Technology has completely changed the game in today’s world, giving people across the globe endless options for consuming a constant stream of content. Think back to the last time you were out at a public place. Chances are nine out of 10 people you saw (maybe even all 10!) were most likely scrolling on social media, watching a video on YouTube, listening with airPods, or otherwise engaged in some sort of technology-affiliated activity. People are connected to their “gadgets” at the hip, religiously relying on them for nearly every facet of their lives and communication.
So what does all this connectivity mean for marketers?
It is a clear neon sign that screams that we must pivot to meet the demand for content and in the channels that people want them in. We as marketers can’t rely on the old staid tactics of yesteryear. What was relevant and cutting edge five years ago, or even two years ago, is now outdated, as technology evolves at a breakneck pace.
To make sure you’re connecting with your target audience properly, your content marketing style needs to undergo an extreme makeover. Enter amplified marketing.
In a nutshell, the amplified marketing approach helps you focus on creating content that helps your audience, which in turn allows you to humanize your brand, forge connections that will fuel conversions, and ultimately set your brand apart from the rest.
Now that you know what this new and exciting amplified marketing style is, we want to really get down to brass tacks and explain exactly how you can use this savvy approach to connect with your audience on a multitude of levels, meeting them right where they are. So let’s dive in and talk all about the tools that make up an amplified marketing strategy.
The listed mediums are integral parts of the amplified marketing winning strategy, each with the ability to revolutionize and amplify your content in different ways. We’ll cover how each category can fuel your content and shift the amplified marketing strategy into high gear for optimum results.
Conversations
Content, as we know, is a beast. It requires constant creation, and in the old days, constant brainstorming and research and endless meetings.
With the amplified marketing strategy, you want to build a foundation with conversations. Conversations can happen anywhere. Talk to your colleagues in Sales — what are the number one questions they get asked by leads? Talk to your colleagues in other departments — what is their expertise and how can we use it in a conversation that we can then amplify? Talk to your existing customers — what questions do they have? What are they passionate about?
Take all of these topics and conversations, and then take it one step further. Record them! Recording the conversation gives you this amazing piece of raw content that you can wring out into other forms, which we’ll discuss below.
Interviews with Experts
An age-old traditional sales tactic is the practice of leveraging a founder, internal subject matter expert, or otherwise brilliant front person to increase sales or build trust among your audience. This makes sense, as these are the individuals who know the industry and subject matter best, who will, in turn, be the most likely to earn the trust of those you are most trying to reach (and convert). Still, the undeniable fact is that this expert is only one person who can only do so much. Simply put: One person can’t do it all and single-handedly drive your business’s marketing strategy.
So what do you do? Reach out and connect with other experts! There are SMEs in every industry and on every subject. All you have to do is reach out, have a conversation with them, capture it in audio and/or video, and away we go.
“I’d say 50% of the time we end up pivoting from what our original conversation was going to be about based on what comes up in there, and we’ll ask them, what’s your deal? What, like, really gets you going? What are you passionate about? And let them talk, and then start pulling strings out of that, and we’ll build an outline, a couple of questions.
“Our podcast is about 20 minutes or so usually, so we’ll build four or five questions because you’re not going to get more than that, and we’ll call that our outline. We’ll agree upon it, and then we’ll get them on the call as soon as we possibly can. Like, honestly, we’ve found that it’s best if between that LinkedIn message and the actual recording is like a week max,” explained Muhammad Yasin, Executive Vice President of Marketing and podcast host at PERQ.
A single sit-down interview with one expert can then be amplified and shared on your website, across social media, and beyond, all while allowing you to edit and repurpose curated portions to even align with certain niche audiences and potential prospects. This is invaluable for creating truly personalized content that your audiences can connect with and respond to. With this approach, not only can you, the company that hosts the conversation, share it, but the expert you have can also share it with their network, extending the reach even more.
Existing Audio and Video Content
Yep, we said it. Amplified marketing isn’t just for the new conversations you’re having. Go dig into all of the existing audio and video content you already have. Chances are, there are tons of amazing conversations between employees, internal thought leaders, industry experts, and more. Think about your podcasts, video series, and even webinars.
What if you have so much of this content that you don’t know where to start? Take a peek at your content metrics and start with the conversational content that performed the best among your audience. That’s a great indicator that the content resonated with them and its worthy of a refresh, repurpose, or just re-promotion through amplified marketing.
All the Ways You Can Wring Out That Conversation
So you’ve got the conversations, you’ve got the interviews — now where do you go? Like we said above, EVERYWHERE. Take that audio, and squeeeeeeze all the juice out of it. Polish it up (or not) and put it out as a podcast. Or put a graphic on it and release it as a video on YouTube. Or get a transcript of the conversation, find the key takeaways and turn it into a blog. Or take the questions and do a video of the Q&As. You can also take clips and turn them into audiograms and share them across social media.
And one big thing you can do is to host a live event — a live recording of the podcast or a webinar — that allows your audience to connect to you in real time.
As Rebecca Abram, Senior Global Conferences Manager at Auth0, explains: “It allows you to almost feel like you’re in the room, having the conversation with the people who are conducting the interview.
“So, having the podcast there as a replacement for that main stage almost and creating our own stage, versus relying on others at the moment to provide that, has been really helpful in allowing our message to get out. It’s also interesting just because people are connecting with podcasts in different avenues where they’re not just staring in front of their screen. They’re up and moving around, and it’s a huge thing to share podcast information now. That’s becoming even a new social norm for connecting with those audiences.”
Anyway, you get the idea: The single conversation you started with has now — under the amplified marketing strategy — been used to produce a staggering amount of supplemental content that can be shared, reworked, elaborated upon, and on and on. It really is just like this gift that keeps on giving (and converting).
With amplified marketing as the platform, once the wheels are set in motion, content rolls along much more smoothly, efficiently, and effectively. If you’d like to hear more about how we use the amplified marketing strategy ourselves and other ways you can use it, click here.
