Hi Scott – Good question. It wasn’t covered very well above, but we actually think the strategy tends to be part of the entire process. The reason we show it as the first step is you should really think about what you want to accomplish with content marketing before you even begin your research.

What do you hope will be different as a result of your content marketing? More traffic? More leads? Better rankings? etc. Once you have a decent vision or strategy in mind you can begin researching various ways to accomplish your goals.

But as you work through the various steps in the process, be willing to change your strategy based on what you have learned along the way.

Great piece. My only question has to do with the placement of “Strategy” in relation to “Research”. I wonder if there’s not some value in finding a way to express that there’s always an element of research pre-strategy.

E.g. if I don’t know where my customers are (through research) I don’t necessarily know what content strategy will best reach them.

Will