Let’s Deal with the Elephant in Our Content Marketing Strategy

3 minute read

Upland Admin

I’ve been going to Content Marketing World for a few years now. Love the event. But every year I can visualize a big elephant standing in the midst of the expo floor.

This elephant, if it had a name, is the avoided content audit.

Sometimes I’ll get stopped and asked how someone should start—or fix—their content strategy. My response: “Have you done a content audit yet?”

“Oh, not yet,” is the usual reply. “We really need to do one.”

If I see that same person the next year, we’ll likely repeat the same conversation—the elephant in their content marketing still there, just chilling.

The content audit has emerged as crucial to content marketing. (Altimeter’s Rebecca Lieb calls it the “cornerstone of content strategy”, for instance.) The audit exposes the gluts and gaps in your content, where your content actually lives, and how it’s performing. In other words, it informs you of what you already have, before you set out making more stuff.

The values of such an endeavor are obvious, but let me list them anyway:

  • Knowledge of which buyer personas and buying stages are poorly resourced;
  • Easier ability to find and share content both internally and externally;
  • Access to historical performance of various campaigns and content types;
  • And the ability to eliminate old, off-message materials and spot opportunities to repurpose.

A lot of lip service is given to content audits, though. Just about everyone agrees they’re valuable, even critical. But few marketing teams actually embark on an audit.

Why?

Honestly, for many the time and resources required is prohibitive. A content audit can be a massive project, particularly at large enterprise companies. I have personally heard of audits that stretched on for months.

But that’s changing. Tools, like the one below, now exist which make it far easier and faster to perform content audits. Insights on that content are actually attainable. Time is less and less of an issue.

This makes the excuses for not dealing with this elephant head on less credulous. And actually designing a content strategy without knowing what you already have in-house is like going grocery shopping without glancing inside the fridge. You end up with a lot of duplicates, generate more waste, and don’t come home with what you really need.

So this year, let’s deal with the elephant in our content marketing. Let’s check that “do a content audit” item off our to-do lists.

Going to Content Marketing World? Visit Kapost at booth #21 to learn more! Or, join Kapost and The Adcom Group for happy hour at 6:00 PM on September 10 in the warehouse district – just a 5-minute walk from the Cleveland Convention Center. RSVP Now!

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