Struggling to create quality content? It’s possible to convert a short chat into enough targeted marketing material to drive a business for a month. We know because we did it. Here’s how…
At SIM7, one of the phrases we use quite a lot is ‘slice and dice’. And what we mean by that is wringing more than one use out of a particular piece of content. So, for example, if we write a blog post for a client, we’ll extract some key quotes or statistics and turn them into Twitter posts. Or if we design a brochure, we’ll take the icons that we’ve created and reuse them as posts on Instagram. It’s a good way of creating quality content by getting ‘two bites out of the cherry’ and it’s a proven way of reaching different audiences that consume their media in different ways.
To be honest, that’s pretty much as far as we usually take it. But we know that we’re missing a trick by doing this. So we thought we’d push ourselves a little further – 20 times further, in fact.
How it works
When we create a blog or a web page for a business, we’ll almost always interview an expert from within the company and that conversation will usually give us most of the information we’ll need to create the required content.
Let’s call this conversation, for reasons that are probably Freudian, the Mother Interview. And it can – or should – be repackaged, repurposed and spun out into so many pieces of quality content.
You could, for example, extract any relevant statistics from the Mother Interview and create quality content such as an infographic. Alongside this, there’s no reason why the Mother Interview couldn’t be recorded on Skype or Zoom, and then edited into an engaging and shareable video that you could post on your website (which would also have a positive effect on your search ranking). You could even create a podcast, which is clearly very popular right now and reaches audiences on a whole new level.
In addition, you could spin out an e-book, a whitepaper, a webinar, a PowerPoint presentation, an opinion piece, a case study… these are all valid, effective tools that are very much part of the modern marketing mix. And of course, they’ll all be spun out of that Mother Interview, which features one of your experts talking about what they know best and giving the audience the inside track on their particular area of expertise.
If you’re a marketer, you’ll understand that this authentic narrative is gold dust. It:
- Underlines your company’s expertise
- Promotes your company as thought leaders
- Demonstrates your team’s credentials
- Shows that you understand – and can solve – your clients’ challenges
And when you present all of the above in a variety of different media formats for your audience to consume in the way that suits them best, you’re on to something quite special (ahem, see our case study later this month for the statistics on just how special).
Investment
So what’s stopping us from doing all of the above? It usually comes down to our old foes: time and cost. Are they valid objections? Let’s consider the situation.
Time
For the business, the time commitment is negligible. An in-depth interview takes around 45 minutes – short enough for the most time-pressed business owner or executive. We at SIM7 can take care of the entire creative process after that and it’s then just a case of checking, amending and signing-off the content.
Cost
Certainly, extrapolating the Mother Interview into all sorts of different formats takes time for us as an agency, but not as much as you might think. A capable copywriter can carry out an interview and edit the content to suit everything from short formats (such as social posts and visuals) to longer pieces (blogs and articles) in just over a day. Clearly, this is where the economy of scale comes to the fore, generating solid marketing returns for a modest initial investment.
The amount of time we’d need to put aside for design and digital depends on all sorts of factors including the strength of your brand and the capabilities of your digital channels.
Returns
So what can you expect in return for this investment? The short answer is, for the average small to medium sized company, enough quality content for a month of marketing activity.
For the purposes of this demonstration, we’re going to create quality content in the form of 24 pieces of brand collateral. We’re also going to document our costs, keep track of the engagement we receive and publish the results.
The mix of content below is what suits our business, but you could certainly dial up and down the different elements according to your needs.
- 1 x video
- 1 x podcast
- 12 x social posts
- 1 x website blog
- 1 x LinkedIn article
- 1 x e-newsletter
- 6 x social visuals
- 1 x case study
Our challenge started with the Mother Interview that we carried out yesterday and the blog that you’re reading now is the next stage of the process. Will everyone read these 900+ words? No. But some will engage with what we’ll put on our social channels, while others will watch the video, download the podcast or read the case study.
And that’s the beauty of ‘slicing and dicing’ your content – much wider engagement for much less investment.
To track our progress over the coming month, follow us @sim7creative on Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn. Or email Sim in the studio with any questions: sim@sim7creative.co.uk