Tim Hanson

Look often. With clients I'm often looking 1-2 times a month at a new competitor. And we revisit old competitors every 2-3 months. See what they're doing. What are they ranking for? Have the increased content production? Does it seem to be working for them? Using a tool like Ahrefs to keep tabs on them makes it much easier.

Biggest mis-conception: They've got it right. Just like you, everyone is making a load of best guesses and putting a flag on what is both ambitious, but also doable. Whilst competitive research is great, remember your IRL competition is not always your search/content competition. Companies who seem like competitors could actually be great partners.

The questions you actually want to ask should be along the lines of - What have you tried? What worked, what didn't and what would you change if you were to do it again? - Where do you core audience live on the internet? Is it a forum, a specific social channel? - Do you have someone posting there? Are you taking content you already have and using that messaging on that platform? Get deep into what they already know about their audience and you'll learn so much more than asking a load of questions around terminology and numbers. Once you know the audience you can work out what needs to be created for that audience. Remember, meet your audience where they already are. Don't try to bring them to you.

In 2023/2024 most content strategies should start with personal brands. In one way or another, getting close to your core audience is only going to give you powerful ammo for the direction you go in next. Learning what resonates with an audience who already loves you will help your messaging when it comes to moving to longer timeline channels (search, youtube etc) In a nutshell, the smaller the pricetag, the less hands on your sales cycle needs to be. Search wins well here. For something more expensive, or an ongoing subscription you're going to want to address concerns and hurdles people have before they goet on a call. Sales enablement and how to guides (with your product first) help eliviate these problems.

Content strategy is going to be different for every one out there. And every person who has won with a content strategy will be jaded and bias toward their own experience. This isn't a bad thing. But, remember to not get blinded into only considering one thing. Start with what you know, and learn how it supports other avenues of strategy and work. A great SEO strategy will give you content to push on social. A great social strategy will give you content that resonates hard and is worth owning on a longer timeline. Know your strengths and how you suport and prop up others.

The way I've always done it to gain clients is by talking about the impact your traffic got. If you landed 2 core clients for the business, but you only got 2,000 impressions/clicks then you talk about the business impact. Always ask yourself why the achievement is important to the business. Start with answering "this enabled us to....." You'll get much closer to what matter and why it was a needed step for the company.