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First, let me say this is not a new topic. It may, however, be a new twist on it so stay with me. Marketing teams are strategists, constantly maneuvering resources and content to increase conversion opportunities. Simple right? Let’s continue. Much like a Chess match, there are several opportunistic moves to strategically place to get closer to your goal. Each move is performed with tools (or Chess Pieces) that have strengths. However, if you’re not planning ahead with a strategy guiding content and placement… hmm… you will soon be cornered with no place to go. Sounds like Chess and marketing have a lot more in common than people thought.

 

Let’s take a look at the meaning of three words; strategic content placement, so you can better understand the rationale behind my thinking.

  • Strategic: “Carefully designed or planned to serve a particular purpose or advantage.”

  • Content: “Information made available by a website or other electronic medium.”

  • Placement: “The action of putting someone or something in a particular place or the fact of being placed.”

– Definition source: Google

Here’s a brief snapshot of all three of these coming together in one sentence. Carefully designed or planned information, to serve a particular purpose in a particular place. Sounds like what marketers do every day. Now that we know the basis for this, let’s answer this question: Why is it so important for marketing teams to get this right?

Strategy

First of all, without a strategy and plan, you’re just spending time (and lots of it) creating content and pushing it out with the hopes that people will read it. That is a haphazard approach at best. You’re trusting that everything you are creating is going to be perfectly aligned with your prospective customer so that the customer is attracted to the content, they read it, like it and continue through the conversion path. I don’t know about you, but that’s not something I would trust with a haphazard approach. Do you think there’s a better way? Ah—yes. 

Content

TIP: Content and digital can lead to increased customer demand and new customers as well as an improved brand perception.

In the digital world, content comes in many forms as you know and it can be designed to accomplish specific goals. First of all, think about the strengths of your content. For instance, the strengths of social media content are liking and sharing, global connectivity, individual behavioral visibility, and conversational dialogue to name a few. Now that you know these are the strengths, make sure to employ them in ways that leverage those strengths… your content will be far more effective that way. Align the content strength with the channel strength and then it will be awesome! But don’t forget, as good as the content is, it will rarely be very effective if it is not designed for a specific audience and purpose.

Placement

Placement may sound easy, but it’s not. Why? Because there is a myriad of options, all of which can be a valuable part of your marketing mix. So why am I saying this is not easy if we have lots of options? Here’s where it all becomes a challenge. If you don’t have a strategy and plan that’s tied to your content creation, placement will only be an end destination where you get the word out – but for what reason? Hmm.

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With today’s advanced metrics revealing more consumer behavior patterns than ever before, the term conversion has risen to the top of the discussion food chain in content marketing circles. Stronger conversions typically are a result of a solid strategy, relevant, timely content and better placement. Now you can see why these three are all critically important… They’re connected!

Let’s get back to the original blog title, Why Strategic Content Placement Is So Important For Marketers. Well, it really comes down to planning and knowing your audience. Once you understand those, the others should fall into place as long as you don’t get sidetracked looking to do cool things that are not part of your strategic plan.

Scott MacFarland is a lifelong marketer with a passion for content, marketing, digital, social, web, video, analytics, and all things that lead to successful conversions. Scott is currently the Marketing Director for the premiere Yacht brokerage in the US. HMY Yachts in Jupiter, Florida.

Follow Scott on LinkedIn or Twitter

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Sources:

Strategy and Plan: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-tips-hands-on-marketing-leaders-scott-macfarland/?published=t

Content: https://www.slideshare.net/encmarketing/how-content-leads-to-customers?ref=http://yourbrandexposed.com/how-content-leads-to-customers/

Social media: http://blog.corecommerce.com/i-choose-you-marketing-strengths-and-weaknesses-for-major-social-media-platforms

Audience and purpose: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-happens-when-content-marketing-meets-your-scott-macfarland/

https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-s-playing-chess-1040157/

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