Business Strategies
If, as Michael D. Watkins says, a business strategy is about how companies “…should make decisions and allocate resources in order accomplish key objectives,” then your content should help manifest those objectives and advance your decisions for achieving them.
In other words, your content should be the hammer that nails the company’s business strategies to the wall for both your external and internal audiences to take in.
Or, as Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group puts it, “…Content strategy is the combination of an editorial approach and a business strategy: how you publish content that meets your customer needs, incites them to act and drives additional business for your company.”
A good business strategy provides a clear roadmap, consisting of a set of guiding principles or rules, that defines the actions people in the business should take (and not take) and the things they should prioritize (and not prioritize) to achieve desired goals. In other words, content should embody your company’s desired outcomes.
Simon Sinek’s golden circle model helps to align at a high level your company’s goals (Why) with business objectives (How) and content tactics (What). For example, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startup might decide it wants to attract users first and foremost, as way to eventually ramp up revenues.
They may offer a “freemium model” that provides a free version of the application as a gateway to paid versions that include additional features, access for more users, etc. So the company’s primary business outcome or “why” is to attract as many users as possible.
Then the “hows” or objectives could be to:
- Increase the visibility of the signup page for the free version and
- Drive traffic to it
The “whats” or tactics could be many things, but creating and promoting evergreen content in the form of how-to blog articles, guide posts, list posts, case studies, etc. should be a strong candidate for the primary tactic.
There are several other articles about the power of content in driving business strategies on our Why Content Marketing is Important resource page. Be sure to check them out when you get a chance.