So you've read our overview blog post from last week about implementing your content strategy (if not we'd recommend you taking a read). But now it’s time to get into the gritty detail of each step.
The first step (and in our opinion most important): how to target your audience. Here are our 4 top things you should be thinking about:
1. Who do you want to be pitching to in your dream scenario?
Trust us this is SO worthwhile! You need to get your imagination flowing and think about sitting across the desk to your ideal client. Who is that person?
Now, don’t worry if there are more than one of these guys across your made up mahogany office desk - trust us, as a production company who works with brands, commissioners and agencies we have many ideal candidates sitting across our desk! However, if it helps, ask yourself questions like: what role would this person have, how big would their company be, where would it be location wise, where can you engage with them? It will help you create a big old list of people you want to reach out to.
For instance, for Mattr Media Jane is our wonderful in house marketer. She is:
✓ A senior marketer working for a small London based brand or organisation
✓ With a company with staff of no more than 100 people
✓ Somewhere with poor or no in house production capabilities
✓ Shows an appetite for content (as exemplified by her blog and groups she's in on Linkedin)
✓ Somewhere with a turnover of £5m and healthy profits to report on.
This isn't the Jane you were thinking of right? (Source)
2. What are your target audience’s wants and needs?
Once you've worked out who you're looking to target, you need to then get into their heads and figure out how they’re going to be judged at being good at what they do. That tends to lead you to realise what they want and need.
So, using Jane as our example, she probably wants her brand to be a market leader in providing value for it’s customers, she also wants to be creating exciting content in a smart, fresh and innovative way (because who doesn’t). However, she needs to prove return on investment (ROI) to her bosses and show that they’re ahead of the competition.
3. Are you sure these are your target audience’s wants and needs?
Up till now you’ve only used intuition. It’s now about putting meat on your intuitive bones. Here are a few ways you can do that:
Use handy tools like Google Trends and Adwords to see what people are searching for (don’t worry, we are going to go into more detail for keyword analysis in forthcoming blogs). But for example, we found “Social Media Video” a hot trending topic, which made us change part of our objective to helping people understand social video better (as opposed to generic “video content marketing”).
Take a look at what your competitors are producing - what are they making that makes you say ‘our clients would love that’ and what are they NOT making that you think they should? e.g. we noticed none of our competition spoke about meaningful UK branded content (much was focused on 'virals').
Here’s a crazy idea, have you ever thought about just phoning up clients and asking them what they like to read and watch to help them with work, or what they would love your kind of company to help them with? Not only does it help you figure out the kind of content you should create, but it also gives you the excuse to tell your customers about the amazing additional value you’re hoping to provide them from the answers they provide you!
What about stuff you check out? Think about the relevant industry publications, blogs or channels that you read, listen to or watch regularly. At the end of the day, if you can emulate these people, you’re doing well. For instance, we really enjoy reading Brand Republic’s viral chart that is compiled by Unruly, so because we are constantly sharing positive content with each other on Slack and social media, we thought why not take the content and create a weekly round up of the content that Mattr’s?
4. Test: The last supper
You’re so nearly there. However, if you can’t paint a picture of a dinner party full of your audience bitching to each other about what they hate about their jobs and you interrupting telling how you can help, then you need to start again!
How do we know? Well, let's think back to Jane:
She doesn't know how to tell great stories through film and is scared she won't be able to justify the cost to her boss. Well, we will provide her with tools to help her do that.
I’m sure there are other ways to do this, but we found the above a super simple, logical and effective way to help us create content that is of value for our target audience. So, try it out and hopefully you’ll find it of use!
Do you have any more tips on how to build a strategy that suits your target audience?Then drop us an email! We may be a London production agency but we are all ears for your opinions and suggestions and want to collaborate you! Make sure you sign up to our mailing list in the footer too!
Thanks to 'joethegoatfarmer' for the awesome graphics!