The Difference Between A Content Strategy And Content Marketing

New to the concept of “content” and you’re trying to gain some clarity? It’s a word that’s been thrown around a lot in recent years, and there’s a reason for this: it’s pretty important. So, let’s answer the question in short. The difference between content strategy versus content marketing is this: Where content strategy is the overall plan of your content promotion, content marketing is the process of promoting the content. This article offers questions every business should ask when building a content strategy and a few kinds of content that can be used as part of content marketing campaigns.

Content Strategy

• Why Are You Creating Content?
  

  A content strategy should be founded on a specific purpose, or reason for going about the content development. Are you hoping to solve a problem in your customer’s life with your content? Do you want to build brand recognition with highly shareable content?

   

• Who Are The Content Creators?
  

  Content strategies should include information on who will be handling the content marketing – from top to bottom. Who will do the graphic design, or copywriting, or posting of the content to readers?

• What Content Will Be Created?
  

  Another conundrum that should be ironed out in a content strategy is the types of content that will be shared. Blog articles? Infographics? E-books? Responding to this question will help you find out which content creators you need to source.

   

• Where Will The Content Be Shared?
  

  A content strategy can include information on the specific channels where content will be shared. Is it a social media campaign, or perhaps just bulk email? Perhaps it’s an integrated content marketing campaign, spread across multiple promotional channels.

Content Marketing

• Blog Articles
  

  These are pieces of digital content usually loaded onto a website’s blog page, or a stand-alone blog website. Usually used to educate readers on a specific area of the industry, blog articles can be shared across multiple online channels, and contribute to website traffic when managed effectively.

• E-Books
  

  Content should inform readers, the degree to which is determined by you. For in-depth topics, e-books are an excellent choice. They are usually downloadable in PDF format, and offer brand followers true value – often completely gratis, which some might argue builds brand loyalty.

   

• Infographics
  

  How do we cram lots of technical information into an easy-to-understand, bite-sized format? Infographics. These are usually creatively designed and simplify complex ideas for easier comprehension.

• Mailers
  

  Another content type is the mailer, sent via email to an often large database of email addresses. GDPR aside, email marketing is still a great way to reach out to customers directly, sharing content that will hopefully add value to their lives and the brand-customer relationship.

Now that you know how content marketing fits into an overall content strategy, the next step is to learn everything else there is to successful content marketing.

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