the atomic guide to content strategy

© These Days Y & R The Atomic Guide to Content Strategy Frank Delmelle, Senior Content Strategist at These Days Y&R... #DeathByPowerpoint diagram diarrhea Google content strategy and

© These Days Y & R

The Atomic Guide

to Content Strategy

Frank Delmelle, Senior Content Strategist at These Days Y&R

#ContentStrategy: a new, atomic, bottom-up

© These Days Y & R

“A new content

strategy paradigm”? 

Why? Who needs it? 

 a.k.a #DeathByPowerpoint

diagram diarrhea

Google content strategy and – excusez le mot – this is all you get:

© These Days Y & R

© These Days Y & R

… and a chalupa…

https://medium.com/@markwschaefer/break-the-mold-why-

content-marketing-needs-to-be-like-a-chalupa-e080b7b054f9#.nr9wupjil

‘Content strategy’s very probably

Wikipedia’s Most Wicked Wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_strategy

© These Days Y & R

http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2016/01/checklists-templates-guides/

tangled up in toolkits, templates and trellos

… Entrepreneur.com?

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/270956

© These Days Y & R

Digiday Content

Marketing Summit? Spewing challenges instead of solutions…

http://sco.lt/81LneL

Your customer doesn’t give

a flying bleep about your content strategy

Image credit: Flickr, Tambako The Jaguar

And if that’s bad, this is worse:

© These Days Y & R

… Neither do your strategy’s

indispensable middle men… 

(Paid) Discovery? (Paid) Social? (Paid) Search?

Earned? Owned? One-to-one?

Email? Anyone?

Splintered segments? Content shocks?

Algorithm anxiety?

Broken journeys? …

It wouldn’t be entirely fair, of course,

to have content strategist take all the blame Their task has turned rather sysyphean…

Excuses?

© These Days Y & R

Still, claiming that

Solution?

A Copernican Revolution!  

© These Days Y & R

Kaboom!

 Step 1 Nuke the

diagram diarrhea

Tabula rasa! Clean those desks!

Let’s get back to the basics

and rebuild from the bottom up

© These Days Y & R

Step 2 Focus on the very top of

your (future) customer’s FAQ list*

*The ranking of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) being the one thing your customers – and your

strategy’s indispensable middle men – are

guaranteed to care about: answers to their questions

Tweet that!

Content relevance, by the way,

is the one thing that will never

entirely be delivered by the bots

Focusing on your audience’s FAQ will make sure you steer clear of

both commoditized content and ‘last year’s’ shallow (meaningless)

content snacks (to offer relevant ‘content atoms’ instead.)

© These Days Y & R

© These Days Y & R

http://www.morganstanley.com

Step 3 Answer one question a time

(FAQ #1, FAQ #2, FAQ #3 etc.)

Answering FAQs / focusing on your

‘smallest relevant element’, is not only

what’ll make sure you get discovered,

found, considered, trusted, revisited and

recommended It’s also what’ll offer you

the ‘natural’ window of opportunity you

need to pitch your product or service…

and reap subsequent conversions

Image: atomic content calendar, work in progress for http://www.partena-professional.be

Step 4 Fill out your answers’ strategic profiles

The interesting thing about these ‘content atoms’ or answers to FAQs,

is that they will enable you to get agile on all seven strategic levels:

give each ‘content atom’ a strategic passport, i.e a content profile

with these 7 tags: #WHO #WHAT, #WHY, #WHERETO,

#WHEN, #HOW and #WHERE… and you’ll find the

fragmentation that used to be your worst headache,

will at once become your best friend

The future-proof paradigm shift? Once they’re

tagged, your content atoms will make up the core

of a content strategy that’s scalable, targetable,

fine-tunable and even IoT-ready Your

headlines will be so relevant they’ll

seamlessly increase notification CTRs…

© These Days Y & R

Illustration: a ‘content atom’ from the top of Bank of America

customers’ FAQ list: “How Do I Pay Down Debt?”,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV22EP4T8ZQ

Step 5 Tag your answer(s) with target audience

This first tag level will enable

you to pull content clusters

relevant for specific segments

from your content archives,

making segmentation ‘a piece

of cake’

