New year, new content strategy?
January 18, 2019 | hi-gloss | by Carrie Copeland
It’s 2019 and surely some people have already broken their new year’s resolutions. There was no shortage of Instagram quotes and aspirational sentiments flooding our feeds and stories. Unfortunately a lot of these “watch out 2019 here I come!” have already been thwarted by poor decisions.
Brands do not have the same luxury of letting up. Platforms are maturing and consumers are being given more tools to manage their digital life and content consumption. Rules are changing around privacy and the handling of personal data. How should brands approach content creation in 2019?
#ContentGoals
Some may have #squadgoals, but a proper content strategy starts by identifying the goals you would like to accomplish and how soon. Whether you are interested in more sales, brand awareness, customer engagement, or all of the above and then some – knowing what to measure is a key first step.
The strategy
Each consumer segment will respond differently to various types of content. Your work is to know and understand your customers’ expectation(s) of your brand, and then create original stories that will resonate and spark engagement. Regardless of the content strategy, testing to see what works or does not, is a good way to approach custom content creation. It helps to validate your time, effort, and resources invested before going big. Unlike traditional mediums, digital is great for real-time testing and measuring.
Budget
How much you are willing to spend towards a content strategy goal, should always be in the plan. Developing original content can be more labor and resource intensive versus aggregation, but the payoff is that you own your original stories, which automatically makes you the authority within your brand’s product or market category. The creative process meets marketing goals is both an art and a science.
Distribution
Content has to live somewhere and is often better broadcasted or distributed to a target audience. How you chose your distribution method is mostly based on where that consumer segment likes to consume their content – this could be via email marketing, social media, and other forms of multi-sensory tools such as VR. While traditional media such as TV and billboards – Out of Home Advertising – is often overlooked for not being as nimble as its digital counterpart, if your customers and competition are active in those mediums, then they should be at least considered.
Internal and external partners
Most brands do not have the internal capacity to handle full content development and distribution. This often requires external partners with expertise in this area to come alongside brands to assess strategic decisions and executions are aligned with your goals. Both an internal and external culture of collaboration can be the necessary balance to kickstart a brand’s foray into custom content development and distribution.
How hi-gloss approaches content services
We help clients evolve into effective brand publishers, creating new ways for companies to reach and engage with audiences through three content units: Content Strategy, Editorial Services, and Studio Services. The Content Strategy team analyzes all paid, owned, and earned brand touch points to define the appropriate approach for content in each channel.
The philosophy
Preserve equity: Utilize the brand intent to establish a communication platform and philosophy.
Educate consumers: Showcase the product from different perspectives, in order to expand knowledge to prospective consumers and loyalists.
Generate revenue: Compete in the marketplace, by showcasing product differentiation and product value, to support driving price and brand ancillary spend.
Build loyalty: Engage consumers at a different level, in order to drive preference beyond cost. Inspire the consumer’s decision to be made based on aspiration, curiosity and brand loyalty.
Content: A custom content strategy’s success relies on the quality of content, and the need for myriad mediums, voices, and concepts – all from varied approaches.
Creating custom content may seem insurmountable, but following a simple strategy of outlining your goals and partnering with experts to help guide you is always a safe bet. Content is not going away – sorry if this seems oversimplified – this is how you feed the insatiable nature of consumers’ need to engage. You can be authentic by producing what is relevant to your customer segments or become a generalists – we suggest authenticity as the main approach.
