The Brand Drives Content

Vikings stadium game photo from the stands looking over at Vikings digital billboard and the field

The brand experience must extend through all channels. The core of what your brand represents and its voice need to resonate across all mediums in all content from marketing to PR to in-person experience.

The brand feeds all content. Whether you’re seeing a paid ad on social media, browsing the website, tapping through the app, or viewing the latest photo posted on Instagram, it all feels like your company.

The brand experience is consistent.

Customer Journey Dictates Omni-Channel Content

Content must be tailored to the phases of the customer journey. Building awareness demands different content than retaining a recent customer and different content than engaging with a brand loyalist.

If someone has purchased a ticket, room, product, or service, they can now receive personalized information about their purchase. If they have shown interest by filling out a form on your landing page, you can now share information with them that they have indicated is relevant to them.

With potential customers, those who are unaware and those who are aware of your product/service will interact with your information differently. It’s important to analyze each channel and customize content that will reach customers where they are in their journey.

It’s important to note that messaging will be designed to fit the audience but that it will all still be on brand. People may be reached in different ways with different messaging, but the content is still consistent with the look and feel of the brand.

Research Needed to Build Strategy for All Channels

Knowing each channel’s strengths, audience, and purpose is necessary. Take the time to dissect the analytics, find out who’s visiting, and plan out how the content can be adapted to each channel.

Creating customer personas is an extremely useful exercise. Attributes such as age, profession, interests, etc. are all factors. Content that customers can relate to can only be built by keeping their profile top of mind at all times.

Create Consistency in Content and Creative

Corn on the cob closeup with the Corn Roast vendor in the background with a crowd

Each channel is different, but they ALL must work together to achieve business goals.

I have always been a proponent of integrated marketing strategy since I believe that all forms of marketing and communication need to work together.

Consistency can be achieved by approaching the complex matrix of marketing, PR, advertising, website content, social media, apps, blogs, etc. with the brand as your filter.

If content is on brand, visuals and copy in all formats will look and feel like home – as a customer, you’ll know where you are, feel comfortable, get a sense that you belong there/that you’re a part of something, and want to tell everyone how great it is!

No matter which channel a customer is interacting with, the content they experience feel like your company.

Each Bit of New Content Is a New Opportunity

White fireworks in the night sky

This is why I’m so passionate about content strategy and creation! I love what I do because each little bit of content created is another opportunity to:

  • Engage with the audience
  • Make sure new content is on brand
  • Learn about the customers
  • Track performance
  • Bring in new business
  • Find out what content works best
  • Try new things and see what sticks
  • Test messaging types
  • Put content out there that embodies the brand

Just writing this blog post makes me want to go out and create more content and new strategies. Off I go!