Sep 17, 20157 min read

Content Strategy for Marketers: Insights From Kristina Halvorson

content-strategy-kristina-halvorson-cover

Quick. When I say Kristina Halvorson, what term do you think of?

“Content strategy”? Probably. How about “content marketing”? Probably not, although she did deliver the opening keynote presentation at Content Marketing World (prompting one veteran conference-goer to tell me that it was the best talk she had ever heard there). But while Kristina is not a content marketer, much of what she says about strategy applies to the work we do.

This truth became clear to me three months before Content Marketing World as I listened to Kristina address a roomful of content strategists at a Content Strategy Meetup in Portland. She wasn’t talking directly about content marketing that night, but the subject came up more than once. Many of the strategists in attendance said that their companies and clients ask them to help with content marketing.

Shown here addressing the Content Strategy Meetup in Portland, Kristina Halvorson is the CEO and founder of the content strategy consultancy Brain Traffic, the author of the seminal book Content Strategy for the Web, and the founder of the Confab content strategy conferences.

In this article, I share some of Kristina’s Meetup insights that could go a long way toward making content marketing more effective. If you heard her speak at Content Marketing World, many of these points will sound familiar.

@Halvorson holding court at the Content Strategy PDX Meetup tonight @simple. #contentstrategy #cspdx #content pic.twitter.com/RvNisNesMZ — Isaac Szymanczyk (@IsaacSzy) June 2, 2015

First, a definition

Here’s Kristina’s definition of content strategy from the first edition of Content Strategy for the Web:

Content strategy guides planning for the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content.*

You might be thinking, that sounds good, but how do I do it? How do I think — and act — more strategically if there’s no content strategist in sight? Here are some tips from Kristina.

Think “better,” not “more.”
Ask the journalistic questions early.
Figure out when to say no.
For starters, pick one problem.
Tie content to business goals.
Focus on the user experience.

*For Kristina’s updated (substantially longer) definition of content strategy from the second edition of her book, co-authored with Melissa Rach, see Slide 7 of the Meetup presentation.

Think ‘better,’ not ‘more’

Content marketers often feel that their job is to “keep calm and create more content.” This create-create-create mentality creates “big problems” for companies. The demand for more “is not our customers’ demand; it’s the demand of bosses,” bosses who say things like “You have Word – you can make content – get it to me by Friday.” I could’ve sworn that I heard CMI founder Joe Pulizzi cheering from seven states away. “More is not better” is one of Joe’s favorite drums to beat. For example, in his August 14 newsletter, “Create Less Content With More Impact,” he quotes CMI Chief Strategy Officer Robert Rose as saying, “We need to create the minimum amount of content for the maximum amount of impact,” and then he adds, “Go back and read that about 17 more times … It’s never about more.”

Strategy requires “patience and thinking and time,” Kristina says.

Our culture is so activity driven that we often value activity over productivity. What’s the worst-case scenario if we slow ourselves down and do some analysis? What if you stopped putting content out there for 30 days? What if you did? What if you sat down and asked, What are we doing that makes sense? Do we have the right people in the right seats? How much content do we really need to create and how often? Do we have the right technology? What are we going to do with all that content once it’s out there? What would that do for your results?

Some attendees said that taking a content-production break would put them out of a job or give their bosses heart attacks. It has been done, though, and to significant advantage. Want an example? Read this story from Buffer describing their one-month hiatus from creating new content.

“We need more content is our boss’ demand, not our customer’s” @halvorson #cspdx — Mary Daggett (@mdaggettpdx) June 2, 2015

Not MORE but BETTER. Content strategy is content marketing plus brains (and minus the mindless pursuit of mindshare). #cspdx — John Cooper (@coopercontent) June 2, 2015

Ask the journalistic questions early

“The most important part of content strategy happens way upstream when you’re asking questions about the content,” says Kristina. By “questions” she means the journalistic questions: What? Why? How? When? For whom? By whom? With what? Where? How often? What next?

Too often, we stop at the what.

When you don’t ask these questions up front, your company accumulates bigger and bigger piles of content — content that’s not useful, not usable, and not maintainable. When you fail to answer “the big, smart questions,” all the content problems you’ve ever had “multiply like rabbits.”

If you can’t tackle all these questions, start with one. “You’ll unearth things that you hadn’t thought of, and that changes the conversation.”

Answering why is especially important — and especially difficult. “This content will make us a thought leader” is not an answer to why.

