Nowadays, the content marketer has the hardest job in marketing. Content marketers are expected to be marketing unicorns – creating content that is compelling, relatable, and authentic, and then creating piles and piles of it.
You’re also expected to know every aspect of the business, so that you can create content surrounding it. Which means that your content has to be expert-level every single time, and that is no easy feat.
And the channels you put your content on? Those channels are getting more and more crowded these days, making it more difficult to stand out and set yourself apart from the rest. Plus, the bar is set HIGH on what will stand out and draw people’s attention. Would-be users and potential customers expect—and demand—quantity AND quality in their content.
Lastly, content marketers have to show attribution. Not only does the content have to be stellar, but you also have to prove that this content is attracting leads and those leads are converting. Think of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s demand to Tom Cruise’s character in “Jerry McGuire” to “Show me the money!”
So in a nutshell–create a ton of content. Make sure the content is entertaining and attention-grabbing. Make sure the content is expert in its insights. And then make it stand out in the crowded world of blogs and social media. Oooooof…. Those are some high expectations!
Develop a New Playbook
So how can we change how hard the job is? Glad you asked. Step into our office.
The first step is to develop a whole new playbook, one that reflects today’s modern world called Amplified Marketing.
So what is Amplified Marketing?
Amplified marketing is a new wave of content marketing that focuses on putting expert interviews and conversations at the center of your content strategy and amplifying those voices into your marketing strategies.
This new playbook replaces the content marketing playbook of yesteryear riddled with SEO keywords and that was built for search engines rather than real people. It makes you commit to conversations and helps you create a more manageable and enjoyable job for content marketers. This is where podcasts can be a huge help. They allow you to show personality for your brand, connect with your audience in an authentic fashion, and get insights from multiple experts across the industries.
Right off the bat, content marketers have expert opinions in their hands that they can wring out into amazing content that can meet the needs mentioned above.
Not only that, but this gives you the opportunity to focus on creating engaging content through stories. Rather than focus on content that revolves around your brand that you think will resonate with your audience, you have the ability to ask your target audience what they want to hear and talk with them about it. Customers, partners, prospects, industry experts, and even your own internal team members can share experiences and expertise from their point of view. This not only gives you the added edge of unique content, but it creates powerful stories that actually serve your audience. Basically, content marketers are now becoming journalists of sorts, storytellers even. And when you build content for an audience, it means writing specifically for your audience, which means making them (each one of them) the hero of the story.
Let’s face it: No one wants marketing to talk “at them.” Instead, they want to be brought into an exciting and engaging conversation that is relevant to them personally. Keeping this at the forefront of your mind when creating your content will help you master the fine—and sometimes maddeningly elusive—art of content marketing.
Another great piece of advice is to harness the power of the leading experts in your field by having them as guests on your show. We do this here at Casted and have seen the exponential benefits and success of doing so firsthand. One recent podcast—The Magic of Authenticity with PERQ’s Muhammad Yasin—speaks directly to this subject and more.
Muhammad lent his expert wisdom while addressing many topics, including the aforementioned problem of crowded channels that often make it hard for even the most stellar content marketers’ output to shine.
After mentioning how the “email marketing and events space were getting super crowded,” Muhammad explained how he is now “a big proponent of making large pieces of content that can be broken into much smaller consumable, snackable bite-sized pieces, and also, with creating content that can be delivered to people where they’re at.”
And Muhammad means exactly where they are at: in the car, during a commute (Muhammad reminds us that “there’s space in that commute to deliver some content in a way that’s easy to consume, and getting it away from the ‘eyeball fatigue’ of reading emails over and over again”); on the treadmill at the gym, headphones on and ears wide open to receive what we’ve got to say (and sell); and the list goes on.
Muhammad relays how this realization of a wide-open opportunity to fill that space with something good brought him to delve into podcasting, which he explains is a perfect space for storytelling, especially in the B2B space. Why? According to Muhammad, “Any market telling the stories of not only your customers but also the stories of the people inside your organization, is much more compelling when you’re able to actually hear people’s voices.”
Muhammad’s interview offered further insights into how podcasting can be a real game-changer for content marketing and much more, including how it, in his opinion, is a real catalyst for organic conversations and, ultimately, more authentic interactions to occur. It’s also smart from an efficiency and output standpoint—a getting more bang for your buck kind of thing. Case in point: Muhammad highlighted that “Even something as simple as a transcript, or you give that [podcast] audio to your content manager, and they’re able to maybe pull four, or five, six topics out of it with quotes that were out of that podcast, and have blogs for weeks, or months sometimes, and then, you mix in some audio clips maybe with that, and you’ve got some great audiograms for social media.”
He adds, “You’ve got snippets of quotes you can use, that you can turn into images that you post on social, or on your Instagram, and your stories, or whatever. This is a great spot to start with really authentic content that you can remix into other formats down the road versus the other way around, which is far harder.” It’s like the gift that keeps on giving—and earning.
The Opportunities are Endless
The sky is the limit here. Keep this concept in mind: Spread the love (far and wide), using the same content, creatively packaged and presented in countless ways. People can turn interviews with thought leaders from their podcasts into audiograms, blogs, videos, social posts, and take inspiration and create Q&A’s, AMA’s, webinars, etc.
Not only is this a great multimedia experience for your audience, but it’s a great opportunity to capture the unique expertise at your company and share content that your audience will actually care about. We have found this to be true ourselves, which you can read more about here. So read on, listen close, and learn how to wring it out—get that great content with unique expertise, then use that to more easily drive other content.
If reading this has encouraged you and gotten you excited to jump in and start creating excellent content (and we sure hope it has), Casted would love to help you even further. Schedule a demo and find out how our team can alleviate the challenges for your content team.
