A balanced, diverse and agile content strategy is essential for companies that rely on online marketing measures - and that are the most. But what exactly is content marketing and how do you develop a balanced content strategy?
Content marketing is about planning, creating and distributing content. These components have to be in line with the preferences of a previously defined target group.
Common content formats include:
• website texts
• blog posts
• white paper and e-books
• videos
• webinars
• newsletters
The content format as well as the subject matter is dependent on the target group you have previously identified. No matter what kind of format you choose, your content always has to match it. This means that a blog post should not take more than three to six minutes to read while a white paper can be a bit more comprehensive as readers expect to learn more details from such a format.
The 3 building blocks
In addition to classifying content by format, there is a much more fundamental subdivision. Hygiene, hub and hero content are the basic elements on which a marketing strategy should be built.
1. Hygiene content
This category contains continuously relevant content that is sought by the target group. It is also called evergreen content because it contains information that is useful to the target group independent of the publication date. Hygiene content includes meaningful but often basic content such as web pages, tutorials, glossaries or FAQ pages.
2. Hub content
Hub content is understood as content that is geared to the interests of the target group and is continuously produced and published. The objective of hub content is to bring back the targeted audiences to the brand's web pages again and again in order to establish regular contact and trust. Blog posts, news and video series are common examples of hub content.
3. Hero Content
Hero content usually requires a significantly higher production budget than the other content types and is therefore created less frequently. Hero content is often created to accompany product launches. Since hero content requires more budget and time, distribution is especially important to achieve a high ROI.
To summarize: if you plan a content strategy, you should use each of these basic building blocks. Which formats/channels you use for this is at your discretion.