How to Prioritize Your Storytelling Efforts

Many organizations don’t know where to start with their content strategy. While you may have hundreds of stories to choose from, it’s important to select the ones that give you the highest return for your investment. Here are four tips to help you prioritize your storytelling efforts.

1. Define your mission
Without a content mission, your editorial runs the risk of becoming spread too thin with no reason for being. Look to your company’s mission/vision and values for clues on developing a content mission that’s fully aligned with your brand position. A best-practice content mission should demonstrate your position AND define how the content you produce will be helpful to your audiences.

2. Prove your position
You have less than 10 seconds to capture your customers’ attention, and your stories need to quickly communicate your distinct advantages. Comb through your website and identify areas where you’ve made a claim, then use an article to prove your point. For example, if you make “world-class” widgets, you might link to a story about how your products are used in different countries. Some ways to demonstrate your position include data, case studies and customer testimonials that validate your authority.

3. Align with audience interests
Prospects don’t buy a product or service without scouring the Internet for information that justifies their purchase. You can sway them in your direction through story topics that match their top search queries and answer their burning questions. You can use SEO tools like Moz or AnswerThePublic to identify their top search terms, or pull up your own Google Analytics to check what people are typing into the “Search” box on your website. Any of these resources will give you plenty of ideas to fuel a robust editorial calendar.

4. Repurpose popular topics
You don’t always need to reinvent the wheel with your stories. There’s nothing quite like taking an old, yet relevant and compelling, story and giving it a makeover. As long as you ensure the it still meets your audience’s needs with just a touch of elbow grease, repurposing saves you a lot of time and money. Some ideas for identifying recyclable content include:

• Add new insights to old blogs and republish them with a catchy title
• Take survey data and turn it into an infographic or whitepaper
• Turn a sales presentation into a how-to video
• Turn your company’s history into a visual timeline
• Find old photos and share them on social media for #ThrowbackThursday
• Leverage sales brochures to fill empty spots on your website

As always, your stories need to support your broader goals and content mission. We can help you build a strategy that aligns with your business objectives.

Do you need help with your content strategy? The best place to start is a conversation with our team. Connect with us today.