Understanding Content Strategy Terms Clearly

content marketing
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The world in which you live, especially the online world, has content at the heart of it. That means that if your content is not doing what it is supposed to be doing, nothing else will work either. That doesn’t only refer to the writing and posting of your content itself. It also means your content marketing strategy and your content marketing execution. They are all tied up with whether you succeed in business or not.

Understanding the content concepts clearly

If you aren’t sure what the terms mean, you may not realize if someone else understands them and is using them correctly. Those other people may not be intentionally using them incorrectly; however, they may be using them incorrectly nonetheless. The fact is that content marketing, content strategy, and content marketing strategy are not interchangeable terms. That means that when people use them interchangeably, it may lead to confusion and negative results that may impact your business.

Let’s break down the terms so that you understand what they are and how to use them appropriately.

Content strategy: A content marketing strategy dissects your content and assembles it in a comprehensive, cohesive manner. The idea is that each part of the strategy (based on the content) has a job to do and each part must function in collaboration with the other parts. 

Content marketing strategy: This focuses on actually marketing the content. The strategy targets specific parts of the content that will help you to solve the problems of your target audience. It is important to note here that the help can come at various points in the relationship that you share with the other person. What is very important, initially, is the communication that you share to let the other person know that you have the ability to solve his or her problem.

Applying content marketing appropriately

Your content marketing strategy and your content strategy coexist and they work together (and independently) to get the job done. There are times when they move separately and there are times when they move together. They are both working toward the same perfect end but how they manage to reach that end is not always the same. Within that process, there are several different moving parts that need to do their job properly.

These roles are defined as: The content marketer to the web analyst, the content marketer to the content strategist, the content marketer to the web editor, and the content marketer to the web writer. Of course, the content marketer is in a pivotal role and one that is critical to the success of the entire process. The content marketer, in all likelihood (depending on the size of the business), is held by more than one person. It is important to be aware of the fact that there is overlap in many cases among the different relationships. The boundaries are not always so clearly defined.

Conclusion

The main concepts surrounding content cannot be used interchangeably because that is confusing and not accurate. It is really important for you to have a clear understanding and a good grasp of the differences in the concepts and in the implications, similarities, and differences that exist among them. An easy way to remember the difference is that content strategy is all-encompassing but content marketing only focuses on one part at a time. With content marketing, your goal is to attract your target audience (and prospective target audience members) to you. All three concepts are equally important but they are also all unique and just as valuable.

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Author

  • Carolyn Cohn

    Carolyn Cohn is the Co-Founder & Chief Creative Services of CompuKol Communications. Carolyn manages CompuKol’s creative and editorial department, which consists of writers and editors. Her weekly blogs are syndicated globally. She has decades of editorial experience in online editing, and editing books, journal articles, abstracts, and promotional and educational materials. Carolyn earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.