Like everything else in this template, the storytelling style is optional and you should feel free to change it to suit your needs. This is where you pull together all of your research to define a starting point for your content strategy. It's the discovery phase and the part of the strategy where you bring all of the underlying assumptions to the surface.
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Contents.
To set the stage and make sure that you and the decisions makers you are working with are on the same page, describe the following:.
- Brand: How is the brand currently perceived? What are its specific value propositions? .
What is and is not going well with the brand's current content? .
- Goals: Where does the brand want to get to? Start to think about how content can and cannot help achieve those goals. For example, if the brand wants to enter into the Chinese market and earn $10m in sales in the next year, content (in Chinese) can help the brand build affinity. Content cannot (directly) help you make sure that new distributor is delivering parts on time.
- Setting: Is the brand operating solely online or does it have physical locations? How does this affect content opportunities and execution? Evaluate the channels the brand is using and the channels it should be using. This is where you also describe the current audience and the target audience.
- Competitors: Who has the brand identified as competitors? Who do you see as competitors? Give a brief overview of what they are doing well and poorly.
Note that because the rest of your strategy is built from here, you might want to get buy-in on these starting assumptions before you get too invested in moving forward. Although you may be working in-house, it's sometimes helpful to think of the decision makers who will have final say on the implementation of your strategy as clients. This allows you to more easily see processes from the outside-so you can get a better picture of problems and opportunities.