We’ve said it before - many times - and we’ll keep saying it - probably until we keel over - but when it comes to marketing content is king.
But it’s got to be interesting, or engaging, or relevant, or funny, or emotional, or motivational, or challenging - or all of these, but creating good content takes a lot of time and effort, so it’s important to get the most from your investment.
The first maxim is ‘write once, publish many times’. We usually start with the long form version, a blog post or article, then push snippets or images through various social media channels, in our case focusing on Linkedin (both the company and employee pages) and Instagram but you may be using others such as Facebook, to draw users back to the blog post which is housed in our site so drive traffic. We also take advantage of an easy and free channel by including an intro and a pic of the latest post in our email footer which drives a surprisingly decent amount of links.
So far so standard.
To get full value though, and tap into new and larger audiences, you also need to be thinking about “amplification”.
What’s that then?
According to On Spot Social “amplification is a marketing term used to define methods put in place to reach a wider audience. Amplifying your content is the only way to drive traffic to your website. There are several methods used to boost content until it reaches your desired audience. Content amplification is an ongoing process and it features several techniques that lead to desired results.”
The trick is to find others who will amplify your content, such as articles and podcasts, by sharing them through their marketing and social media connections. Typically this happens when there’s a win-win situation with both you and the sharer standing to get some benefit.
We saw a really good example of this recently with our client HLD-EV, a start up business which specialises in electric vehicle charge point installations, for whom we’ve developed the brand and website. HLD-EV specialises in commercial charge point installations, which generally requires some related signage so they co-brand this with their customers and also ask them to share the news. Most of their clients are very receptive and have posted articles on their company sites and their social media channels because they’re proud to share the news that they are being green by investing in EV and latest tech and they’re very happy to mention HLD-EV as the installers bringing them to a much wider audience. This has already led to new inquiries and commissions.
‘Having a Gas’, a series of podcasts by Gas Music, provides another great example of amplification. We’re currently working on a new website for Gas featuring their podcasts. They have proven to be a very effective channel building a big audience with downloads in the thousands and even tens of thousands. The Having a Gas podcasts are generally an hour long, in-depth conversations with a wide variety of industry names, from producers, composers, engineers and musicians on the music side, to creative and art directors on the agency side. The list includes some of the biggest agency names, such as Ogilvy, The Sims, Atomic, Mother and so on, as well as people from the music industry who might not be household names, but they’ve worked on, or with, or produced some huge names such as The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Queens of the Stone Age, Adele and Beyoncé to name drop but a few. The podcasts bring Gas, a small music production agency in Manchester, to much larger audiences through amplification as the interviewees share them too. The pieces also position the agency as experts in their field and music lovers, a key element of their pitch.
Tjepkema, a marketer turned CEO who has more than 15 years of experience in B2B marketing advises:
“If content marketers want to engage their audience, build meaningful relationships with prospects and establish customer loyalty that drives real results, it’s time to completely reshape the way they execute content marketing. They need to transform their outdated content marketing strategy into an amplified marketing strategy.”
According to Tjepkema, amplified marketing is the next generation of marketing. It focuses on putting conversations at the centre of your marketing strategy, then amplifying those expert perspectives across multiple channels, she says:
“Rather than spinning your wheels to create the next big blog post to serve algorithms, simply start instead with a conversation. Record it. Publish that rich audio and video content, then wring it out. Amplify it across other formats and channels to expand your reach and increase the overall return on investment. The beauty of amplified marketing is not only that it makes life easier for content marketers, it also helps brands build meaningful relationships with their audience and, as a result, increase conversions and drive revenue.”
Then, like the shampoo adverts say, just 'Lather. Rinse. And repeat."