Best Practices for Content Marketing: Start With Common Sense and Then Strategy

I've being doing quite a bit of research lately on content strategy and what content types, channels, and resources are the most effective for companies to reach their target audience.  As you read the research and my summary, I'd be interested to hear if you come to the same conclusion, sounds like common sense, right? But, as we see in so many situations, common sense takes a back seat to politics, resource constraints, and fear of new technologies. 

Detailed below are what I see as the most common mistakes companies are making and the key characteristics of successful firms.

Mistakes:

• No Content Marketing Strategy.  According to a Pennypacker survey, only 46% of firms responding had a content marketing strategy. I find this extraordinary.  Producing content is not cheap.  It's like selling a house without doing any staging.  You might get a buyer, but are you getting the maximum result for your efforts?
• Content marketing is not an integrated cross-departmental program.  Create a piece of content, do a press release and then ? Most do not see content production and marketing as something that needs a project manager.  But that's exactly what you need.  Someone to ensure all possible stakeholders for a campaign are involved and that all possible outlets are being used to get maximum results (PR, SEO, social media marketing, employee advocate training, etc.).  
• Employees are not seen as advocates. They don't have access to the tools or empowered to step into the market for you.  This is crazy to me.  Most often employees are not empowered because they are not "official" spokespeople of the firm.  WRONG.  If you trust them to be your employees and deliver on company promises, train them to live your brand.   Accenture is a great example where all employees live the brand and exemplify who they are. 
• Firms look at competitors to define content information needs.  Copying your competitors or trying to do the same thing just a bit better is not going to ensure you meet your audience's needs.  Differentiate yourself.  Also, how do you know your competitor is getting it right.  Have the self-assurance to put yourself out there and meet your audience where they need you.

High-Performing Observations:

•  Companies partner with other firms, organizations, and institutions that can both solidify and elevate their position within the identified target audience group.  How many times have you heard, "they're just trying to use our name."  Partnerships do not always need to be with a company that is as big as you.  Look for those firms that have creditability with your audience and who will reach users that typically you may have not attracted before.  However, you need to make sure their core values and ethics align with your firm's.
• Create a hub-and-spoke distribution model.  As Mequoda Daily states in their Content Marketing Strategy 2011 Whitepaper, rule #2 is to use many platforms.  I couldn't agree more. Today, we have so many options.  The trick it to pick the right number of channels, use them for the right intent, and inter-link them.  Similar to personal branding, each channel should support the others and always lead back to the main hub.  You will select your hub based on your goals.  Are you branding building, generating sales leads, or trying to drive revenue through e-commerce?  Answering those questions will help you identify your hub.
• NOTE:  Do you not repeat the same message everywhere.  You should have a strategy/approach for each channel and they should be differentiated. 

• Success comes in solving problems and addressing pain points.  According to a post by Chris Koch and  ISTMA's research on How Customers Choose Solution Providers, "nearly 60% of respondents said that idea-based content plays an important or critical role in determining which providers make it onto their shortlists." Although the survey is geared for B2B, this practice is even more critical for B2C.

• Good marketers go directly to the source and ask their audience.  DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS.  How silly will you look when your boss asks why the content campaign didn't accomplish the established goals and ask you come to realize you failed by delivering the information that your audience isn't craving or you used the wrong channel.  With easy-to-use and low-cost tools such as Survey Monkey, Google Docs, and simple focus groups, you have no excuse why your content wasn't aligned with audience needs.
• Pennypacker and Mequoda provide an overview on the most common types of content used and how firms view their effectiveness.

There are so many other components of content marketing and strategy, but I found these to be the most common-sense, easy to apply, and valuable.

What did I miss?  Do you have anything to add to the list above?