These are the questions I ask myself when developing a multi-platform content roadmap:
1) What are the most important goals in the next 3 to 6 months and how can content support that?
Although every business wants product-market fit and cashflow, prioritization makes it easier to understand what type of content to develop in the short-term.
Do we want new users? Create content that supports their journey in the form of:
- Self-help documentation and a troubleshooting-focused FAQ/knowledge base
- Tutorial videos and step-by-step guides
- A live weekly onboarding to double as community-building resource, which can be reposted as video content
- In-product hints and guides
- A glossary of terms
Do we want to build a sense of community in the niche? Create content that makes it clear you understand what their needs are:
- Write case studies on how users are succeeding in their goals by using your product
- Ask founders to share their personal stakes in the niche or industry, and how the product is shaped by their own problems
- Provide free templates or quick-launch blueprints for ultra-specific use cases (IE: landing page templates from a no-code builder; industry-specific dashboard layouts for an analytics tool)
If the answer is - “we’re doing all of this all at once”, frame the question to: “what do we need to do in the next 6 months to make sure this startup keeps going?”.
Prioritization is crucial to really understand where to place your content investment.
Business objectives are the “why” of the content roadmap
It identifies clear content deliverables and formats on how to meet those objectives. Why are we creating FAQ instead of blogs? Why are we building a Slack community instead of getting an email list?
2) What is everyone else on the team doing? How can content make their life easier?
The previous multi-platform approach was deciding you wanted to send weekly emails and use LinkedIn or X to post external links from your site to funnel people back to your blog.
The new multi-platform approach is understanding that the platforms are actually determined by where your users currently are, and where your team members are getting their work done.
Is sales trying to win subscriptions from KOLs (key opinion leaders) on LinkedIn? Maybe it’s time to:
- Showcase user wins on LinkedIn with quick graphics
- Share snippets of a podcast episode, video, or live call with a customer that address the KOL’s common point of doubt
- Sharing “theoretical” features within the community to gauge user interest
Is the product team pushing Git updates and linking them through X? What about:
- Creating invites for an X Circle headed by the founders or the community team to get more live feedback on the product
- A/B testing landing page versions and asking for feedback on which one resonates more with them
Embracing a cross-departmental collaboration is the “how” and “where” of the content roadmap
It identifies clear distribution channels, as well as native formats such as a LinkedIn post, creating a dedicated Discord server, or an X Circle.
3) What’s the one thing that we are trying to solve?
I know the product doesn’t just do one thing. It doesn’t solve just one feature.
A lot of founders are apprehensive to be really specific with their messaging in fear of alienating the total addressable market.
The point isn’t to reduce the product’s essence and oversimplify it. The goal is to narrow down the product’s messaging focus so that it speaks directly and precisely to its end-users.
A hyper specific problem-solution fit, even if it doesn’t work, provides a much better signal than a broad swiss-knife situation.
The core problem that you’re trying to solve is the “what” of your content roadmap
It provides a central message to your content. What problems are you addressing? What will an outsider say about your company, at first glance?
Real-world examples
Using content to improve onboarding efficiency and reduce redundancy in support: Abacus
What are the goals?
The business goal:
To support what the sales and marketing associates were planning for the following month. I specifically asked about:
- What services are most commonly inquired about by new clients?
- What services do you typically upsell them on after getting their business?
- What target audience are you likely working on next?
The content goal:
- To serve as onboarding documents for new clients
- To eventually create a knowledgebase based on the most commonly asked questions from support and sales
- To create resources that sales can share on calls, and that prospects can share within their own organizations
How can content support that?
Abacus had a relatively small team of technicians and engineers. Majority of them worked on tier 1 support where they’d be taking in calls from clients of their Abacus IT plan – which is a monthly virtual tech support plan for SMBs.
Aligning the website, email, and social media content with sales ensured that clients entering the pipeline at that stage would have actionable resources relevant to their interactions with other Abacus touchpoints.
What is everyone on the team doing?
Abacus’ team primarily cold contacted business owners of their targeted industry.
I ideated and developed knowledge base content that Abacus associates can share on their calls as onboarding information and ungated resources.
What’s the one thing we are trying to solve?
Abacus is a service provider with multiple services. In keeping with the idea of speaking directly to the user’s needs, the “problem” we were trying to solve every month revolved around:
- The industry and decision makers that the sales team was prospecting in
- The specific solution, software, or offering that Abacus was selling that month
The general approach was to:
- Research the common pain points of these industries or KOI (key opinion leaders)
- Create BOFU content that directly addresses their pain points through a series of interconnected pillar-cluster article
Here are some examples:
For disaster recovery-as-a-service:
For a service-specific approach:
- IT Business Continuity During Hurricane Season
- IT Disaster Recovery Templates: How To Write One From Scratch
- What Should An IT Disaster Recovery Plan Include
- How to Test a Disaster Recovery Plan
For SMBs looking to set up their small business network:
For an audience-specific approach:
- How to Set Up a Small Business Network with Windows Server
- The Difference Between Datto SIRIS and Datto ALTO
- How Much Does a Server Cost for a Small Business?
- How Do I Set Up a VPN for My Small Business?
Using content to support outbound sales initiatives and to build a sense of understanding with end-users: Writrly
What are the goals?
The business goal:
To acquire new startups and businesses as paying customers for our monthly content subscription
The content goal:
To demonstrate that our cross-functional, full-stack content team was better in supporting the VP/Head of Marketing’s needs
How can content support that?
I identified three beliefs decision-makers had around content:
- No one ever reads our content, but we have to do it anyway so that we look alive to customers
- Content is king. But never really integrating it in the rest of the organization
- The process of making great content is too time-consuming
I positioned the content around these three beliefs and wrote articles like:
- Ask the Expert: Building Credibility with Empathy through Content with Physician-Directed Interviews
- Content Marketing Topics for MSPs: Different Kinds of Content to Write and How to Write Them
- How To Get The Most Out Of Your Startup Content
What is everyone on the team doing
My cofounder and I identified two niches each that we wanted to target. I chose e-learning platforms and MSPs because we already had access to clients with an ongoing backlog of work.
It was easy for me to produce a proof of concept, and create case studies to highlight how investing in content can support their sales and marketing efforts.
I linked these articles in customized email campaigns to:
- Provide cold-hard proof that we can solve their problems
- That we have experience working with their industry, and need little to no onboarding time
- That we had an innate understanding of their problems
What’s the one thing we are trying to solve?
The key messaging was hyperspecific to whichever industry or leader I was speaking to.
Here are two different emails, with different positioning based on the receiver's job description.
In this example, I was reaching out to Technical Leads in MSPs whose main CTA was free consults.
I learned from Abacus IT that it was time-consuming to convert new prospects to paying customers, and that majority of their revenue came from existing contracts upselling or buying new products.
The email above was sent to Marketing VPs/Heads/Directors or cofounders who doubled as the Marketing lead.
I highlighted their common reservations, and directly addressed how Writrly could be a good alternative.
Why I didn’t focus on tying content to ROI
Tying to ROI is abstract. When working with business owners, they want nothing more than ROI, but the decision-makers are often VPs or Heads of Marketing with immediate and concrete problems around marketing like having difficulty scaling, or not knowing how to introduce subject matter expertise onto the content.
Even though ROI is the end-goal for buying a service, there is often a much more obvious, tangible, and painful problem that they’re experiencing in their day-to-day.