It’s a recipe for failure (and burnout) if you keep pushing out content without a purpose or promotion plan. Everything that content creators make must have a clear goal, address a specific persona, and have a distribution strategy to ensure it helps the most people possible. This is a lot to manage and things can easily slip through the cracks—which is why a content strategy framework is key for keeping you focused and improving your content marketing results.
In this #ContentChat recap, Erika joins Laurie Kretchmar, a communications strategist, former business journalist, and founder of Laurie Kretchmar Associates, to discuss how to create and activate a content strategy framework for better content marketing. Laurie tells us about her CAB framework, and she and Erika share other tips for building your network and tapping into it to help share your content.
Watch the full conversation on YouTube or read through the highlights below:
Laurie is looking for help! Are you a history buff or want to learn more about dynastic families in San Francisco? Get in touch with Laurie!
Q1: What is a content strategy framework, and how can it benefit content marketing teams?
A content strategy explains how a piece of content will support your content marketing and business goals.
“A content strategy is the big picture. If you want to use fancier words, it’s the philosophy or framework.” – Laurie Kretchmar
“Put into words what might be obvious to you, especially for people in sales, or that other department down the hall, or the C-suite. Put into words the bigger picture that you’re looking at. I would get real excited talking about Twitter, but what I wasn’t saying is it’s a way to communicate, reach people you haven’t met before, find evangelists, and find new trends. Actually spell out that bigger framework.” – Laurie Kretchmar
Julie advocates for CAB: Create, Amplify, Build. Check out her short video on the CAB framework!
“I call it CAB, like a yellow cab. Create, Amplify, Build. Whether you’re creating a PowerPoint presentation or a keynote speech or a series of articles, that content is going to be a lot of work. We’re trying to appeal to that target audience and their hopes, fears, desires, and all of that, so the content is going to take a lot of your attention. But you can’t just put [content] out there. You also want to amplify it. Amplification is huge because of that old saying: you can build a better mouse trap and nobody might ever know about it, but they might really need it.” – Laurie Kretchmar
“I see it as a continuous cycle: You’re creating the content, you’re amplifying it, you’re building your network. I meet people who are focused on one part, especially the content, but you must think about the whole thing. Otherwise, you’re not going to find your audience and they’re not going to find you.” – Laurie Kretchmar
A content strategy is helpful for pushing back on new content requests that don’t align with your team’s goals (or previously agreed upon strategy).
“My motto is ‘No More Random Acts of Content,’ and having a documented content strategy is absolutely the best way to make that a reality.” – Erika Heald