Content mapping enables you to deliver highly targeted, personalized content to leads and prospects at every stage of the buyer’s journey, encouraging them to make a purchase.
This article will show you how to use content mapping to get the most out of your content marketing efforts. We’ll go over the following points:
- What is content mapping, and how does it work?
- Content mapping’s advantages
- Steps to Content Mapping: How to Make a Content map strategy
- Content mapping tools
What is a content map?
Proper content mapping strategically lays out the customer journey and shows how every content affects and supports the customer journey. It helps you link each piece of content to a specific conversion funnel stage and visualize opportunities to meet your audience’s needs better.
Creating a content map will help you understand:
- Where does your content engage customers in the funnel?
- How does your content help customers in getting what they need at each stage?
- How can you more effectively guide customers through the customer journey?
A content map is a strategy for delivering the appropriate content to the relevant users at the right time. It envelopes the type of person who will consume the content and their lifecycle stage.
The goal of content mapping is to target content based on:
- A buyer persona is a fictional character who represents the person who will consume the content.
- The buyer’s lifecycle, i.e., how close they are to making a purchase.
Let’s take a look at these two characteristics right now.
Buyer personas
Buyer personas are a made-up, generalized depiction of your ideal website user. They help you better understand your audience, making it easier to tailor content to different groups’ specific needs, behaviors, and concerns.
The most effective buyer personas are based on market research and feedback from your actual blog readers or shoppers (through surveys, reviews, etc.). Depending on your industry, you may have as few as one or two personas or as many as dozens.
Life cycle
You need to know who someone is and where they are in the conversion funnel (i.e., how close they are to converting).
We’ve divided this cycle into three stages for our Content Mapping guide: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.
Awareness: the user has realized and expressed symptoms of a potential problem or opportunity.
Consideration: They’ve clearly defined and named their problem or opportunity.
Decision: They’ve defined their solution strategy, method, or approach.
Website Content Mapping involves planning web pages, blog posts, and offers you’ll publish on your website then determining which buyer personas those pages and posts will serve.
However, before you can write all of that content, you must first create a content map. Luckily, we can give you an idea of a content map that resonates with your audience using the suitable content mapping template.
To Contents ↑Why create a content map?
Content maps are designed to help you start writing content with a clear understanding of your site’s goals and the content you need to produce.
- Content mapping aids technology selection
You can choose the content management system that best meets your content’s needs when you know the site’s content’s direction and potential requirements. It will be easier for you to choose a blog theme to solve your content generation and traffic monetization issues. You’ll also understand your web hosting needs immediately.
- Content mapping fosters collaboration
A common language and vision of how everything works together can foster collaboration and new ideas among everyone involved in the website creation process.
- Gaps and opportunities in content mapping
Visualizing your content can help you identify content gaps and opportunities for new content.
Everyone on the internet seems to have their interpretation of what a content gap is.
The content gap refers to the difference between what people seek and what they find online. According to this assumption, the gap represents a topic people seek information on, but there is insufficient content to meet current demand.
To others, a content gap is a competitor analysis. You examine your competitor’s content structure to identify topics and keywords for which they are currently ranking higher to target them with your new content.
These two points of view are partially correct, but they ignore the needs and goals of the blog reader. They fail to demonstrate how relevant a piece of content is to a company’s customer at any point during their journey.
To Contents ↑What You Need to Get Started with Content Mapping
Producing content is a difficult task. It’s a good idea to surround yourself with good people who can help you scale content production effectively.
To satisfy visitors at various stages of the funnel, you’ll need to employ various techniques.
Anyway, there are six steps to using this tool successfully.
Develop a Buyer Persona
The first step is to understand your target demographic. In short, a buyer persona is a profile of your target market. It describes what potential customers want to see, know, and need.
There are several different things that you will discover thanks to this step:
Demographics – Including gender, age, location, marital status. Many businesses only consider demographics. These facts alone do not paint a complete picture of your target market.
Professional role – You will learn their industry, job title, company size, etc.
