the a-z of content marketing - a is for audience
DESCRIPTION
A is for Audience. How can you identify your audience for your content marketing strategy?TRANSCRIPT
Confidential mcm2mcm2, Nantwich, Cheshire - www.mcm2.co.uk
A – Z of CONTENT MARKETINGA is for Audience
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This is the first in a 26 long series of presentations – hopefully it will give you a good breakdown of content marketing.
How it works, how to do it, and what the benefit is for your business.
Done well, content marketing can generate high quality leads, traffic and business, over an extended period.
Done badly, it can be an all consuming waste of time.
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A is for Audience.
As diverse a bunch of people as you can imagine.
To start with just think about all the people who live in the same street as you.
They share the same postcode, but they like different things, watch different things on TV, read different books. Your audience for content marketing is wider and far more diverse.
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Your Content Strategy sits here.
What you
need to tell people
What you
want to tell people
What they
need to know
What they
want to hear
Business Audience
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Your Content Strategy sits here.
What you
need to tell people
What you
want to tell people
What they
need to know
What they
want to hear
Business Audience
Your strategy sits where the needs and wants of your
business overlap the needs and wants of your
audience.
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Your Content Strategy sits here.
What you
need to tell people
What you
want to tell people
What they
need to know
What they
want to hear
Business Audience
If what you are doing is not firmly based on what your business needs and wants
to tell people, then it cannot serve any long term purpose. Marketing that is
not based on what the business needs is marketing
toss!
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Your Content Strategy sits here.
What you
need to tell people
What you
want to tell people
What they
need to know
What they
want to hear
Business Audience
If what you are doing is not based on what the audience wants to hear, then what is
the point?If they don’t need to hear it,
or want to hear it then chances are they won’t.
So the trick is to find that point of overlap. Once you
have that you can then start to grow your message and pull your audience over so that they area of overlap increases in your favour.
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So, since A is for Audience, lets start with them, how can we work out what they need and want to hear?
We go through a simple process;• Who are they?• What are they currently engaging with?• What do they need to hear?• What do they want to know?
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Who are they? What do they need to hear?
What are they currently engaged
with?
What do they want to know?
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Who are they?
Age band
Gender
Location
Education Level
Industry Segment
We know that everyone is different, and some markets are wider than
others. But a few minutes determining the centre of gravity for
your product is worthwhile. You might find that you actually have a
number of centres of gravity – with a number of core audiences, so
perhaps you need a number of tactics within your strategy.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
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What are they currently engaged
with?
What are your competitors doing?
What podcasts in your market are there?
What videos are out there?
What presentations are out there?
What news stories are there?
What blogsites are there?
What is being said on social media?
What specialist forums are there?
Produce a mind map of the information that is currently out there. By subject and medium.
Unless the market is completely empty, and no one is engaging
with anything there will be people currently engaging with
content. What is it they are reading, watching, listening
too? What do you think of it?
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What do they want to know?
What do they ask your sales team?
What questions are they asking?
What do they talk about over lunch?
What questions come up with customer services?
You need to produce a list of things that people are interested in, that are related to your industry. It does not have to be directly related, it can be tangential, but a good place to start is by looking at what they are asking your team. What do they chat about in reception? Over lunch, in the small
talk on the phone? You need somewhere to start, once
you get going we can get more sophisticated by asking them directly
as part of the strategy.
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What do they need to hear?
Safety information?
Specifications?
Good news stories?
Industry information and stats?
Customer service information?
Location details?
Staff and Stories?
You can turn what they need to hear into content that they can engage with. That way you can link it to information you
want them to know, and things that they want to hear.
Once they know that they need to know something you can capitalise upon this need.
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Once you have a view of your audience you can start to formulate your strategy. You can start to look at what you are going to do to engage
with them.If you don’t start with your audience then it is
highly likely that your strategy will not address their real needs and so will not work!
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If you want to find out more about how we believe content marketing can help,
and how it should be done, visit our blog on www.mcm2.co.uk/blog.
We would really like to know what you think, so email us on [email protected]
We also have a quick test to see how good your content strategy is at -
http://www.mcm2.co.uk/test
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Remember;
If you always do what you've always done you will always get what you've
always got.
Unless things change.
The world of marketing has changed and we need to change with it.