The 4Di Strategic Framework Successful content strategies
- SHUBHA MADHUKAR, DIRECTOR & PRESIDENT, TIC

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"Is content really the king?" That's the question I have been fielding for more than two decades that we've been in the content business. The idea holds true today more than ever before. I believe that if content was king in the print-first era, it is the undisputed emperor in the digital-first world! And here's the clincher. The power of content gets amplified multifold when it's shaped and channelised through a strategic lens.

In a digital-first world, content is at the core of increasing brand discoverability, enhancing brand authority, taking your brand to a larger audience and building trust. Content can even transform into a lead magnet for your business. Publishing high-quality content influences decision-making more than any other technique, while an empty content funnel means less of brand awareness, stakeholder engagement and less conversions.

However, the process of planning, creating and publishing high-quality content round the year can be quite intimidating. It surely needs a strategic approach.

Having worked with 300+ clients and executed 1,000+ projects in recent times, we have developed the 4Di Strategic Framework to help stride through the content-medium-audience-impact conundrum.

So what is the 4Di Framework?

Very simply put, the 4Di Framework is a strategy that we've built to plan, create and measure content. It is a step-by-step process to kick off content marketing and creation initiatives and keep using through the entire content planning, creation and impact-measurement cycle. The four Ds stand for 'Discover', 'Define', 'Design' and 'Deploy' and the i stands for 'Impact'.

Let me dive in a little bit to explain how we use the framework.

1. DISCOVER

The first step of a content marketing/creation initiative is to start with a strategy. And for a strategy you need insights into your environment including the industry you operate in, your competitors and their content strategies, your audience, their content and media preferences, and content trends. Once you've discovered that, you need align your content strategy with your brand's marketing and communication goals.

2. DEFINE

Equipped with the rich insights from the 'Discover' stage, you are now ready to define your key objectives aligned with the personas identified and the user journeys you want to influence through your content. Along with that, you can also define your KPIs and the budget that you need to allocate.

3. DESIGN

This is the 'creation' stage backed by the insights and objectives derived in the last two stages. Here's where you create or curate content, be it textual or visual to captivate, engage and convert your audience.

4. DEPLOY

Effective content creation needs an efficient distribution strategy. This is the stage where you decide how you will take your content to your audience (outbound) or bring them to you (inbound).

5. IMPACT

Measuring impact against set objectives and KPIs is the ultimate acid test for any content creation/marketing programme. It tells you what worked and what didn't and helps you make tweaks and adjustments to your ongoing content campaigns and initiatives.

The 4Di formula works unfailingly and has created several winning content strategies over the past two decades for us. What's your success formula for content creation and content marketing?

Reach us for any Internal Communication need that you may have. We'll be happy to help.