Content Themes PR Strategy: The Power of Quarters

What are con­tent themes?

In this art­icle, I will demon­strate the value of struc­tur­ing your con­tent into con­tent themes and explain why you should con­sider apply­ing this strategy for bet­ter results.

As a digit­al strategist, I’ve been design­ing con­tent mar­ket­ing strategies for numer­ous brands since 2005. Using con­tent themes is a PR strategy access­ible to almost any organisation.

Here we go:

Start With the Core Message

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Core Message vs Slogan

A core mes­sage is the found­a­tion­al concept for all mar­ket­ing and com­mu­nic­a­tion strategies. 

Unlike a slo­gan, which can be seen as a catchy, often super­fi­cial tagline, the core mes­sage is a deep­er, con­sist­ent nar­rat­ive that con­veys a brand’s fun­da­ment­al val­ues and promises.

Core mes­sage = the fun­da­ment­al idea or prom­ise that a brand con­sist­ently com­mu­nic­ates across all plat­forms, defin­ing its val­ues and what it stands for in every inter­ac­tion with its audience.

Slogan = a catchy phrase or series of words used in mar­ket­ing and advert­ising to quickly cap­ture atten­tion and accur­ately encap­su­late a brand’s appeal or mission.

Together, the core mes­sage and the slo­gan ensure all com­mu­nic­a­tions and mar­ket­ing activ­it­ies are aligned, rein­for­cing the brand’s iden­tity and mis­sion across all platforms.

Please note: Seen as a prom­ise, the core mes­sage must reflect the organ­isa­tion’s main advant­age over com­pet­ing organ­isa­tions. All mar­ket­ing- and com­mu­nic­a­tion activ­it­ies must rein­force this sen­ti­ment more clearly than any efforts by their competitors.

Core Message vs Slogan Examples

These examples show­case how the core mes­sage com­mu­nic­ates a deep­er, ongo­ing mis­sion or cus­tom­er prom­ise. In con­trast, the slo­gan is a catchy, imme­di­ate hook that com­ple­ments and enhances the core message.

Red Bull

• Core Message: Energizes and enhances per­form­ance in extreme sports and adven­tur­ous activities. 
• Slogan: “Red Bull gives you wings.”

Apple

• Core Message: Innovating user-friendly tech­no­logy with soph­ist­ic­ated design to enhance every­day life. 
• Slogan: “Think Different.”

McDonald’s

• Core Message: Providing con­sist­ently good food quickly in a fam­ily-friendly environment. 
• Slogan: “I’m lov­in’ it.”

Microsoft

• Core Message: Creating tech­no­logy that empowers every per­son and every organ­isa­tion on the plan­et to achieve more. 
• Slogan: “Be what’s next.”

Ikea

• Core Message: Making styl­ish, func­tion­al, and afford­able Scandinavian fur­nish­ings avail­able in the spir­it of every­day simplicity. 
• Slogan: “The Wonderful Everyday.”

Nike

• Core Message: Inspiring ath­letes every­where to reach their poten­tial with innov­at­ive sports gear. 
• Slogan: “Just Do It.”

IBM

• Core Message: Developing tech­no­logy and con­sult­ing to lead busi­nesses towards innov­a­tion and efficiency. 
• Slogan: “Let’s put smart to work.”

Spotify

• Core Message: Personalise music stream­ing exper­i­ences to con­nect users with the right music for every moment. 
• Slogan: “Music for every moment.”

Learn more: The Core Message

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Establish Content Themes

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Content Themes

Let’s use a fic­ti­tious example of an IT com­pany. First, they decide on a core mes­sage for their con­tent strategy:

Core mes­sage: We make IT easy to understand.

Then, the IT com­pany breaks their core mes­sage down into four busi­ness-crit­ic­al con­tent themes:

Q1 Content Theme: We make people under­stand the Internet of Things (IoT).

Q2 Content Theme: We make people under­stand busi­ness auto­ma­tion.

Q3 Content Theme: We make people under­stand cloud com­put­ing.

Q4 Content Theme: We make people under­stand man­aged services.

For easy plan­ning and boost­ing SEO with con­tent sky­scrapers, you can cre­ate con­tent pack­ages for each theme.

Using con­tent themes comes with sev­er­al upsides:

• Planning. Using con­tent themes makes it easi­er to plan your mes­saging for the year.
• Visibility. Search engines love it when you pro­duce and pub­lish related content.
• Growth. You’re provid­ing valu­able and ever­green con­tent on a niche topic.

Learn more: The Content Themes PR Strategy

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Create Content Packages

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Content Packages

When estab­lish­ing con­tent themes, it’s best prac­tice to pro­duce con­tent pack­ages for each theme (to build con­tent sky­scrapers).

You should strive to pro­duce vari­ous types of top­ic-spe­cif­ic con­tent that will:

• Inspire
• Convince
• Inform
• Support
• Educate
• Entertain

A pack­age could con­tain the fol­low­ing types of top­ic-spe­cif­ic content:

• Infographics
• SEO-optim­ised blog articles
• Whitepapers
• Social media updates
• Landing pages
• Lead mag­nets
• Swipe files
• Template files
• Content upgrades
• Online courses
• Email courses
• Podcast epis­odes
• Livestreams
• Email sequences
• Events
• Case stud­ies
• Webinars
• Video tutori­als
• Interactive quizzes
• Press releases
• E‑books
• Testimonials
• Influencer col­lab­or­a­tions
• Mobile apps
• Campaign sites
• Slide Presentations
• Sales mater­i­als

Learn more: Content Packages (And What To Include)

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Focus On Evergreen Content

Evergreen Content

What’s ever­green con­tent? For a piece of con­tent to be ever­green, it must sus­tain its value over time. This means the con­tent must be rel­ev­ant today, tomor­row, and the fore­see­able future.