Step 6 Tag your answer

with the customer need

/desire you’re satisfying

#WHAT

Tag level number two consists of the keywords,

categories or themes that reflect the specific

customer questions (wonderings/needs/desires)

you’re answering Expect a return in terms of SEO,

obviously, but equally so in terms of, for example,

‘sharp as a knife’ subject lines etc

© These Days Y & R

Step 7 Tag your answer with the ROMI* it’ll realize

*ROMI being the return on marketing objectives your individual piece of content is supposed to

generate In this third level of tags – ranging from awareness to advocacy – your specific KPI’s

are listed How will this particular piece of content pull peeps through your funnel? Top-funnel

impact? Mid-funnel? Bottom-funnel? Will it increase traffic, sign-ups, qualified leads, … ? #WHY

Illustration: a ‘content atom’ from AXA’s leads’ FAQ list:

“Will the taxman leave me alone once I’m retired?”,

http://thesedays.com/work/axa/pensioenavonturen aventure-pension

Step 8 Tag your answer with the

CTA(s) to be featured underneath  

The fourth level of tags will indicate what each piece of content is pointing

at / where you want peeps to go next ‘post content consumption’ ‘See more’,

‘subscribe’, ‘discover product abc’, ‘join us at event xyz’: here you tag your

‘content atom’ with the call to action (CTA) inviting content consumer to proceed to their ‘next best action’: the natural next place in your funnel

These tags will a.o enable an information architecture

/ a UX that (feels like it) makes perfect sense

#WHERETO

© These Days Y & R

‘always on’ ‘content service’…)

Illustration: a ‘content atom’ based on Netflix subscribers’ FAQ list:

“Will Francis and Claire lose everything?”,

http://www.24-7gamer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/

netflix_pr_darwin_ui_regular_us_web_442014_7b0b4f0d530e365df57003d58a130df9.jpg

Step 10 Tag your answer with the touchpoints / platforms where it will thrive #WHERE

More good news: the relevance of answers to top FAQs will only very rarely be limited to your

‘owned web’ Hence this sixth level of tags listing all the touchpoints where your ‘content atom’ could/should thrive

The interesting thing here is that the keys to a sensible ‘channel mix’ can - largely - be found in the nature of your customers’ questions and the quality of your answers For some answers (paid) search will obviously be the natural habitat besides your ‘owned web’, while for others (paid) discovery, (paid) social and/or email will be the logical place to be

Tag level #6, in short, will empower integrated media planning and enable content economies of scale (beyond the usual silos) This is where you’ll make content marketing catchphrases such as

‘create once publish many’, ‘maximize return on interview’ e.a (finally and) actually happen

© These Days Y & R

 Step 11 Tag your answer with the genre/format

In a seventh level of tags, finally, you indicate the

(editorial) genre – opinion, testimonial, expert

advice etc – and/or the content format – video

tutorial, infographic, listicle, longread, … – that

will improve the likelihood of your content atom

to be read and/or watched

This will enable you to, in a holistic way, pick

formats taking into account platform

requirements, media preferences/behavior,

editorial resources (budget) etc

Step 12 Answer FAQs #2, #3 etc & scrum from there

© These Days Y & R

http://www.justinmind.com/blog/atomic-design-user-experience/

If designers can build

UXs from the bottom up,

why shouldn’t content

strategists be capable

to follow suit? #AtomicDesign

BTW: an atomic approach might also help to get your content strategy sold Your consistent answers to customers’ FAQs will certainly prove

to remedy the ‘diagram itch’ that gets you stuck in the elevator pitch

 Summary?

Break up and

FAQ around!  

© These Days Y & R

The key to untie the content strategic knot and/or declutter your content strategy is to be found in its most fundamental component:

your answers to the top of your (future)

customer’s FAQ list

Illustration: a ‘content atom’ from the CMO’s FAQ list:

“How To Make The Banner Blind See Again?”,

https://medium.com/@thesedays/6-ways-to-reanimate-the-battered-banner-ad-3cf781895025#.r3e392fmu

An atomic content strategy

will answer FAQ #1 first,

tag each answer

systematically with its why,

who, how, when and where(to)

… and scrum from there

Illustration: an earned media ‘content atom’ about/ for Tesla/Solar City (…)’s future customers’ FAQ list:

“How Will Elon Musk Change The World?”,

change-your-life.html

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-© These Days Y & R

And one more for the road:

keep an eye on

Quora’s ‘No Answers Yet’

You might just hit a content jackpot;)

https://www.quora.com/search?q=how+to+find+questions+with+no+answers+yet ?

© These Days Y & R

Still not sure where to start?

welcome@thesedays.com