We’ve just added a new budgeting line item in our marketing plan: Content Marketing Research & Development (R&D).
What’s the idea?
Let’s start with the content marketing strategy. Of course, we have:
- Customer Personas
- Their Informational Needs
- The Content Strategy
- Calls to Action
- Content Creation and Sourcing
- Key Distribution Points
- Syndication/Repurposing Opportunities
- Community-Building Activities
- Feedback Mechanisms
- and more
That’s our standard content marketing strategy. But over the past few years there have always been certain “test” projects that fall outside the scope of the strategy. Experimentation for growth let’s call it. These include:
- Second-Tier Prospect Content Strategies
- Online Content Products that fall outside the main .com sites
- Data-Driven Tools
- Intense Repurposing (testing new online channels with content pockets)
These are not primary activities, but could be someday. But we need to test them, and they need funding, just like you would fund a startup company. They also need attention.
So, we’ve allocated funds for 2011 specifically for these activities. We now believe that these activities should be part of the content marketing process. We are planning about 10 – 20% of our content marketing budget to go toward content marketing R&D.
How about you?
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