While news con­tent might have a more sig­ni­fic­ant short-term impact, ever­green con­tent accu­mu­lates over time.

There are dif­fer­ent ways to lever­age ever­green con­tent. I recom­mend a few axioms for Evergreen Content:

• Two years. To be con­sidered ever­green con­tent, con­tent must be rel­ev­ant and valu­able for at least two years. It’s an arbit­rary time frame, but if an organ­isa­tion can pro­duce con­tent last­ing two years, it will typ­ic­ally last much longer.
• Actual interest. To be con­sidered ever­green con­tent, there must be an exist­ing volume of search engine users look­ing for the inform­a­tion. The con­tent will nev­er be ‘ever’ without ‘green’ search volumes.
• Gentle garden­ing. Evergreen con­tent will only stay ever­green if you tend to it occa­sion­ally. To check if everything’s work­ing, add some­thing help­ful if needed, and per­haps clean out some unne­ces­sary stuff. It’s a bit like garden­ing, I find. 
• Personal touch. It’s dif­fi­cult to pub­lish some­thing unique. However, adding your brand’s ton­al­ity and flair to the con­tent is always pos­sible. The object­ive is to estab­lish trust and author­ity, so a touch of per­son­al­ity matters.

Evergreen con­tent is an inbound approach to build­ing core mes­sages, con­tent themes, con­tent pack­ages, deep con­tent, and con­tent sky­scrapers.

Learn more: The Evergreen Content PR Strategy: Forever Is a Long Time

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Structure Deep Content

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Deep Content

Above is an example of an online con­tent struc­ture that’s five levels deep. In the example above, five lay­ers of ever­green con­tent are stacked:

• Level 1: Articles
• Level 2: Content Upgrade
• Level 3: Resource/​Lead Magnet
• Level 4: Ebook
• Level 5: Online Course

Deep con­tent is centred around provid­ing increas­ingly high­er qual­ity to engaged users. ideally, the user­’s engage­ment should determ­ine when the inform­a­tion need has been ful­filled, not the lim­it­a­tions of the web­site’s avail­able content.

• The few who reach your content’s call to action (con­tent diver = click­ing ver­tic­ally) are more valu­able than those who only scan its first head­line (con­tent surfer = click­ing horizontally).

As for the import­ance of struc­ture and depth, the logic is the same as that of ice­berg pub­lish­ing and con­tent themes.

Learn more: The Deep Content PR Strategy: Win By Going Deeper

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The Blogger Outreach Focus

Many years ago, I first tested the concept of con­tent themes myself.

I only pub­lished blog posts about “blog­ger out­reach” for four months. I also gave sem­inars on the top­ic, cre­ated some visu­als, sent out a few emails, and ensured I nev­er pub­lished any­thing else dur­ing this period. 

I’ve described this in My Content Marketing Experiment (That Failed Miserably), and it worked so well that it got me into some trouble:

The prob­lem was that I became the “blog­ger out­reach guy.” I don’t mind doing blog­ger out­reach occa­sion­ally, but my focus has always been strategy. I should’ve picked the top­ic for my con­tent theme more wisely. 

The “One Thing Only” Challenge

I’ve helped cli­ents struc­ture their con­tent mar­ket­ing into themes, and I’m very proud of the results.

Many brands expect speak­ing about “only one thing” at a time to be challenging. 

Can an IT com­pany pro­duce a com­pre­hens­ive con­tent pack­age about busi­ness auto­ma­tion for a quarter? (Hint: Yes, they can!)

While post­ing a tweet is easy, you must stick to your mes­sage for an exten­ded peri­od. So, how do you talk about “one thing” for a longer period?

To come up with good ideas, it’s help­ful to brainstorm. 

In my exper­i­ence, cre­at­ing con­tent vari­ations is much easi­er than most might think. After all, I’ve been blog­ging around a con­tent theme (i.e. pub­lic rela­tions is a power­ful busi­ness tool) for nearly two decades. 

Once you start work­ing as a team, the ideas will begin to flow, and you’ll soon have too many great ideas.

The actu­al “one thing only” chal­lenge is actu­ally of a dif­fer­ent kind:

Content themes’ chal­lenge is con­vin­cing your organ­isa­tion not to speak about non-related mat­ters. An organ­isa­tion “chat­ters” all the time and con­vinces all func­tions to talk as one — that’s the challenge.

PR Resource: Inbound vs Outbound

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Inbound vs Outbound

The inbound mind­set is a fun­da­ment­al shift in the PR- and mar­ket­ing industry.

Historically, many PR- and mar­ket­ing depart­ments have argued:

“Why should we spend our PR- and mar­ket­ing budgets on ‘already acquired’ audiences?”

The truth is — it’s the oth­er way around.

Instead of “spam­ming” non-exist­ing audi­ences, pub­lic rela­tions and mar­ket­ing can do much more with exist­ing online pub­lics. ¹Silfwer, J. (2015, June 11). The Publics in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​p​u​b​l​i​c​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Drawing a line between those who know you and those who don’t know you is noth­ing new:

• Pull mar­ket­ing vs push mar­ket­ing
• Hot leads vs cold leads
• Permission mar­ket­ing vs tra­di­tion­al marketing
• Internal com­mu­nic­a­tions vs extern­al communications

This inbound shift is the online equi­val­ent of draw­ing the line between those who know you and those who don’t know you:

• Inbound com­mu­nic­a­tions vs out­bound communications

If your Inbound Shift PR Strategy is good, you might not need to pri­or­it­ise out­bound PR strategies — because your inbound audi­ence will attract out­bound publics.

Learn more: The Inbound Shift PR Strategy: Beauty From Within

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PR Resource: More PR Strategies

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