As a CMO, it’s not surprising that more and more
companies are increasing their spend and focus on producing and spreading
relevant content. As a brand manager for a Fortune 150 company and owner of
several small businesses, I too am shifting my focus to the importance of
content marketing. During my time as a graduate student at Northwestern Medill IMC program,
I found two insightful articles on leveraging and producing amazing content
for your business/organization.
The first article, titled “So You’ve Made Some
Content, Now What Do You Do With It” by Tim Peterson and
published on October 13, 2014 focuses on how content can make or break your
marketing and social strategy. Peterson notes that marketers, on average, are
spending 40% of their budgets on content marketing. Although some content may work on multiple
platforms, organizations continue to look at how each social medium requires
different types or variations of a particular piece of content. The user’s
content needs vary greatly from Facebook to Twitter and everything in between.
The next article, “6
Tools To Jump Start Your Video Content Marketing” by Drew
Hendricks was published on October 16, 2014. Hendricks offers insights into how the content
marketing is changing – from social media and blogs to video and infographics
in order to appeal visually to consumers. Like the previous article, Hendricks
also believes using the right type of content for the right type of channel is
key to success. In fact, he finds that
many businesses are finding they need an arsenal of resources to help develop
these many different types of content needed and includes a list of affordable
video services for organizations looking to diversify their creation types: Powtoon.com, Wideo,
Screenr and Wistia.
After reviewing these articles, and based on my
experience through the graduate program at Northwestern Medill IMC, here are
three easy action items any CMO should immediately begin to think about and
take action on:
1.
Identify your
audience: sometimes your online audience is different than your offline
one, make sure you know who you are targeting and what social sites they are
currently using.
2.
Make your
organization different: what do you
deliver from a product and knowledge standpoint that others don’t? How can you
leverage your content in a creative way that other competitors aren’t doing?
3.
Where do
you post: do you have more engagement on Facebook; does your business lend
itself well to Instagram? Knowing where your customers will go for content is
crucial. Determine the medium you’ll deliver your content through and identify
what external resources you’ll need to produce and share it.
Jessica Balfour
(@JezzieMarie) is a Chicago-based brand manager for Exelon Corporation, the
nation’s leading diversified energy provider and a Northwestern University
graduate student in the Integrated Marketing Communications program. In addition, Jessica co-owns two small
businesses downtown Chicago including, Chicago Institute of Natural Health and
CrossFit 312.
