Cheat Sheet for Marketing Content Consistency

In my last post, Issues with Corp-sourcing Marketing Content, I suggested the idea of creating an editorial style baseline to keep your content on track with solution developers, brand stewards and legal folks. I thought it might be useful to show you why you need one and how to get started building a baseline to help you better connect with your prospects.

Marketers are starting to embrace the idea of nurturing over the long term. It's becoming obvious, as buyers take charge, that we have to engage with them across the entirety of the buying process. If your cycle time is 9 to 12 months, that can necessitate the development of a lot of content. Chances are that it will be created over time.

To more easily enable the creation of a consistent storyline when content is created over time, you need a guide—a cheat sheet, if you will.

An editorial style baseline can be thought of as the pro vs. con list you reference during content development to ensure consistency of storyline. It's your double-check list to make sure you've used the terms and ideas the same way for each part of the story you're telling your prospects. It's also the way you make sure your content doesn't slip back into company-focus which can diminish the levels of engagement you're working so hard to build.

Here's a simple example of an editorial baseline to get you started:

You can add elements to this list and include as much detail as you need. Add to it as you learn more about your prospects and refine your messaging over time. It's a good idea to create a baseline for each segment or nurturing track.

This helps you to train yourself and your writers about not only how to focus on your prospects' perspective, but also on adding value with each content asset you develop.

Make sure that before you publish your content, you've done a run through to make sure you've included the Pros and eliminated the Cons.

Comments

[Tim Holmes]

The cheat sheet has been really helpful.

[Kathleen]

Thank you for this article! I will take these ideas back to my clients to help them develop their content for their new web site and blog. It can be difficult to move away from what I like to call "ad speak," but so many consumers these days can smell a sales pitch a mile away! Having a baseline developed can be a giant leap toward staying away from the jargon and keeping it real.

[Melissa Paulik]

Very nice example that shows that your "baseline" need not be complex. You can also quickly cover things like which font type to use for external communications.

I'd also suggest adding the word "unparalleled" to your the "don't use" side of the list. To everyone but the one who wrote it, it screams "hyperbole!"