Not Documenting Your Content Marketing Strategy? Here’s What to Do About It

Not Documenting Your Content Marketing Strategy? If you are a regular reader at Content Marketing Institute, you know how often we talk about the importance of documenting your content marketing strategy. According to our latest research, we know that marketers who document their strategy are much more likely to accomplish their content marketing goals and be successful. But, for some reason, we still see that the majority of marketers do not document their content plans in any way. Here’s a simple approach for documenting your content marketing strategy. Most likely, they are a glorified marketing collateral department: “Content order up, table seven.” My advice: Stop creating and start (and finish) documenting your content marketing strategy. Believe me, at some point, some senior-level executive is going to ask the question why so much content is being created that can’t be measured. My advice: Show why content is important to your organization. My advice: Integrate the needs of other key departments into your content marketing strategy plan. What other reasons have you seen for companies not documenting their content strategies?

Author: Joe Pulizzi / Source: Content Marketing Institute

If you are a regular reader at Content Marketing Institute, you know how often we talk about the importance of documenting your content marketing strategy. According to our latest research, we know that marketers who document their strategy are much more likely to accomplish their content marketing goals and be successful. It really is that simple.

But, for some reason, we still see that the majority of marketers do not document their content plans in any way. In our latest study, just 37% of B2B marketers and 40% of B2C marketers have a written content marketing plan. While this percentage is up from 32% (B2B) and 37% (B2C) from the previous year, it’s still a woeful number.

Here’s a simple approach for documenting your content marketing strategy.

Who really cares?

Dominican University’s Gail Matthews executed a study almost a decade ago. Dr. Matthews and her team found that those people who write down their goals, review them consistently, and share their goals with friends or colleagues are 33% more successful in achieving their goals than those people who just had goals.

And we’ve found the same results in the content marketing industry. When we advise enterprise clients, we find that those brands that write a plan, review it consistently with their team, and treat that plan as a living document, adapting it as they receive data, are by far the most successful.

Create, review, adapt.

What holds us back from documenting?

Thanks to our amazing research team at CMI, we were able to collect and compile the major reasons why marketers are not documenting their strategy. By going through each one, my goal is to provide a few ideas or motivation for you if one of these reasons happens to resonate.

Not a priority

Obviously, if you haven’t completed your strategy, it’s not a priority. The majority of marketers are so quick to go “do” something — like a blog, podcast, or video — that they neglect the fact that the content they “do” needs to tie directly (or as much as possible) to revenue creation or cost reduction. Those companies that do not prioritize the strategic process don’t really see value in the content. Most likely, they are a glorified marketing collateral department: “Content order up, table seven.”

My advice: Stop creating and start (and finish) documenting your content marketing strategy. Then get back to creating goal-focused content.

Not enough time/no one has the time to do this

We make time for what’s important. If anyone tells you that they don’t have time, what they are really trying to say is that it’s not important enough to MAKE time.

My advice: If you can’t commit and go all in, stop creating content and go do something else.