Content is the king? We all produce tons of it: texts, video, infographics, ebooks, podcasts… 70% of companies declare that they plan to publish even more in 2015. But does it mean real value or better understanding of the product to customer? Maybe it just accustoms him to abundance of free content and makes him feel lost in myriads of materials? We share our secret formula for valuable content: curation + context.
Content curation
No, you don’t have to become a tweedy, bespectacled scientist surrounded by dusty museum exhibits. But just like him your should carefully organize objects (content in your case) according to well-thought plan, your knowledge and expertise.
Term “curation” became very popular not only in relation to content management in internet, but also in lifestyle.
Minimalist lifestyle: roots of curation idea
Notion of curation is related to minimalism, a trend of resistance against:
- mass, intrusive marketing,
- consumerism,
- thoughtless spending,
- feeling overwhelmed by purchased objects which don’t fulfill any needs.
Concept of lifestyle curation imply mindful selection of items, content, relationships, cleaning lifespace of redundant things in order to make room for self-development.
Curation in marketing: from producer to curator
Curation refers also to communication in internet. Most of us feel exhausted from overload of information (mostly unimportant), constant notifications (of not so urgent events), need to be connected all the time. People want to reduce, to consume less content, to filter and select, to choose quality over quantity.
For marketers it means taking new role: we’re not only content producers, but also its curators. We manage, present, organize it and adjust its exposition to needs of individual user.
Individualism
Curation and minimalism came from growing sense of individualism among people: we demand personalized treatment and feel fed up with mass communication. So the key to success is to see personalization as a base, core of campaigns (not some additional feature) and offer customers sense of receiving carefully curated messages, prepared specially for them. It means completely different model of customer – brand relationship.
Context is the king
It’s high time to recognize and use value of context in content providing: adjusting materials not only to user’s profile, but also to his current needs. So by each campaign ask yourself: in what surrounding will my message appear? When and where will it be consumed? What my user searches and wants?
Marketing was always about context
Although we always cared about finding suitable context (channel, form) for marketing communication, until Big Data, advanced analytics and Marketing Automation we couldn’t actually modify message according to context in real time. Today we know much more about our customers, we identify their interests, localization and time of content consumption, we score their engagement. But how to use all that in practice?
Content: curation + context. 7 tips:
- How to measure content quality? With time needed for its consumption: how long would it take for user to read your text, download and read ebook, watch a video? What benefits does he gets in exchange for his time? Is it worth it?
- Concision is a virtue: when you edit your texts, podcasts or video, focus on what to delete. Information should be concentrated and easy to digest.
- Display materials according to user’s engagement: users who follow you on regular basis have different needs that those that visit your website for the first time. Design user’s path: order in which your materials should be read. Where new user should start? What could inspire advanced users? Formulate rules that match suggested content to user’s engagement and to what he has seen/ read.
- You’re a content curator: try to think of yourself that way. You’re an expert, who uses his impressive knowledge to educate and inspire others; not only content producer, but also organizer and presentation.
- Use customer’s localization: tailor campaign to place, when your user stays, thanks to beacons integrated with SALESmanago or mobile app with geolocalization.
- Use time of opening an e-mail: if you have gathered data on when does your recipient opens his emails, you can personalize communication basing on that. If he reads emails in the morning, refer to coffee, if in the afternoon – to moment for himself after a long day. Why? It builds a sense of integrity between communication and users lifestyle, strengthens bonds with brand.
- Not only your website! Optimize also social media and RTB networks ads according to rules of personalization.
What about your ideas for valuable content? Share some in comments!
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