Content mapping: Who, what, where, when, why and how

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by Anna Munhin Jun 2, 2023 News
Content mapping: Who, what, where, when, why and how

Content can be created for every stage of the buyer's journey.

Content creation is never a guessing game, that's how you make it happen.

It is possible for your content to reach and impact your ideal customer, even if they just discovered your brand through your blog or are stuck on your product/service page.

You can use every piece of content you publish to speak to the heart of your prospects.

It's important to connect with your audience at the right time and place with every piece of writing.

What's the key to making this happen?

There is a map of content

What is a content map? 

A content map shows how your business will deliver content to your ideal customers no matter where they are in the buyer's journey.

Content maps plot out how your content will reach your audience at the right time and place.

It will show you how to personalize your content for different people.

It's a genius idea to create a map and a strategy.

What is content mapping?

Content map is the process of creating your ideal audience, the actions they may take at each buying stage, and how your content meshes with these things to nurture them towards an ultimate goal.

Content mapping is dependent on your business goals. The goal is to create a personalized content experience for your audience.

Content maps help you plan how you will support, nurture, engage, and draw in customers no matter where they are in their buying journey.

Why should you do content mapping?

Content mapping is important to make sure your content marketing is spread evenly.

It is good for your business as well as your customers. Let's take a closer look at the benefits.

Create more relevant content for each buying stage

A good content marketing strategy will help you reach your target audience.

Content mapping will help you create targeted content for your audience at every stage of the buying journey.

As your buyer becomes aware of a problem, consider their options, and make a decision on what to do about it, the buyer's journey is the process of research.

Buyers make their decisions through a variety of circumstances and actions. The buyer's journey is called that.

HubSpot - Buyer's journey
Source: HubSpot

Content mapping makes sure that you don't neglect your potential customer as they move forward on the path to purchase.

Some of the leads you attracted to your brand initially may fall into that gap if you have tons of blogs created for the awareness stage but not for the consideration stage. You helped them understand their problem but didn't show them how to solve it

There is another brand that could pick up where you left off. You've lost a customer.

A content map will help you stay with that customer until they make a purchase. It may have helped get them to that point.

It is powerful beyond belief.

Get more returns from each content piece

Content mapping can help you find a purpose behind your content.

Each one will match up with your goals, the target audience's needs, and the buying stage they're in.

Each piece pulls its weight even more.

It's a stark difference.

  • Hitting “publish” and praying the content helps your business in some way.
  • Or hitting “publish” and knowing exactly what that piece has the potential to do, and probably will do, in terms of results.

Get more engaged, invested, loyal customers

What do you think will happen when you give your buyers great content?

Equally engaged customers will be the result of the engagement, connection, and affinity you build.

You can deliver a great product or service at the end of it all.

Brand ambassadors are created by this method. Fans are beingraving. Customers are delighted.

Content mapping is meant to make sure you help your prospects at every step of the way. Customers who are wild about you will come from the personalization and care you give them.

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How to do content mapping

Are you ready to make a map?

You should have a content strategy in place before you begin. A lot of the work that will be done for you is related to your content strategy.

This guide will teach you a lot if you don't have a strategy yet. It may encourage you to make one quicker.

You will understand how to map each piece of content to each stage of the buyer's journey once you have completed your content map.

1. Who: Research your audience and create personas

The most important part of the puzzle is your target audience. You'll be lost if you don't have intricate knowledge of them.

You need to deliver personalized content to them at the right time and place if you want to understand their preferences.

How do you get that knowledge? Audience research

Researching the audience.

Don't think about what your audience is like. You need to test your assumptions and make sure they are accurate for accurate targeting and content mapping.

Audience research is about that. There are a number of ways to do it.

  • Check data that already exists about your audience in studies, statistics, reports, and surveys. This is helpful if your business is new and you don’t have an established following yet.
  • Conduct your own surveys, polls, and interviews with your audience. Get data from real customers (if you have them) and also leads, your social media followers, or people who have expressed interest in what you sell. 

Get insights from real people in your circle. It will make your persona more useful.

If you already have a content strategy in place, you are moving in the right direction. You have already done audience research and you have at least one persona ready to go that distills that research.

The buyer is a persona.

What do you do to make audience research more useful?

The buyer persona is a representation of real data about your audience. Your audience is made up of the same things.

Buyer persona
Source: Venngage

Most brands have a type of buyer who buys from them. Busy stay-at- home moms who run to Starbucks between school drop offs and soccer practices. It's a buyer persona.