Content marketing is about creating more content, strategy is about asking a lot of hard questions: why, how and more. #CSPDX — mfmakichen (@mfmakichen) June 2, 2015

Ask the good questions up front to create a better content strategy. Via @halvorson #cspdx — darasmith (@darasmith) June 2, 2015

Content strategy isn’t just the what. It’s what why who cares how when by whom how often what’s next… @halvorson #cspdx @CS_PDX — Meghan James (@MeghanJamesPDX) June 2, 2015

Content strategy starts with asking the journalism questions nobody has asked yet: especially why? #cspdx — John Cooper (@coopercontent) June 2, 2015

Why do you need content? No, really. Why? @CS_PDX #cspdx — Laura Allen (@laurathecurious) June 2, 2015

Figure out when to say no

Content marketers often excel at generating ideas. “There’s so much we could make and so many cool ways in which to make it,” Kristina says. “The Internet is a big place. We can create as much content as we want.” But it can be hard to figure out which ideas to say yes to and which to say no to. Do you have written criteria that help your team determine priorities? A content strategist would. A core strategy “provides clear boundaries for what you will do … and what you won’t.” Warning: Good governance, which includes rejecting content ideas for strategic reasons, may make some people mad.

Strategy should be used to help you prioritize and say NO. @halvorson #cspdx #justsaying — Jo Brown (@jobro1) June 2, 2015

If you want to protect content integrity you must empower content strategists to say no. #CSPDX — mfmakichen (@mfmakichen) June 2, 2015

Strategy doesn’t just describe what you’ll do, it describes what you won’t do. #cspdx— John Cooper (@coopercontent) June 2, 2015

RECOMMENDED FOR YOU: Why You Need Content Strategy Before Editorial Planning

For starters, pick one problem

Feel overwhelmed by the content issues facing your organization? Don’t tackle them all at once. Pick one. Then get out there and discover who can help. Connect with those people. Meet them for coffee. Start the conversations. “Doing this can be good for your career.” When you think beyond your domain, people notice.

To start a conversation about content strategy in a messed-up company, just pick ONE problem. #cspdx — John Cooper (@coopercontent) June 2, 2015

Tie content to business goals

Each piece of content must be tied to at least one business goal. Putting out a ton of content does no good unless the content supports your organization’s objectives. As simple and obvious as this sounds, most of us have created content that had no clear tie to a business goal. (“Publish daily!” is not a business goal.)

What business goals might content marketers tie content to? Here is a chart that shows some common goals.

Click to enlarge

If you don’t have goals, you really don’t need, can’t even have a strategy. #cspdx — Michael Clapp (@mclapp) June 2, 2015

There’s no sense having strategy if it doesn’t map back to clear business objectives. #CSPDX — mfmakichen (@mfmakichen) June 2, 2015

Focus on the user experience

“A good user experience leads to good business results,” says Kristina, echoing what the UX community has been saying for years. It’s true for products and it’s true for content. What does she mean by “user experience”? She points to this definition:

The overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.

Note the word “easy.” It’s not easy to create easy, pleasing content experiences. Also note the word “overall.” The overall experience of content includes every encounter our audiences have with content across the enterprise, on the web, and beyond. Obviously, no single team can create a good user experience alone. Content marketers have to collaborate with others who contribute to the overall content experience – information architects, user-interface designers, IT teams, technical-communication teams, customer-service teams, etc. We have to think about content holistically across all content types and channels. Unless our content contributes to a worthwhile experience for the people we want to reach, Kristina says, “none of the rest of this advice matters.”

“Good #contentstrategy contributes to good UX. Good content mgmt strategy helps repurposing of content across devices.” @halvorson #cspdx — katiedel (@katiedel) June 2, 2015

Summary

What do content marketers need to know about content strategy? CMI VP of Content Michele Linn recently touched on three suggestions. Kristina has given us even more to keep in mind. Which tip is calling to you? What’s missing from this list? Help us learn from each other by leaving a comment below. Check out Kristina’s presentation on SlideShare: Content Strategy for Everything.

Content Strategy for Everything from Kristina Halvorson

Content strategy is not content marketing. Good content marketing requires good strategy. @halvorson #cspdx @CS_PDX — Meghan James (@MeghanJamesPDX) June 2, 2015

My POV: Content marketing without good content strategy is not good marketing. #CSPDX https://t.co/mlonCVI5M0 — Carmen Hill (@carmenhill) June 2, 2015

Want more? Sign up for the Intelligent Content weekly email newsletter. When you do, every Saturday we’ll send you an email about content strategy and an exclusive letter from Robert Rose, Chief Strategy Officer for the Content Marketing Institute.

Photo credit: Fallon’s Photography/Content Marketing Institute

Couldn’t make it to Content Marketing World this year? You can still catch up on the biggest issues, ideas, and innovations in content strategy. Check out Kristina’s opening keynote talk, Content vs. the Customer available through our Video on Demand portal

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute