How important is it to create different kinds of media for content campaigns, i.e. video, slideshare, etc.?

Today's customer landscape is so fragmented. And it's important to understand the audience you're trying to reach and deliver the content that answers their challenges in all the formats that they consume and across all the channels they consume it in.

To me this is the definition of content strategy. It starts with audience research that identifies the key challenges, maps the different personas across their buyer journey, creates or curates the content they require and delivers it within today's integrated and multi-channel environment.

Hi Lauren,

Good question and nice thread of response. I believe the question is a nuance one related to tactics one might use for a strategy that has a larger purpose. With the current rage of content marketing and demand generation - companies are diving into the nuance of these tactics perhaps with little thought to a larger purpose. Two things drive the answer to your question - the audience as Michael points out and the relevant story your company wants to tell. Integrated thinking, as Ardath points out, then helps to shape what your media plan should be for your audience.

While buyer personas are effective, they are not the strategy in of itselfs. They are meant to inform strategy. A point I believe is often missed. As many of you know, ever since I originated buyer personas and its' research process, I continue to have concerns that buyer personas are widely seen now as a messaging tool and not as a research methodology that can enlighten research that informs strategy. My caution is that most agencies and internal folks who see buyer personas as only a messaging tool do very little research and create non-research based buyer personas - and may have the unintended consequences of making their efforts even less effective.

I like the way Bryan lays out steps to make your content more effective from a tactical point of view. Nicely done Bryan and thanks for sharing.

Tony

The audience research Michael mentions we call Buyer Personas. Buyer Personas are the get to the root of the psychological traits your customers exhibit in the buying process. Are they someone who buys aggressively to differentiate themselves as an innovator or are they apprehensive, buying only after methodical research that spells out a definitive ROI and buying plan. Those traits translate to the content channel through which we communicate to the buyer. Video is a great instant gratification channel, couple that with a call to action at the end that allows the viewer to take immediate action and it starts speaking to aggressive buyers. Take that same content and re-purpose it in an eBook that is downloadable and can be poured over at length with a follow up nurture series of worksheets and you are talking the language of our methodical consumer.

Knowing the buyer is our first ingredient, creating great content that speaks to them throughout each stage of the buying process flavors the pot and building it all into a system that allows us to track this behavior and respond accordingly is the magic mix we call Marketing Automation. Just make sure you have a great chef at the helm or you end up with the gruel many marketers are churning out today.

Justin Gray
jgray@leadmd.com
@myleadmd

It is quite important, but comes with a couple caveats.

First, just because a medium exists does not mean it is appropriate in a given situation. For example, video training for a skill that manifests in a different medium probably is a misapplication … one cannot learn to write marketing copy or engineer web pages simply by watching videos.

Second, within a marketing campaign (I’m not sure there are “content campaigns” per se) , media choice is up to the contact/prospect and usually varies as the consideration process moves along. That’s why it is so important to actually ASK contacts when, how often, under what circumstances, and in which medium/media they want us to stay in touch.

So it is wise to have an array of messages available in a variety of media, so they can be applied as necessary, warranted, and desirable, with the consent of the contact.

I absolutely agree with Buyer Personas as a starting point. Great comments so far, but what I'd add is to not just think about formats as standalone but how you can incorporate them together to enable different types of engagement.

An example could be embedding video or slideshare in a blog post, not just presenting the embedded media as the blog post. Offering value in two or more ways with your content can help improve engagement. For example, many of us are moving fast and like to scan before we commit. By having text available that provides some meaty information that's presented a bit differently in the video, the person may decide to commit the time to watch the video as well as read the post. But it also ups the odds that you'll engage people with different engagement preferences, whether they enjoy audio, visual and/or textual.

Justin's point about instant gratification vs. prolonged review is also a great consideration. And, I'd stipulate that this isn't just due to the type of psychological makeup, but also to where they are in their buying process. In the beginning the person may not be convinced of the importance of solving the problem, so shorter content that shares a key take away may work better. Then, as they become convinced that solving the problem is worthwhile, they may want more hefty content such as white papers, eBooks and webinars that help them dive deeper into the subject matter.