AMA PCM Content Marketing cheat sheet

Content marketing is defined by delivering value (information, entertainment, utility) to a defined audience before asking for a transaction.

The four content types are: attract (awareness), engage (consideration), convert (decision), and delight (retention/loyalty).

Content velocity = number of published assets per period; content inventory = total assets currently available for reuse or distribution.

Owned, earned, and paid channels differ in control and cost: owned is controlled but slow to scale; earned is credibility-rich but uncontrollable; paid is fast but stops when spend stops.

A content pillar is a broad topic area; a cluster is a set of related assets that link back to the pillar page, forming a hub-and-spoke model.

The 70/20/10 content mix rule allocates roughly 70% proven formats, 20% new-to-brand experiments, and 10% high-risk innovation.

Content decay is the measurable decline of a page's traffic or conversions over time; refresh cycles are scheduled based on decay rate, not calendar habit.

Zero-click content delivers the full answer on the surface (e.g., social post, SERP feature) so the audience need not click through to the site.

A content model defines content types, their fields, and relationships; it separates structure (schema) from presentation (layout).

Structured content stores each element in a discrete field, enabling reuse across channels; unstructured content stores it as a single blob (e.g., a Word doc).

A content type is a template of fields (e.g., 'Case Study'); an entry is one instance of that type.

Reference fields create relationships between content types; embedded fields nest one type inside another and cannot be reused independently.

Taxonomy provides controlled vocabulary for classification; a tag is a free-form label, while a category from a taxonomy is governed.

Workflow states commonly follow draft → review → approved → published → archived; each transition should have a defined owner and permission set.

Content debt includes outdated, duplicated, or orphaned assets; audits should track owner, last-updated date, traffic, and conversion per asset.

Localization readiness requires that text not be baked into images and that fields support length variance (e.g., German is roughly 30% longer than English).

A style guide governs voice, tone, grammar, and formatting; a brand guide governs logo, color, and visual identity; both are distinct documents.

Voice is constant across contexts; tone shifts by situation (e.g., error message vs. celebration).

Accessibility standard WCAG 2.1/2.2 Level AA requires 4.5:1 contrast for normal text and 3:1 for large text (18pt or 14pt bold).

Alt text should describe function or content of an image, not repeat adjacent captions; decorative images use empty alt attributes.

Heading hierarchy must be sequential (H1 → H2 → H3) for screen reader navigation; skipping levels breaks the document outline.

Editorial governance defines who approves content, escalation paths, and review SLAs; without named owners, guidelines decay.

Plain-language targets: short sentences (roughly 15-20 words), active voice, and reading level around grade 8 for general audiences.

Link text must be descriptive out of context ('Download the 2024 report'), never 'click here' or 'read more'.

A target audience definition includes demographics (who), psychographics (why), behaviors (how), and needs/jobs-to-be-done (what problem).

A buyer persona is a research-based archetype; it must be built from interviews or behavioral data, not invented from assumptions.

Segmentation variables: demographic, geographic, psychographic, behavioral, and needs-based; needs-based usually correlates best with messaging fit.

Jobs-to-be-done framing asks what progress the audience is trying to make, not what product features they want.

Audience research methods include interviews, surveys, social listening, search query data, and support-ticket analysis.

The 'jobs' of an audience can be functional, emotional, and social; messaging that addresses only functional jobs underperforms.

Audience overlap analysis identifies shared segments across channels so content is not duplicated or contradictory.

Negative personas (who you are not serving) sharpen targeting and reduce wasted spend.

The classic narrative arc: exposition → rising action → climax → falling action → resolution; marketing stories often compress this to problem → tension → resolution.

The hero's journey positions the customer as hero and the brand as mentor/guide, not the hero.

StoryBrand-style framework order: a character with a problem meets a guide with a plan, takes action, avoids failure, and achieves success.

Conflict is the engine of story; a message without a stated obstacle reads as flat feature description.

Specificity creates credibility: concrete numbers, names, and scenes outperform abstract adjectives.

Story structure for short-form: hook (first line), context (stakes), turn (insight), payoff (resolution or CTA).

Show-don't-tell converts claims into evidence: replace 'we're reliable' with a specific outcome or customer quote.

Emotional appeal drives recall and sharing; rational argument drives justification - high-performing content often pairs both.

Vanity metrics (pageviews, likes, impressions) measure activity; outcome metrics (leads, revenue, retention) measure business impact.

Attribution models: first-touch, last-touch, linear, time-decay, and position-based; each credits channels differently and none is objectively 'correct'.

ROI = (Revenue − Cost) / Cost; content ROI must include production, distribution, and tooling costs, not just media spend.

Conversion rate = conversions / sessions (or visitors); always state the denominator.

Engagement rate = engaged sessions / total sessions; engaged sessions typically exclude bounces under 10 seconds with no interaction.

Cohort analysis tracks a group over time (e.g., content published in Q1) to isolate decay from seasonality.

Leading indicators (downloads, email signups) predict future revenue; lagging indicators (closed-won revenue) confirm it.

Statistical significance requires adequate sample size; small-sample A/B tests produce false positives and should not drive strategy.

A story map arranges user activities horizontally (left to right in narrative order) and task/feature depth vertically (top to bottom by priority).

The backbone is the top row of high-level user activities; it should read as a coherent narrative of the user's journey.

The walking skeleton is the thinnest end-to-end slice across all backbone activities - it delivers a complete story, not a partial one.

Release slices are horizontal cuts below the backbone; each slice should deliver usable value across the whole journey.

Story mapping differs from a flat backlog because it preserves context and reveals gaps in the end-to-end experience.

Stories are written from the user's perspective and include acceptance criteria; map position communicates priority relative to the journey.

Personas can each get their own backbone, revealing where journeys diverge and where shared components can be reused.

Mapping should be done collaboratively with stakeholders; the artifact is the shared understanding, not the wall of sticky notes.