You may be considering whether we’re the right agency for you, or you might want to find out what to expect if you work with us to create a content plan to integrate into your marketing strategy and then distribute it successfully. If that’s the case, you’re in the right place.
In this article, we’ll outline the stages we go through to help you identify an unlimited amount of high-quality, customer-centric content. This is amazing, as the biggest challenge most companies face is knowing what to write about. That will never be an issue again.
Creating unlimited high-quality content ideas
You may be asking, how is this possible? Let us explain.
We follow the They Ask, You Answer business philosophy, where we help you and your team answer the questions your customers are asking. Why do this?
In today’s digital age, consumers in both B2B and B2C sectors have the ability to do extensive research on their buying decisions before they even pick up the phone or fill in a contact form. A recent study suggested that 70% of a buyer’s decision has already been made before they speak with the chosen company.
What if you don’t have the right information for your buyers to consume online? Well, they’ll likely look elsewhere—often to your competitors. What does that mean? Most likely, they’ll be lost as future customers. But, if you can keep them on your website and provide all the information they require in an unbiased and educational way, you’ll earn their trust and alleviate all their fears and concerns about working with you.
Additionally, your potential clients will be able to validate themselves as suitable for your business or product, saving your sales team time, as they won’t have to engage with people who will likely drop out of the funnel. For instance, they won’t be blindsided by pricing; they’ll already know if they can afford you.
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Stage 1 – Strategic content workshop
The first and most critical stage in your content creation plan is the initial and then tri-monthly strategic content workshops.
Why is this so important?
It allows your entire organisation to align with the They Ask, You Answer philosophy and generate content topics that will truly move your audience through their buyer’s journey.
Who should be involved?
This is simple: as many people as possible from your team who are customer-facing and those who will be involved in creating and approving the final content.
If They Ask, You Answer is executed correctly, it will allow you to become the trusted voice in your industry within 18 months. Therefore, it’s certainly worth involving the full team to provide the best chance of success.
What is involved in the strategic content workshop?
The workshop is split into two sections and lasts a total of 2.5–3 hours.
The first hour will introduce you and your team to the They Ask, You Answer philosophy. In the next hour and a half to two hours, your team will identify and prioritise the content to be created in the first three months.
In fact, significantly more content ideas will be created. These will be kept on the back burner for the following quarterly strategic meetings, where more content ideas will continue to be added as They Ask, You Answer becomes ingrained in your organisation. It’s similar to a snowball effect—the ideas just don’t stop.
Stage 2 – Creation of 3-month content calendar
Following the workshop, a three-month content calendar will be finalised, clearly mapping out what content will be released when and on which platforms.
This will also include more traditional sales channels, such as the content topics that will be used by the sales teams.
Depending on your current team, we can create the first content plan for you, but the more your team can execute themselves—with our guidance—the better, as this will drive long-term success.
Stage 3 – Content creation
The next stage is to jump right in and start creating the content. As we mentioned at the beginning, we’re here to coach you and your team on how to do this; however, there may be areas where you need our direct help, such as videography, design, and perhaps web development (to ensure your content is easy to navigate).
We're also more than happy to teach your team these skills too. It depends on what works best for you.
Videography day: 1 day filming
If you choose to produce your content in video form, this will be completed onsite at your offices, and we’ll aim to create between 9 and 15 short videos (1–1.5 minutes each).
These videos will cover the most important topics identified in the strategic content workshop.
We're also more than happy to teach your team these skills too. It depends on what works best for you.
What to expect on the day
Before we arrive, we’ll send you and your team a full filming guide, as well as the final list of questions that each person will be addressing on camera.
Before we start filming, we’ll identify the best locations. The best locations are typically those that are well-lit and have good natural light. Once these have been identified, we’ll ask one of your team to confirm they’re happy with the setup before we complete the setup and start filming.
Ideally, we’ll film in three locations in your office (called set-ups). The first set-up will take 1 to 1.5 hours, and subsequent set-ups will take between 20 and 40 minutes.
