Content mapping is the process of understanding and organizing the flow of content for your website, nurturing campaigns or blog, so it can be presented to your audience (personas) based on their needs and stage in the buying cycle. Content means web copy, blog posts, videos, interactive presentations, social elements, diagrams or other pieces of information used to engaged users / visitors. Content mapping is closely related to Information Architecture and UI (user interface) design.
A content map in the context of buyer personas will help you organize content to answer questions at various stages of the buying cycle, and create a blueprint for content distribution through multiple channels, so that you are always delivering the right content, at the right time, on the right channel.
For example, earlier stage questions might be best answered on the blog, while a mid or late questions would be more appropriate to answer via a nurturing campaign, or on your corporate website.
A content map is paramount when developing a long-term content strategy for your website, blog, direct marketing, nurturing, sales materials or other communications and content. It’s the foundation you need to optimize relevance and the flow of content for personas’ consumption at various stages of the buying cycle. Remember, a content map can also serve as a your primary content inventory so you always have a place to reference and even re-work content into different formats to keep your content development efforts efficient.
My original post was published on the Connected Marketer