The Content Themes PR Strategy: The Power of Focus

How To Create Content Themes

Content Themes

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

Promise Filter: 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 each quarterly Content Theme, they produce Content Packages (to build Content Skyscrapers). Each Content Package could contain the following:

Infographics
Blog Articles
Whitepapers
Social Media Updates
Landing Pages
Lead Magnets
Swipe Files
Template Files
Content Upgrades
Online Courses
Podcast Episodes
Livestreams
Email Send-Outs
Events
Case Studies
Webinars
Video Tutorials
Interactive Quizzes
Press Releases
E‑Books
Testimonials
Influencer Collaborations
Mobile Apps
Slide Presentations

Learn more: The Content Themes PR Strategy

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Start With a Core Message

First, let’s not pretend that a content theme is anything ordinary. It’s just various pieces of content around the same topic.

Simply put, a content theme is a content package.

But there is some sophistication to Content Themes still. The key is first to establish a core message.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, the chances are that you might have noticed that I talk about centring your PR activities around a core message.

For instance, Red Bull’s core message focuses on action sports where people are sent flying through the air. That’s their core message — they are centring all their communications and marketing activities around it.

Content Themes will structure your messaging one level beneath your core message. You divide your core message into several Content Themes. This will allow you to cycle to various sub-topics related to your business — without losing focus.

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. Meaning: 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, I think the 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 for two years, it will typically last for 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 also helpful in building 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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How To Structure Your Content Themes

For each content theme, you produce content around that specific theme. It could be lots of content, or it could be less. It all depends on your overall content strategy.

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 Content Divers (clicking vertically) since they’re more valuable than Content Surfers (clicking horizontally).

As for the importance of structure and depth, the logic is the same as for 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.

Benefits of Content Themes

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.

The “One Thing Only” Challenge

I’ve helped clients structure their content marketing into Content Themes — and I’ve been 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 whole quarter? (Hint: Yes, they can!)

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

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

Content Variations - Content Theme - Surround Strategy — Finding relevant content variations on a single topic is not as difficult as it may seem initially.

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 as a team, the ideas will begin to flow, and you’ll soon find yourself in a situation where you 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.

Thanks for reading. Please consider sharing my public relations blog with other communication and marketing professionals. If you have questions (or want to retain my PR services), please contact me at jerry@spinfactory.com.

PR Resource: Inbound vs Outbound

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

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://doctorspin.net/publics-in-public-relations/

Jerry Silfwer speaking about inbound marketing — *Jerry Silfwer (Doctor Spin) speaks about inbound marketing.*

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.

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