Will I have a script to read from?
As you and your team discuss these topics every day, we prefer you don’t use scripts, as this can often leave a video feeling flat, with each word read one after the other.
It’s much better if each topic is discussed as you would with a customer. The best way to do this is to imagine the camera is the customer, and it’s just a normal conversation.
We’ll be there to direct your team throughout the day, so everyone comes across in the best way, and the videos are formatted correctly to educate your audience.
However, if your team would prefer scripts, we can ensure a teleprompter is available and ready to use.
How long until my videos are ready?
Once filming is complete, we’ll deliver one of your videos within the first week so that you can sign off the editing style, labels, etc.
Once approved, your remaining videos will be delivered within the following 2–4 weeks. This depends on the number of videos filmed and the outputs required.
Different platforms have different size requirements, which may increase the number of editing days needed, potentially affecting both the project cost and timeline.
How will my videos be delivered to me?
All videos will be delivered to you through an online password-protected link.
Through the link, you’ll be able to view your videos and download them in various sizes, depending on the platforms they are needed for.
You can also embed your videos into your website through this link if needed and benefit from the analytics our enterprise Vimeo account delivers. Alternatively, you can download each video and add them to your Vimeo account. It really depends on what works best for you and your team.
Article writing
Articles (or blogs) will be the foundation of your success moving forward. Why? Because this is what your audience will read to answer the questions your team used to answer.
The best thing is content never sleeps and doesn’t go on holiday—it will be working for you 24/7! Once it’s written, it’s like a free sales team, continuing to work for you day and night.
How many articles will I need to write?
To make a significant impact in 18 months and become the online voice in your industry, you’ll need to publish a minimum of three articles a week. Some industries do take longer than others, but this is the average timeframe.
But don’t worry; we will walk you through exactly how this can be done. You’ll be surprised how easy it becomes once it’s a habit.
Who should be involved in writing the articles?
Three articles a week is no easy feat, which is why it’s important to engage as many customer-facing members of your team as possible.
This is where the quarterly strategic content meetings are so important, as they bring your team together, focus on a common goal, and allow people to put themselves forward to write articles. It really must be a team effort!
Is there a certain style these articles need to be written in?
Yes, it’s critical to provide your audience with unbiased, educational, and detailed information in your articles. However, we’ll coach your team every step of the way until it becomes second nature.
How long should the articles be?
Each article should be between 1,000 and 1,500 words (closer to 1,500 is better, as it will push you to add more detail).
Do the articles need to be SEO-optimised?
Yes, each article will need to be SEO-optimised. However, this is simpler than you might think, and we can easily teach your team how to do this themselves.
Stage 4 – Content distribution
This is where your team will start to see the results of all their hard work.
We’ll work with your team to identify where your audience is—whether on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook—or perhaps certain content would add more value if sent out during the sales process by your sales team, or maybe over email.
Whatever the answer is, all your content should sit on your website, as this is the hub of all your online activity.
Ideally, everything should be housed in a Learning Hub (or something similar), including all your articles and videos so your audience can choose how they consume your content.
If your website doesn’t have a Learning Centre yet, we can work with your team on how this should look and if you need us to build it for you too. Alternatively, we can work with your web agency to ensure it will deliver what you need.
Stage 5 – Metric analysis
Finally, an extremely important step. How is your content performing for you?
As the famous phrase says, you cannot improve what you cannot measure and it’s no different here.
What platform should I use to measure performance? (H3)
Ideally, we ask you to have HubSpot installed on your website as this provides you with an integrated platform that not only supports your marketing activities (email, paid ads etc) but it also provides robust data on the content that is working for you and what content isn’t.
If you don’t have HubSpot, there are other options, but they tend to be more time-consuming, costly and less accurate as they involve combining data sources from multiple places.
We can discuss all these options if you choose to implement a radical, They Ask, You Answer inbound strategy.