Content Mapping Template: Personalize Framework for Marketing
April 19, 2022
“What kind of support do you need to be insanely successful after you become our customer?”
Depending on who you ask and the circumstances, the above question will spark radically different reactions.
You’ll do great if you say this in a meeting to close a sale with an interested prospect. But if you throw it at a random person walking by your store, they might walk away faster.
The secret to effectively building trust, fostering relationships, and progressing prospects along the buyer’s journey is customization, and content marketing is no different.
Perfecting each piece of content won’t make any difference if it’s not aligned with a specific problem to a specific audience at a specific time. This is what we call Content Mapping Framework, just another marketing buzzword.
People hate how their digital footprints are being tracked, yet they expect personalized experiences at every stage in their buying journey. In fact, a lack of content generates 83% lower response rates in an average marketing campaign.
This is why blending a content map into the marketing strategy is key and will pay off for years to come.
So, let’s get into it.
What is Content Mapping?
Content mapping is the strategic process of aligning your content with your audience’s problem and buyer journey stage to ensure it’s helpful, relevant, informative, and timely.
Download Chasm’s Content Mapping Template now and follow along to create a content map of your own.
Why Is Content Mapping So Important?
While the idea of personalization isn’t new and certainly makes sense to most tech businesses, many still don’t know how to go about it, and the result is businesses pumping out content they believe is great but might not necessarily be meaningful to their visitors.
Essentially, content mapping paves the way to better content creation while stepping away from the one size fits all approach. Ensuring that each prospect is gradually moving through the sales funnel towards buying your product and each piece of content is optimized to serve a particular purpose.
The result is:
- Ability to identify gaps in the content strategy
- A better understanding of customers
- A laser-focused content that effectively guides customers through the funnel
Who Creates the Content Map?
Content mapping is usually the responsibility of whoever oversees the content program within the business. It can be the Content Director, Content Strategist, Content Marketer, or even the Marketing Manager.
How to use content mapping to create new and valuable content
Identify Your Buyer Persona to Understand Your Audience
Content maps and personas go hand in hand. To create a useful and accurate content map, you need to develop an in-depth buyer persona first. Consider details like age, interests, spending power, role in the buying process, goals, barriers, etc., to accurately understand your target customers.
Create a Customer Journey Map
At this stage, your goal is to document the journey your customer takes to buy your product, which outlines your brand’s unique purchase funnel and how your ideal customer moves through it.
There are four major stages of a sales funnel:
- Awareness
- Engagement
- Evaluation
- Purchase
- Post-purchase
But, at this step, your goal is to document the journey your customer takes to buy your product and how they move through the above stages. Knowing where your customers are and how they move allows you to deliver more targeted content for faster and smoother movement along the funnel.
Let’s take a further look into each phase and the type of content that works best for it.
1. Awareness
This is the top of the funnel part where new audiences are attracted to find answers to the questions they ask after they realize they have a need. Content that works best for this stage includes:
- Blog posts
- Videos and Social media Posts
- Interactive content
- Infographics
2. Engagement
The audience at this stage needs to be entertained so they don’t lose interest in your brand when they are ready to buy. Engagement content typically includes:
- Newsletters
- Blog Posts
- Videos and Social Media Posts
3. Evaluation
Prospects now are at the middle of the funnel, ready to decide whether your product is a fit for what they need. Evaluation content typically includes:
- Landing pages
- Case studies
- Buying Guides / Product Catalogues
- Datasheets
- Reviews and testimonials
- Webinars
4. Purchase
Your ready-to-buy customers now need to feel confident enough actually to make the purchase. They are at the bottom of the funnel, and the best-suited content includes:
- Sales pages
- Free trial pages
- Reviews
- Live demos
- Free consultations
- FAQs
Content Mapping Template
Take advantage of Chasm’s Website Content Mapping Template to help guide the content creation process.
Download Content Map Template Now
Use the above template to analyze your current content as well, which will allow you to identify any gaps you might have in the customer journey and adjust it accordingly.
How to Use the Content Mapping Template
To help with the content strategy map for your team, we’ve created a downloadable template that is similar to a grid system. The buyer persona is at the start where you need to provide a brief overview about them, and as you move from left to right, you’re effectively moving down the funnel.
With that said, it’s time to analyze your current content. If it’s not meeting your objectives, it’s time to scrap it and start fresh with a cohesive content strategy that attracts and retains your ideal customers and complements your digital marketing efforts.
