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Our top content strategy secret for startups

Julie Ewald blogging, content strategy Leave a Comment

Team Impressa works with a lot of startups, and most of them face very similar challenges. The issue, essentially, is that there’s a lot that needs to be done, and the internal team is too small to tackle everything themselves. This includes content strategy.

To cut to the chase, our secret is to not do everything yourself!

Many startups come to us because they’re just starting to catch on to this. They may want to outsource blog writing, but they’re still chewing on every other marketing task themselves–and realizing it’s not working. They cannot make a strategy or effectively execute it.

Stick to your strengths.

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The problem is that these startup teams aren’t only spread too thin, but their knowledge and capacity for some of the stuff they are trying to do themselves isn’t too solid.

While I’m all for trying new things and taking a stroll outside your comfort zone, moving too far outside of your wheelhouse on something important could end up seriously stunting the growth of your very young startup.

Content strategy, influencer outreach, content creation, and other stuff centered around marketing is very vital, and if you don’t know what you are doing, you could be botching things. This sounds super Negative Nancy, but it’s true.

Armed with only part of the picture and some of the information, you could be nudged in the right direction, but you aren’t aware of what else you should be doing. Missed opportunities, missteps, and half-hearted efforts could lead to negligible results (despite a lot of effort) or negative results (despite best intentions). This could be a killer if your startup is trying to woo funding or find it’s way into an accelerator.

Sticking to your strengths is much more beneficial.

If you don’t have a marketer on your team, don’t try to make your own marketing plan. If you don’t have someone who’s a solid writer on your team, definitely outsource blog writing and other content creation.

Fill in the gaps with outsourcing

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While I keep recommending outsourcing blogging and getting help with making your plan, you can outsource just about anything else too.

Of course, you may not have the budget to outsource everything else, so be selective. Start by outsourcing the stuff that will help you to have the highest ROI.

For instance, if your startup is an app that needs some heavy coding and you have one coder, don’t have him or her try to figure out personas or positioning. Their contribution to the project by coding is really important, so pay someone else to handle making an editorial calendar.

Another example: You need to build your customer base up before a big investor takes the bait. Snagging a professional marketer or agency to get the word out and drive sales is a much better spend than hiring someone to take on tasks you all can do quite well, but just don’t enjoy.

So there you go! As you are launching and  growing your startup, don’t do it all yourself–especially where your strategy is involved. Snagging some help has been what so many startups needed to do before they could start to blow up.

 

Speaking of content strategy, we have a free Content Story Organizer that can help you map out the hole-free content journey for your all your content themes. Tap the image below to download the superb worksheet.

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