Every marketing campaign we run starts with an idea. The idea might stem from a conversation, a marketing asset, an industry trend, a specific audience challenge or even a product feature or benefit. In essence, an idea is akin to a theme or topic for a campaign - it's a problem to solve.
Too often in B2B content marketing, people start with an idea for an asset and build the campaign entirely around that one asset, which is often limiting to creativity and doesn’t always provide the best results.
Let’s say I come into the room exclaiming we should write an eBook about “How to extract the ROI of a single LinkedIn post” (so 2015, right?). It might not be a bad idea for an eBook but if everyone agrees that this is our next campaign, then so much has already been decided and the marketing plan becomes a way to make the eBook happen, along with a distribution and promotion plan.
If we instead consider the idea behind the asset suggestion, in this case an eBook, then we start to unravel a richer marketing plan that has more longevity, and importantly, real consideration for which assets are actually best for both the topic and the audience. On further review, we might decide a video or short podcast series is a better way to go than an eBook.
Let’s go back to the beginning…
While sometimes an idea for a marketing campaign comes naturally, other times it needs thought and a large whiteboard. There are many ways to start with ideation, so here are a few considerations to take into account:
- What are you trying to achieve from your marketing campaign? It’s unlikely you’re just running the campaign for fun, so what’s the objective? Any idea you come up with needs to align with the overall goals.
- Who are you trying to reach? The audience is going to dictate the ideas that work and the ones that don’t and ultimately any messaging you work on will need to be relevant and relatable for your target audience.
- Market and industry trends - is there something going on in the market that you can align with and create content around that is relevant to your audience?
- Audience challenges and frustrations - dust off your personas and revisit the challenges and frustrations your audience face, there might just be something you’ve missed or has become relevant in the current market.
- Product and service features and benefits - is there a killer feature or benefit that helps your audience solve their challenge?
Example: When a client in the manufacturing industry heard that there were general industry frustrations that products weren’t being manufactured or tested to the highest standards, we set out to create a campaign to show exactly how the client’s products are "Tested to the Extreme".
This being the idea for the campaign, the assets included everything from videos of the product being tested, through to website pages, social posts, blogs and more, showing how the products are manufactured and tested. This aligned well with the audience and how they engage with content.
When it comes to the actual ideation phase of the campaign, you could also consider the role AI can play. Turn it into the ultimate creative sparring partner by briefing an AI tool with the same brief and information that you provide to your marketing team. The goal: come up with creative marketing ideas, messaging and assets that AI can’t.
If AI comes up with the same list as you and the team, maybe it’s a good opportunity to go back to the whiteboard and see what else you can come up with or if the idea from AI is really good, then you could try running with it!
Making sure the idea is relevant to your audience
Once you’ve got a campaign idea, theme or topic ready, go back to your ICP or persona information and check that it aligns with the challenges, frustrations and interests of the audience. Doing this will allow you to think more empathetically when working on the core messages for the campaign.
When developing this messaging, keep in mind that whatever you come up with needs to flow from the very first interaction with the campaign to the last. There’s no point developing messaging that engages the audience if the sales team is then going to tell a different story further down the road, or worse, contradict the marketing message.
Tip: Sometimes the best marketing ideas come from sales. Ask your sales team to provide you with some of the common questions they’ve been asked by prospects in the sales process.
Developing the assets
It’s only now that we even start to think about the assets that deliver the core messages and idea to the audience. The challenge here is to think about how your audience is most likely to engage with the campaign and how you’re going to reach them. Who knows, maybe an eBook is the best way to get in front of your persona, but I won’t be surprised if you tell me “Our audience doesn’t have time to read long-form content”, so maybe an eBook isn’t the best asset.
Use reports and analytics from previous campaigns to try and get a better understanding of what content assets work best for your audience.
It’s also worth thinking about what asset type best suits the message you’re trying to convey. If visuals and video are a stronger way to get the message across, then this might be the core content asset you move forward with.
Making the most out of the content you create
Given how much work often goes into creating a hero piece of content for a campaign, as well as the time and thought that goes into the messaging development, it’s always a shame to see a campaign stop there. Every piece of content should be reviewed to see how it can be turned into additional content.
The nice thing is, by this point, the heavy lifting is often done, and with the advent of AI tools and platforms you can use these tools to help create the additional content assets, while keeping the messaging and idea running through it all.
Here’s just a few examples of how you can turn a video into multiple assets for your campaign:
- Shorter video snippets that work as stand-alone content on social media
- Audio-version of the video for people to listen to on the go
- Transcript of the video or scripts converted to blogs, a guide or eBook for those that prefer to read the content
- Visuals from the video that can be used as campaign supporting images
All of the above can essentially be created using AI tools providing more options to share the messaging from the campaign and to target the audience through different mediums and assets.
Planning your next content marketing campaign
It all starts with an idea. With an audience in mind and an objective to target, the idea sits at the centre of your campaign and everything you produce should align with the idea. As a thematic approach to content marketing, it’s crucial to ensure that the idea you back is relevant and relatable to the audience.
From here, you can plan out the messaging and the assets you want to produce, before then deciding the best channels for distribution and how best to host the content you create.
And remember, don’t stop using the content! Unless you’re in a particular industry where the campaign you run is very contained, or even seasonal, the content you generate should continue to be used in your marketing efforts for as long as it’s relevant. That could be months or even years.
