Setting Goals for Individual Pieces of Content

It is important to have overall goals for your content marketing program. It is also important to have goals for the individual pieces of content you create. This doesn’t necessarily mean spending a great deal of time planning individual goals for each one, though it may be true for some of, especially the high-profile pieces. Instead, it could mean defining and understanding the goals for each type of content you produce—video, white paper, e-book, blog post, etc.

Here are some examples of goals you can consider for your marketing program as a whole and each type of content you produce.

For content marketing program:

  • Generating more leads.
  • Prompting purchases.
  • Increasing brand loyalty.
  • Developing referrals.

For each piece of content:

  •  Fit into overall strategy and goals for marketing program.
  • Creating a central theme or takeaway for the piece.
  • Defining questions that you want the readers to ask as they read or listen to your content.
  • Determining how you want readers to feel after they have interacted with your content.
  • Establishing how you want the readers to act after they have reviewed your content.

Here are sample goals for six different types of content.

Article

  • Overall goal: Increase lead generation.
  • Takeaway: An understanding of how to do something specific or knowledge about a particular process or industry issue.
  • Questions: How does this apply to my situation? How can I use what I learned here to come up with a better process?
  • Feelings: We aren’t keeping up with the industry on this one.
  • Actions: Get more information about the issue.

Blog

  • Overall goal: Increase brand loyalty.
  • Takeaway: These people are experts on this topic and they can assemble a group of experts to discuss it.
  • Questions: What information can I garner about the state of the industry?
  • Feelings: This blog has important information that I need to pay close attention to.
  • Actions: Sign up for the RSS or email feed to keep abreast of your blog.

Case study

  • Overall goal: Increase brand loyalty.
  • Takeaway: An understanding of the strength or validity of your approach to addressing a challenge.
  • Questions: How can we get results like these? Where does it leave us in the market if our competitors are able to address this issue and we aren’t?
  • Feelings: We need to improve our processes to stay competitive.
  • Actions: Reevaluate their status quo.

e-newsletter

  • Overall goal: Develop referrals.
  • Takeaway: This company knows about these issues. They are able to come up with concepts and stories on a regular basis.
  • Questions: How can we leverage what this company knows and does to help us?
  • Feelings: We are missing out if we don’t get involved now.
  • Actions: Get additional information about your products or services.

Podcast

  • Overall goal: Generate more leads.
  • Takeaway: These people are experts on this topic.
  • Questions: How can I take what I’ve learned here and improve our product or service?
  • Feelings: How come we aren’t working with these experts?
  • Actions: Share podcasts with others.

 White paper

  • Overall goal: Prompt purchase.
  • Takeaway: This is a key product or process for solving an issue.
  • Questions: How can I apply this information to my company and find a way to resolve our challenges?
  • Feelings: These people are experts. We should follow their lead.
  • Actions: Contact you for additional information about how to achieve similar success.

-February 2011