Content Strategy vs. Content Marketing – Wait, they’re Two Different Things?
Well, yes. While many people out there believe the two terms are interchangeable, they’re actually incredibly different ways to support the content we make. I like the way that Robert Rose from the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) describes the two as “magic markers and fine pens.” While content marketing is like magic markers, drawing bold and broad strokes, content strategy is a fine-tip pen; intricate, detail oriented, and discreet enough to appear seamless.
If content strategy is a frame, content marketing is the picture.
Traveling away from the land of metaphors, let’s discuss content strategy.
According to the Content Strategy website by Brain Traffic,
“Content strategy guides the creation, delivery, and governance of useful, usable content.”
Strategy can seem daunting and abstract at first, but it can be broke down into four main concepts:
Substance: What are you trying to say with your content?
Structure: How will you organize and present your content?
Workflow: What do you have to do, what will you use to maintain your content?
Governance: How are you making decisions about what to do next with your content?
A strategy must exist before any content does. It can seem tedious, but the results won’t let you down. With a content strategy in place, you’ll have a much more organized and substantial experience while delivering your content. You’ll understand what your website needs in order to flourish, like best SEO practices, website analytics, and a straightforward, engaging browsing experience for your users.
Think about how you put a website together: What are your top priorities? What do you want to create? What do you want to offer? All of those ideas require a structure to effectively communicate your message. And that message? It’s content marketing.
Content marketing is the actual creation and distribution of content. It’s how you reach your audience. This can range from blogs, videos, social media, newsletters etc. Content marketing does all the talking. This includes rollout of content, which is often mistaken as content strategy.
This is a great tool because it not only reaches your active customer or follower base, but it generates ripples to reach more and more people – it is a marketing technique after all.
Moz has a very simple, yet on-point graphic in their “Content Marketing” series, comparing and contrasting the two:
The venn diagram above depicts the central differences between the two, while highlighting their similarities:
Overall vision and goals
Audience research
Voice and style
Ideation
External governance
While content strategy and marketing are very different, one cannot exist without the other. They uplift one another and create a balance in the world of content.
Resources:
Content marketing – the free beginner’s guide from moz. (2015, November 11). Retrieved from https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-content-marketing
How content strategy and content marketing are separate but connected. (2015, April 02). Retrieved , from https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2013/10/content-strategy-content-marketing-separate-connected/
What is content strategy. (n.d.). Retrieved, from https://www.contentstrategy.com/what-is-content-strategy