9 Things I’ve Learned About

Content

While Running A

Content Agency

Content is like Music It’s one thing and it’s a million things

Music is music right? But music is made up of so many elements: sound, melody, rhythm, meter, style, composition, instrumentation, musicians, memories. ‘Content’ is no different. It’s information presented in a particular format. It’s a tweet, a whitepaper, a jingle, a TV ad, a weather update, a magazine article, a blog post, a game, a poster. What matters isn’t the content itself. It’s the value of the content for your audience and for your brand. Once you find the style of content that creates value, meaning and relevance for your audience, you’ll be top of the pops in no time! TIP: Use data, insights, sentiment monitoring, focus groups, conversations and surveys to understand what content engages your audience – then make lots it!

Don’t be fooled by all the stats. The only ones that matter are your own

There are some impressive stats on content that keep being published and promoted. Platforms and channels boasting about the billions of hours spent viewing content, downloading content, streaming content. While these numbers provide contextual relevance, they offer little value to brands who are creating their own original content, other than glorifying the marketplace in which their content exists. TIP: Spend less time propagating industry stats and more time understanding your own content performance and audience data. Those stats are the ones you really need to understand!

Know the end goal and start from there.

Brands have spent countless marketing dollars and time developing content for the sole purpose of driving engagement. While this is a part of the content marketing mix, it should not be the end goal. When a brand understands the post engagement metrics that really matter to the business – the conversion goals related to acquisition, retention and sales, then content can play a much bigger role in achieving business goals. A good content strategy will identify the end goal for content. A good content plan will map out the journey. TIP: Engagement should be the minimum expectation of content marketing. Think beyond just likes, shares and comments and work towards performance-driven metrics to see your ROI on content really come to life.

If it’s worth producing It’s worth Promoting

Distribution is wedded to content creation. If you don’t know how you’re going to distribute, syndicate, evangelise or promote the content you spend lots of money on creating, then you run a real risk of wasting money and time on developing content. Organic reach is becoming much harder to achieve with social platforms evolving from Owned channels to Paid channels, so get your content plan in place before creating it! TIP: Include content distribution as part of your overall content development budget. As a general rule, if the cost of content production exceeds the cost of content promotion, something might be wrong!

Eyes on Screen is the new

Bums on Seats

Bums on seats has long been the goal of many marketers. Ticket sales, attendance, participation… these real world metrics are now also highly relevant to the digital world, it’s just that they have taken on a new form. Eyes on screen is a tangible, visible ROI metric that helps brands understand the ‘attention’ that their piece of content accrues, much like the bums on seats in a cinema. TIP: Monitor your content, in whatever format it is delivered in, and get to know the type of content your audience wants to consume. The more Eyes On Screen you achieve over time, the more relevant your brand becomes.

Content Partnerships are

performance

enhancing

Many brands struggle to afford the cost of content creation on their own. A surefire way of offsetting the cost of content creation – and the cost of content marketing, is to find strategic partners who can develop the content with you and use their networks to help promote the content. It grows your audience base and allows your brand to focus on owning the culture rather than the category TIP: Look at your existing brand partners to see if there are any brands that fit within your content objectives. If not, look beyond existing partnerships and create new ones. Oh the places you will go!

Cultivate content across your company

Most businesses look at content as a department rather than a function of their entire business. Don’t be caught in the trap of appointing content teams who are given autonomous control over content development. Create a bottom-up approach to content where all facets of the business are involved in the development of content ideas. Foster a sense of open storytelling in your business and you’ll never be short of content ideas again. TIP: Spend some time to find out the people in your business who already make content – bloggers, YouTubers, writers, animators, musicians and invite them to contribute ideas for the business.

One good piece of content has

1000 uses. One bad marketer

has none.

Hopefully most senior marketing people in your business have embraced digital marketing and understand the value of content marketing in both digital and traditional environments. If they don’t, they need immediate help! Marketers who understand the value of content, the technology that drives content marketing, and the platforms that enable it, are the marketers with a solid grasp on the future. Encourage your marketing teams to experiment, to expand their knowledge and skillsets and to embrace content as part of the marketing mix. TIP: Hire marketers who can demonstrate experience in content marketing… or at least a passion for it!

Understand

your CVP. Content Value Proposition

Audience profile Location Habits Culture Needs Desires Propensity to engage Propensity to convert Ability to deliver Ability to sustain

Content for content sake is not going to work for your brand. In fact, it’s doomed to fail. If you don’t have a content strategy written down, at least spend some quality time developing your CVP. Know your audience, know what engages them, know their content consumption habits and know your business’s capacity to deliver a sustainable content offer.

THANK YOU

PAUL CHAPPELL

GENERAL MANAGER, HEAD OF CONTENT

THE STORY LAB | AUSTRALIA

@pablochappo