From Zero to Soaring: How Startups Can Create a Content Marketing Strategy on the Fly

Nothing.

That’s what I find in many early-stage startups’ content libraries when we first start working with them. It’s not their fault — many don’t have a full-time marketer, while others have a one-person band who’s frantically juggling content creation, social media, lead generation, and who knows what else. 

I don’t panic when I see this, and neither should you. Yes, hitting those lead generation and pipeline goals relies on great content. But building your content marketing plane while flying it doesn’t have to be as scary as you think. 

How do you build a content marketing strategy from the ground up? 

There are three key steps: assemble the crew, navigate turbulence, and make your audience feel like they’re flying first class.

Step #1 – Assemble the crew (AKA Do an audience deep-dive and flesh out an initial strategy) 

Startups working with us (or a recently hired in-house content marketer) have the crew. Now, you have to get the passengers onboard. This is where you dive deep into your audience and why your product or solution is the right choice for them. Don’t have a messaging house or formal brand guidelines to share? That’s OK — lots of startups don’t. Fortunately, sharing what you do, why it’s valuable, and how you want to present yourself to the world can be accomplished by going through your first call deck and leaving plenty of time for Q&A. 

Well-versed content marketers know how to get to the heart of the matter. Be prepared to answer some 30,000-foot questions that will help your content marketers land on a strategy with precision, like: 

• “Who’s your target persona and what keeps them awake at night?”
• “Why do you win and lose deals?”
• “What are prospects’ most common questions and objections?”
• “What’s the biggest difference between you and the competition?” 
• “Are you seeing greater interest from a particular industry?”

However, even the best content marketers can’t fill your library overnight. As a result, your content marketing strategy should start with a few of the most crucial assets and gain some initial momentum. For example, when a client tells me they desperately need leads — but don’t have a lead generation magnet to convert them — I know exactly where to start. The audience deep dive above helps me identify what format and topic to focus on. From there, it’s a matter of following best practices, like an email nurture for anyone who fills out the form and derivative top-of-funnel assets to drive more traffic to the lead generation magnet’s landing page.

Step #2 – Navigate the turbulence (AKA Always be ready to pivot)

Even the best-laid flight plans encounter turbulence. The same goes for content marketing strategies. For example, you may have drafted a fantastic case study that will resonate deeply with your target audience — only to have it stuck in a Google Doc because the customer is too busy to approve it. Things like this will always happen, so be prepared to pivot. 

In this case, increase the delays in your email nurture or re-arrange the order so that the email with a CTA to the case study is later in the drip, giving your busy customer more time to respond. If that won’t buy you enough time, see if the busy customer will approve a short testimonial so you have some kind of social proof to share until the case study is done. Or, determine if another customer has a case study-worthy story and isn’t as busy. Is it ideal? No. Do you feel like you’re flying by the seat of your pants? Yeah. But there’s always a solution.

One way to navigate the turbulence is to build your content funnel in reverse. By starting with bottom-funnel assets and working your way up, you will always have a place for your audience to go next. Starting at the top of the funnel can cause undue pressure to create what’s next and there will always be turbulence that gets in the way. This reverse-funnel plan isn’t always feasible (if you need leads right now, you need a middle-funnel lead generation magnet right now) but if it is, strongly consider it.

Step #3 – Make prospects feel like they’re flying first class (AKA Segment, measure, and optimize) 

No matter how well you know your audience or how carefully you’ve crafted every asset, success is not guaranteed. The data always tells the real story, so performance analysis is a crucial component of your content marketing strategy. After all, even the most informed hypothesis about what will resonate with your audience is still just a guess. You have to see how it actually performs before you can declare victory. 

Content performance can suffer from a near-endless array of things, but one of the most common is that it’s not segmented. For example, your product or solution may apply to both the CISO and the CFO, but your conversation with each is very different. If you try to talk to both in a single asset, neither will feel like you’re speaking to them. The same goes for industries — if you try to solve challenges for healthcare and public sector in one asset, both will tune out. The best way to make your audience feel like they’re flying first-class is to laser-focus on solutions to their specific problems and answers to their questions. Yes, this means having a content funnel for each target persona and industry. But the extra time and effort you spend creating separate journeys is well worth it.

If you’re starting from scratch, pick one persona or industry. Maybe you’ll start with the CFO because they own the budget. Or maybe you’ll pick healthcare because they have a shorter sales cycle than public sector. Whatever you pick, do it strategically.

The beauty of starting with a segmented campaign is that you can: 

• Keep your focus on one specific audience (instead of trying to create everything for everyone)
• Analyze the data
• See what worked
• Use the learnings to optimize
• Launch similar campaigns for other personas and industries

This makes your content marketing strategy much faster and easier to execute than building lots of campaigns from the ground up.

There’s Joy in Building While Flying 

Yes, creating your content marketing strategy from scratch can be stressful. That’s why celebrating the small wins is so important. Just published your first blog post? Sent out your first newsletter? Generated the first lead with your ebook? Take a moment to pat yourself on the back. With each piece of content, you’re building something meaningful. So buckle up, embrace the process, and soon you won’t just be flying — you’ll be soaring.

Need some helping hands with your content marketing strategy? Firebrand’s content marketing experts know how to help startups of all sizes strategize, scale, and succeed.