By Rex Hammock
For the past several years, Hammock has produced multiple digital media campaigns in various forms and formats, all with different marketing goals and purposes.
Early in the digital content era, many of these efforts were aimed at some type of lead generation or thought leadership. Today, marketers have discovered that content can—and should—play a central role in any ongoing marketing and communications program, from supporting a public policy effort to launching a new product to providing a constant flow of sales support in the form of video, social media and presentation materials.
With each campaign, we have discovered that one-off content efforts don’t work as well as coordinated multi-channel campaigns.
Here are some of the requirements we believe can maximize the return on any content campaign, no matter the goal or purpose.
- Create a content anchor: The foundation of the campaign should provide your target audience something of great importance, passion or need. It may be recurring commissioned research, a major event, or the launch of a custom annual print resource or video educational series. No matter what it is, it can’t be boring or self-promotional.
- Have multi-channel advertising and promotional support: You can’t produce and distribute a content anchor and expect it to succeed without marketing support. Your efforts should involve both paid advertising and earned media, including both classic marketing and media tools and digital-era tools like social media and streaming video.
- Include tools that are easy for the sales team to use: Digital media of any type provides the opportunity to circumvent traditional media and go straight to the customer. Your sales team should have the ability to use elements of the campaign with existing and potential customers.
- Must be coordinated: The most effective content marketing efforts are run much like the model of any successful marketing campaign: They are well-planned and well-executed.
- Use ongoing data to evolve the campaign: The right mix and types of content efforts will reveal what works and what should be tweaked or replaced. Research is essential and, in the digital era, easier to obtain.
Image: Getty Images
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