Goals and values – This is vital. Find out what your customers value the most. You will know what they want to see if you understand their mentality and lifestyle.
Buying habits – How much will they spend? Do they hesitate to buy a product? Do they individually buy?
You can create a buyer persona template yourself or find one on the internet.
To Contents ↑Create a Customer Journey Map
The next step is to create a customer journey map once you’ve determined your ideal buyer persona. Before purchasing a product from you, each potential buyer will go through a conversion funnel.
There are four different stages of a sales funnel:
- Awareness
- Engagement
- Evaluation
- Purchase
- Post-Purchase
For each stage of the funnel, you’ll be able to record some details. For example, you’ll learn which actions customers take, what thoughts and questions they have, where they spend the majority of their time, and so on.
Pick the best type of content for each phase of the customer journey
First-time visitors to your brand are attracted by awareness. They will have many questions before buying a product. This includes:
- Buying Guides
- Infographics
- Introductory videos
- FAQs
- Social Media Posts, etc.
Engagement is the next step! Remember that not every visitor will buy something from you right away. If the content on your website isn’t interesting and engaging, they won’t return.
This content includes:
- Interactive content
- Newsletters (ask visitors to subscribe to your email list)
- Engaging videos (short and informational)
- Blog Posts, etc.
Evaluation content is in the middle of the conversion funnel, where users decide if your brand is the right fit for them.
This includes:
- Reviews (Ask previous customers for feedback on the product and customer service.)
- Landing Pages
- Case studies
- E-books, etc.
The final stage is Purchase.
In this stage, content must be completely optimized to increase customer confidence in their decision. “How-to” guides are a good example:
- FAQs
- Landing/Sales Pages
- Free Trial Sign-Up Pages, etc.
But the Purchase is not the end. Yes, we’re all driven by conversion, but people like to be treated nicely. So, give them something more valuable and show them that you care. Post-purchase content examples:
- Coupons
- Surveys
- Emails
- User Guides
Also, keep in mind that customer service separates you from the crowd. The market is fiercer than ever. Many webmasters will have similar products. Adding value to your customers will entice them to return. They will appreciate your efforts to make them happier and more at ease.
Map content to relevant phases
It’s time to begin filling in the content map. As previously stated, different types of content are appropriate for different stages. While each phase operates independently, they are still inextricably linked.
Show them a lead magnet with a case study where you’ve provided a similar service if they read an article closely related to one of your services. You can invite them to follow you on social media, sign up for your newsletter, or refer them to another article on the topic.
All of this does not guarantee that everything you publish will produce positive results. Perhaps your visitors would prefer to interact with video posts rather than articles or blogs.
To Contents ↑Content Mapping Tools
Content mapping is a difficult task, but it doesn’t require special tools. We’ll start with the most basic tools, such as word processors and visualization software. Then using tools like a CRM, we’ll go over how to get the data you need to address different buyers.
Lucidchart
A flowchart tool is a must-have if you prefer visuals. Also, if you want to create a content map with lines and diagrams, you need something more than Microsoft Paint (Microsoft Paint is great, but it is not what you need). The Lucidchart flowchart maker is a top-notch tool that connects apps and services. It also allows collaboration like Google Docs.
Pricing: Free; $7.95/month (Individual); $9/month (Team)
HubSpot
HubSpot’s CRM collects data from current and potential customers. Names, emails, prior engagements, and website visits are all accessible in one place. HubSpot will help you identify customers at several stages of the conversion funnel so you can make data-driven decisions while creating your content map.
Pricing: Free
Any tool that supports diagramming and mind mapping will be enough. OmniGraffle (a Mac diagramming tool) and Balsamiq (a wireframing and prototyping tool) are two great tools for content mapping.
To Contents ↑Conclusion
There are hundreds of articles online on how to analyze your audience. But few people say that you already have a huge amount of information. When you understand what information is already there, you can determine which stages of your Customer Journet Map you’re most active in and where you lack communication with users. Content Mapping allows you to understand how to strengthen marketing and communication strategy for large news sites, online stores, educational portals, streaming services, and delivery services.
