Jennifer Wallace
Maybe you’ve heard of content mapping before, but you’re still not quite sure what it is or why you need it. This article is for you! We’ll cover what content mapping is, why it’s important, and talk about the steps involved. Some of the steps even have steps – but don’t worry – if you focus on one at a time you won’t be overwhelmed.
We’ll also talk about the different stages of the funnel: ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu. No, they’re not alternative soy products! We’ll give you a good list of content mapping tools and then talk you through some content mapping templates that are available. Let’s dig in!
Content Mapping and its Importance
First, what is it? Website content mapping is a well thought out plan to create relevant and helpful content for your intended audience, regardless of what stage they’re at in the sales funnel. It’s designed to deliver the perfect content to the perfect audience at the perfect time.
Content mapping is important because it’s a helpful way to avoid turning off potential customers by being too salesy up front. Think about it: when you’re at the very beginning stages of trying to find a solution to a problem, do you want to be overwhelmed by companies trying to get you to buy their product? Or do you just need help with the issue first?
Content mapping allows you to know what content to provide at each stage, and each piece of optimized content is created specifically to help your buyer.
Get to Steppin’: Content Mapping
There are several steps to content mapping – so we’d better get to steppin’! In fact, there are steps within steps but don’t worry, we’ll break it down for you a little bit. If you want a more detailed description of the content mapping process, click here for Semrush’s informative article on content mapping.
Step 1: Conduct a Lot of Research
There are several things you’ll need to research here before you can create a full-bodied content map. Here are the “steps within steps” for the research process:
- Identify the two most important parts of your content strategy: the business purpose behind it and the value it provides your target audience. Who do you want to help? Why would you like to help them, and how do you plan to do it? What business results are you looking for?
- Research your target audience and segment it. Use data customer surveys or interviews, Google Analytics, and social media analytics to gather as much info on them as you can.
- Create “buyer personas” and “reader personas.” This step can be a lot of fun! You’ll want to create your personas based on the research you did. Create demographic data and professional data. You’ll also want to think about their values and goals, pain points, sources of influence, and shopping habits. Only include actionable insights!
- Write up the storyline for your content marketing campaign. Write out your brand story and focus on the value of your company beyond the products you offer. Think about your brand’s tone and personality.
- Start mapping out your customer journey. Think about the real paths that your customers follow and how they interact with your brand at each step. Consider their thoughts, feelings, and actions, and list potential types of content for each of them.
Step 2: Make a Plan of Action
You’re halfway there! Now all you have to do is some planning. The second step is where you begin fine-tuning the details of your content map so it can be as amazing and effective as you want it to be. Here’s how to plan your content map:
- Map your content marketing funnel strategy. ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu aren’t soy products: they’re an abbreviation for “top of the funnel,” “middle of the funnel,” and “bottom of the funnel.”
- ToFu is when your potential customers have become aware of a problem and are looking for information on it. Many customers focus on research through how-to guides at this step.
- MoFu is when they’ve got a clearer understanding of their problem and are considering solutions. Customers spend part of their time researching “how to” guides and the other part looking at product overviews.
- BoFu is the final step when people are ready to make a purchase. During this step, they’re no longer looking at “how-to” guides and have moved on to product overviews, customer reviews, and success stories.
- List the topics that you want to focus on. Start with broader themes and work your way to more specific topics. You should check your customer research and have a talk with your customer-facing teams for this step. First, create topic clusters, and then expand your keyword lists for each cluster.
- Research your opportunities to promote and repurpose content. You should think about the types of content you have, take your budget into consideration, and mull over what your target audience’s preferences are. Just because you’ve created a blog for a piece of content doesn’t mean that’s where it ends. It can be repurposed into an eye-catching video or a social media post. The possibilities are endless!
- Summarize all your hard work in an epic calendar. You’ll need to include your topic ideas, keywords, formats, buyer personas, funnel stages, how to repurpose the content, promotion ideas, and metrics. If you have a way to load all of that content ahead of time and then schedule your posts, even better!
- Decide how you want to measure your content. In this step, you’ll identify your primary success metrics (for example, leads), secondary success metrics (for example, engagement), as well as your key goals.
Step 3: Implement Your Content Map
This is the best part! You get to implement your content map and start cranking out content for it. Use those keywords that you’ve worked so hard to find, and write SEO-friendly content. Don’t forget to check your metrics often to see where you need to improve and where you’re killing it.
(Psst: If you don’t feel like writing out all that content, we totally know a guy. And a gal. Several people, actually. Just request a demo if you don’t believe us.)
Content Mapping Tools that Kick Butt
Semrush has a ton of content mapping tools, including their Marketing Calendar and Topic Research tools.
In addition to those, you can try:
- Aytm for customer surveys. They’re affordable, fantastic, and use leading technology for their surveys. You’ll know the cost up-front with their instant quote tool, which makes it easy to budget for.
- Google Analytics. (You’re probably already using this, but we thought it was worth a mention). Google Analytics helps track your website’s visitor behavior and analyzes your audience.
- Social media analytics. Facebook Audience Insights, Instagram Account Insights, Twitter Analytics, and TikTok Analytics help you see what your audience and followers are doing.
- ImpactHero. This tool maps your content-to-customer journey stages and provides actionable insights and recommendations to improve content performance.
Content Mapping Templates Make it Easier
In addition to the helpful tools we’ve talked about above, Semrush has a content mapping template bundle with templates for your buyer personas, customer journeys, content funnel, content calendar, and content marketing metrics. Other content mapping templates are available at Demand Metric, American Marketing Association, and Uberflip.
Conclusion
Content mapping doesn’t have to be mystifying. With enough research and planning, you can map out the content for your business. You’ll be able to attract and keep your leads while generating interest for other potential customers. Try content mapping today and see how far it can take your business! And as we said, if you need someone to write your content, we know just the writers to help.
