Build an Integrated Strategy for Content Marketing || Content Marketing Part 6

 So can we change? Can we actually change and transform the process of content into something different? What if we began with the end in mind? 

What if we began with the most amazing resource center, something that's differentiated. Think of a library, if a library was merely a collection of books with no organization and they were organized by a hardback, paperback, and audio, it would be a useless building. But instead, a library has an organization, 

what if our resource center had an organization, so we would know what would be better if I read every piece of content in that resource center, differentiate it. Or what about the most emotional story we could tell? Customer stories that create emotional insight and illuminate our shared values with those customers? Or what about the most useful tools, the most differentiating industry-defining tools that we could create, 

calculators. Not just something that copies somebody, but differentiates it, with the goal of building or retaining an audience. What if we could do that? What if we could create the properties, the thematic magic collection of assets like you saw that has value? 

What if we could do that for our business? And work to create an asset, that audience. Working from backward, we create that differentiated asset and then work backward to understand what the tent pole pieces are. What are the four or 10 or 15 assets that need to go into the creation of this thing to make it worth subscribing to, to make it the most differentiated resource center or the most emotional story?

And then, we can actually repurpose content around that. Yes, of course, the infographic. Yes, the blog post. Yes, the social post. Yes, all of the white papers. We can build multiple ideas around a few big ideas. This is the heart of what Jay Baer would call the digital dandelion strategy, a few big ideas that are promoted and used with smaller ideas that surround them. 

And then, of course, marketing. Of course, we have to support marketing for campaign-based value. Campaign-based value, in time, with marketing campaigns, and website redesigns, and all the things that we'll do. 

And guess what? If we're creating content that is so valuable for our customers toward building a greater asset, they inherently make direct marketing campaign based valuable assets. They just do. They'll make great campaign assets. 

That wonderful white paper, that ebook, they will make wonderful assets to support campaign-based marketing as collateral. But then if the sales guy, or the demand generation people or somebody goes, you know what? 

We need more calls to action, we need more sales, we need more products mention in this. You can go, you know what? That's great, we're going to do that. We're going to create special versions of this asset just for you, just to support this one line of value campaign-based value.

Ultimately, what we're trying to do here is build an integrated strategy for content marketing and how it can help other elements of the business provide integrated value. 

And so, thinking of how we're building that asset to provide, yes, campaign-oriented value, how can we shorten the time of getting the product or service into the customer's arms? How can we help promotion? How can we help develop more leads? But also, how can we use the building of an audience to give us insight into that audience? How can we use the data we can glean from the consumption of content that's valuable to them to help us understand how to market better, how to create better advertising, how to create better products for our particular customer set?