Content Strategists Found At the 2010 Custom Media Day

Content strategy at the custom media day 2010

Content strategy was the biggest take-away for me from the 2010 Custom Media Day event in New York last week, probably because the topic is top of mind for me when working in my role as a content strategist for several clients here at Pace.

While I tend to focus on digital marketing strategies for clients and Pace, when I chat about content strategy with customers, I go beyond digital to print. Even if you are in the print mindset, it’s still good to think about the digital.

In fact that's one of the tasks on my plate for clients when working with any print magazine teams here at Pace. I take the edit plan from the editors, and based on the stories suggested I recommend digital strategies. Here are three I regularly promote to clients and colleagues:

Audience Sourcing Your Content

• Ask your audience to submit a photo for publication in the print magazine. Make the request within existing social media channels such as Facebook, a blog or Twitter. It's probably better to designate one channel on which all of the submissions will be placed. Using a voter-popularity website will help with the feedback selection process and demonstrate that you're listening to the voice of the customer. Photo submission may be supported with a free giveaway.

Designing Content for the Web

• News articles are best delivered quickly on the web with bite-sized content, unless you have a complex or analytical story to tell. Use bullets and short paragraphs.
• If you are highlighting a hotel or location, send people to the Web for additional information in the same geographic location. Give a list of other hotels or places to visit, such as restaurants. Consider developing an infographic that visually illustrates the location of places on a Web map; Pace built several interactive maps for the Southwest Airlines Magazine .

But content strategy goes beyond these simple tactics, really it’s more about a company's content distribution strategy, how a company creates content that works for different content types and purposes.

The final panel of the day during the custom media day was peppered with content strategy and content distribution strategy questions from the audience.

I threw a content strategy question over to the panel and asked, "How do you manage content distribution when different functions have different purposes? For example marketing may have sales goals, while PR has branding and editorial goals."

I thought the best answer came from Jeannine Rossignol, Vice President, Marketing Operations and Sales Enablement at Xerox. Jeannine answered the question by telling the audience that when a customer video case study is being prepared, different departments will plan together how they are going to maximize the video shoot. PR will need a longer video, marketing will take exerpts for calls to actions, and the sales teams will plan to take separate video on the same day for their internal customer sales training.

Not only does Xerox’s approach demonstrate that a content strategy that involves prior planning can ensure maximum benefit from individual content opportunities but different content creation teams and content stakeholders will be able to stretch budgets through careful planning and collaboration.

Posted By: John Cass