If you have more than one type of ideal customer, you should create personas for them so you can map their buying journeys to your content. Starbucks may add a student to their roster.

2. What: Map out the buying stages of your persona(s)

The buying stages of each persona can be laid out after your personas are set.

The stages of the buyer's journey are the same as before.

  • Awareness: The buyer is aware they have a problem, but they don’t know what it is yet, or they can’t name it specifically. They are experiencing symptoms of a problem.
  • Consideration: The buyer has pinpointed the problem they’re dealing with. They can name it and define it. Now they’re looking at possible solutions.
  • Decision: The buyer has decided which solution to use and is comparing the best providers or products that offer that solution. 

There are different concerns, needs, questions, and goals in each stage of your persona. You should try to find these for each persona.

Let us return to the persona of the stay-at- home mother. We can sketch out possibilities for her buying journey based on the challenges and goals she has. Just one, here.

She is having a hard time finding time for herself during the day. She wants to be able to indulge herself.

  • Awareness: “How do I take time for myself?” 
  • Consideration: “I should schedule a break for myself during the day. What can I do that would relax me?”
  • Decision: “Getting a delicious coffee drink would help me slow down while I treat myself. Where should I go?”

3. Where/when: Map out content types and topics for each stage of the buyer’s journey

We can look at each stage individually to determine the type of content we can create for them.

Do you think about:

  • How can you address your buyer’s needs and goals at each stage with content?
  • What keywords might they be using at each stage to research their problem and its solution?

We will look at the types of content you can use to target your buyers in Awareness, Consideration, and Decision mode.

Content that helps more than one buyer fit in multiple stages.

Content about awareness.

Your audience should be informed by awareness content. It should help them understand what a problem is and what they should do about it.

There are different types of content.

Awareness topics can be examples.

  • 10 Ways to Take Time for Yourself by BetterUp
  • How to Save Money by Mint

Content consideration.

Your audience should be helped by consideration content. You can teach them all possible solutions to a problem and compare them. You could explain to them why it's the best solution.

Product reviews and comparisons are one of the types of content.

Some examples of consideration topics are given here.

Content of decision.

In order to convince your audience that your product or service is right for them, you need to provide decision content. The value and benefits of what you offer in a way that demonstrates your expertise is what this is about.

Product landingpages, testimonials and reviews, case studies, demos, and product features are some of the types of content.

Decision topics can be examples.

  • 12 Things That Only Ahrefs Can Do
  • Webflow’s landing page

4. How: Use your content map to evaluate existing content/plan new content

It is possible to take a snapshot of all the content you have produced and how it helps buyers with a content map.

If you notice gaps you need to fill, this will help you reach more buyers.

It helps if you group old content by buying stages.

First, look at all the content you have published and figure out which one is most likely to be addressed.

  • If the content fits more than one category, choose the category it helps the most.
  • If the content fits nowhere, add it to a list of possible content pieces to update. You could potentially edit that piece to be more targeted to a specific buying stage.

You can use your content map to plan new content.

You should have a good idea of the holes in your content strategy once you have categorized it.

First of all, you should fill those holes. You can use your map to find information.

Your map should have at least three types of information.

  • Your buyer personas.
  • The stages in your buyer journey mapped to content types.
  • The challenges, goals, and possible actions of each persona during each buying stage.

If you want to create personalized, targeted content for every stage of your buying journey, you need to use your content map.

  • Look at your persona and what they need at each stage, including the words they’re using to search for what they need.
    • Research these needs in a keyword tool to find opportunities for optimizing content.
    • Use these terms to find related topics you could also address.
  • Look at the best content types that will help your persona at each stage.
  • Brainstorm a combination of content topics + formats that will touch your persona at the right time to help them move forward in their journey.

5. Document everything in your content map

You can use a content map as a reference during the creation of your content.

It is important to document your map in a way that is easy to comprehend. As your content inventory grows, make sure you keep adding it.

You could create a spreadsheet that lists your personas, their challenges and goals, and the types of content you should create to target them. Both formats and topics should be included

Content map
Source: HubSpot

Start content mapping and create amazing customer experiences that lead to results

It can seem difficult to map content.

You need a content map to give your customers amazing content at every stage of their buying journey.

It is difficult to learn how to make one.

Once you have the strategy down, you will use your content map to understand your persona better, get major insights about their buying journey, and come up with content that is tailored to their needs.

As strategic as it gets, this is it. Strategy is what we know as results.

The guest author's opinions are not necessarily those of the search engine. There are staff authors here.