Content Strategy for Startups: The Complete Guide

1. Research and validate your audience

Who is your content actually for? Until you’re crystal clear on this part, you can’t create great content for them.

Start by coming up with a hypothesis of who your ideal audience member is. There are plenty of templates online you can use (just search “persona template”) or you can craft your own.

In your hypothesized persona, sure you know the basics like:

• How much does your audience know about your industry/subject/etc?
• What are their pain points (as it relates to your business)?
• What are their current solutions to that pain point? What questions do they need answered about it?
• What content do they regularly consume (as it relates to your business/industry?)
• What channels do they most use to find that content?
• What types of content do they like the best? Videos? Blogs? Emails? What kinds do they dislike?

Document those things and you’ve got your hypothetical persona. No need to create a fancy, well-designed powerpoint slide. Just document your thoughts somewhere you can easily access and update. I did a simple version in Canva:

The most important part comes next: you’ve got to confirm this person actually exists. Getting validation is easier than you think, can be done in a few days, and ensures that you’re creating content based on real people and not assumptions.

A few ways to validate your persona

A quick note: when you’re doing either of these options, just make sure that your first question qualifies them. Do they have the problem that your product solves? No? Move on.

1. Post in Facebook groups and find people to interview. Offer something free that would be valuable to your target customer in exchange for a 15 minute interview, ideally over a video-conference platform like Zoom. Ask open ended questions that will help validate whether or not the assumptions you made were true. Do a few interviews, then revise your persona.
2. Guerrilla interviews. Leave the office. Go out in the world. Find a place your theorized content consumer probably hangs out, then ask random people if they have a few minutes to chat. Interview a few people who qualify, then revise your persona.

2. Research content from your competition

Let’s say you researched your audience, and found that they really need and want content about XYZ.

You know they love articles and videos from YourCompetitor.com and OtherCompetitor on YouTube. Now it’s your job to dig into the content on both of those places and make notes about what they do well, what you could do better, and kind of content about [your topic] is totally missing from the internet.

The goal is to compare:

• What information your audience wants
• Whether or not that information already exists

Then —>

• Figure out how you can fill a gap in information, or create the same information in a new and insightful way.

⚠️ I’ve already written a detailed post on how to do a competitive analysis like a Content Strategist. Read the full post here.

3. Create Core Strategy Statements

Woohoo! You did it. You’ve got plenty of information now to figure out the best type of content to create for your business. You know who your content is for, what they need, and what content you can create to give them what they need in a unique way.

Use the information you now have to fill in the template below that begins with a core strategy statement at the top, with specific content types, topics, and channels below.

If you have a few different business goals or products, you might create a few of these statements. That’s great. In fact, you can then use those different statements to come up with content categories and strategically group that content together. For example, if you’re creating a blog, you might end up with three different main blog categories.

Here’s a sample strategy statement for a fictional dog trainer:

Our content helps new puppy owners with bad puppy behavior by providing information so they can train their dog at home, understand the benefits of training, and ultimately sign up for puppy training class.

An example for each column:

Content types: Videos

Topics: Puppy training basics

Channels: YouTube

This will help guide your content efforts so that everything you create is purposeful, useful and valuable to a specific audience, and directly supports business growth.

4. Plan for the most efficient workflow possible

Lots of people have opinions about content. Maybe your CEO, product team, and PR person would all like to give input on content. That’s nonsense.

When there are too many opinions involved in content, you get nothing but confusion and wasted time.

Instead, come up with a workflow that is as simple as possible and ongoing, to bake in measurement and learning into the process. Each step requires no more than one person. Some steps can even be the same person.

It’s also smart to decide how much time each part should take. You’ll probably learn as you go, but having a workflow that’s as specific as possible helps you keep things moving smoothly (again, it’s all about saving time and money).

With a more strategic approach, you’ll create content that supports business growth and engages your audience.

Instead of brainstorming, guessing, and crossing your fingers until something works, create content that’s driven by research and strategy. It’s worth noting that this process could be down within a few weeks, with just a few people, and zero budget. Strategic content is for anyone who wants to put in the work and reap the benefits.

Leave your thoughts or questions below, or Tweet them out to @veronica_avo. And don’t forget to clap 👏👏👏👏