, balancing thematic diversity with strategic focus.

4. Ownership

If we are not in charge of the publication, we determine who will and charge them with all the tools and valuable information for achieving it. 

Creation

5. Client collaboration and content approval

With a comprehensive plan in hand, we seek your input and approval. This collaborative phase is crucial for aligning visions and making any necessary adjustments. Our team of expert proofreaders also steps in here, ensuring that every piece of content is polished and primed for impact. 

6. Design and distribution

Upon approval, we either leverage our in-house design team or collaborate closely with your designers to bring the content to life visually. This stage is where creativity meets strategy, transforming ideas into engaging, shareable assets. Our variety of skills goes from designing infographics, AI image generation, video production, editions, voice-over scouting, and even some product animations. 

Following design finalization, we meticulously schedule the content for publication and coordinate any related campaigns, such as newsletter distributions. 

Maintenance 

7. Watching and learning

After your content is out in the wild, we don’t just forget about it. We keep an eye on how it’s doing every week. What’s working? What’s not? We take these learnings to tweak and improve, so we keep getting better and better.

8. Unpublishing

Yes, this is also a crucial step for content maintenance. After we've set everything up and watched it fly, there's one more crucial step we can't forget – let's call it our content spring cleaning. Even the best content can go out of date or off-brand over time. That's why we keep an eye on everything we've published to figure out when it might be time to say goodbye to the oldies.

Here's how we tackle the clean-up:

• Decision makers: We decide together who gets the final say on which content gets the boot. It's a team effort, after all.

  
  

• The how-to: We chat about the best way to pull content down without causing a fuss, ensuring we're all on the same page on how to remove stuff from our platforms.

  
  

• Memory lane: Do we keep a backup of what we've unpublished? If yes, we figure out why it's important, where to store it, and for how long. It's like keeping a photo album of our content journey.

  
  

• Checking the map: We also think about other places that might be pointing to the content we're removing. Do we need to set up redirects? It's all about keeping the user experience smooth.

  
  

• SEO homework: Last but not least, we consider the SEO impact. Removing content can affect your site's SEO, so we make sure we're making smart moves that won't mess with rankings.

This step makes sure your content stays fresh and relevant, directing the audience to the cream of the crop. It's a tough but necessary part of keeping your content strategy sharp and focused.

Conclusion

A strategic content creation plan, intertwined with a robust brand strategy, unlocks the potential to create compelling storytelling that resonates with your target audience. This approach ensures content serves a purpose, fosters brand loyalty, and lays the groundwork for long-term success. Ready to craft a content strategy that fuels your brand growth? Contact us today!