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Channel Your Content Into Strategy

You’re the best at what you do. It’s true. If you’ve been successful in business, it’s because you’re offering unique services, making superior products or fulfilling customers’ needs better than others.

Congratulations on achieving that, but you still need others to discover your expertise. For leads to find out about your subject knowledge and experience. If only someone would tell that story. How about you?

A content strategy gets your message out and draws customers in. It’s a multi-faceted approach designed to deploy over multiple channels, some external and others internal. Doing it well bolsters credibility and ultimately creates opportunities.

Growing your content strategy can increase your authority in search engines and customers' minds.

Establishing Your Authority

The goal throughout an integrated content strategy is to establish credibility in a given space. Whether that’s as an aircraft broker or aviation support service provider – your content serves as the credentials to gain customers’ trust and spur their action.

Build your authority piece by piece, with each step burnishing your reputation. It can happen over years, such as FlightSafety International’s seven-decade climb to become the world’s premier aviation training provider.

It also happens quickly in emerging industries. North Dakota just launched Vantis, the first statewide network for unmanned aircraft systems, but Vantis already has authority within UAS communities and with entrepreneurs alike. That’s because it has been successful in telling its story and showing the possibilities it provides.

Media Matter

Four major components serve as the foundation for your content strategy. All work with ways to distribute messaging through media, but only one requires dedicated funding outside of creation:

owned content, such as your website and blog

OWNED Arguably the most important component because it’s the one controlled exclusively by you. It’s what you use to establish your bona fides and expertise. That includes thought leadership or case studies. You answer frequently asked questions. Why are you an expert? Owned media lays out your case.

earned content, such as media coverage

EARNED The heart of earned media is outside news coverage or media relations. There are many ways to show your potential customers you have credibility. One of the best is to have news media or influencers, who have authority in their own regard, highlight your products or cite your work.

shared content, such as your social channels

SHARED Social media opens up directions for content that weren’t available 10 years ago. Actively engaged social media channels allow shareable snippets to reach target audiences quickly. What’s more effective than word of mouth? Try platform-tailored videos and content, shared with a tap or a swipe.

paid content, such as online and social advertising

PAID Finally, the realm of paid content isn’t exactly what you might think it is. It’s not buying a traditional billboard ad – it’s about finding ways to deliver messaging to the right person through a boost. Analyzing data and specific markets are key to ensure you get the most bang for your buck.

Achieving Your Goals

Creating a good content strategy means having good grasps on what you hope to achieve. Are you building brand awareness or trying to generate leads? Are there key performance indicators to reach? What benchmarks would define success going forward? Good strategists can create and activate plans that work for your business and show measurable results to support them. Remember, you’re already the expert in your field. It’s time to tell the world about it.

01.18.21 · Ashley Bowen Cook

Channeling Our Creative Side

Don’t change that dial. The PBS station in our market has a new name and look but offers the same “Seriously Good TV.”

KPTS Channel 8 has changed its name to PBS Kansas Public Television. The move puts the channel under the national umbrella of PBS brands. Greteman Group was tapped to create a campaign geared toward a regional audience and to update the brand.

Public television is for the common good, using the airwaves to offer television that aims to inform, educate, and entertain. It is free TV with prestige programming. But it is hardly stodgy.

Our challenge was to remind viewers of the station’s depth of programming — kids shows, comedy, cultural performances, imports, and local shows that highlight community issues and people — in a few words. We cheated a little.

“Seriously Good TV” is a campaign line with legs. Flexible ones. The full line speaks broadly to the quality that the station offers across its schedule. When you break it down and simply apply “seriously” before other words, it extends the theme and gets more specific. PBS, for example, is “Seriously Smart,” or “Seriously Local,” or “Seriously British,” or “Seriously Educational.” You get the idea. It’s a fill in the blank. Collectively, they tell the story. Individually, the lines serve as focused headlines for billboards, social media graphics, and other targeted messaging.

Our designers created a vibrant look for the campaign by employing bold graphics that help tell the story. The illustrations, using the PBS brand palette, create a colorful contrast to the live footage and programming photo stills that will appear alongside them. Those elements were then put in motion in a video, creating a demo for the client to see how the campaign could work in station IDs and on-air promos. In all, we created a toolkit of assets to turn over to their internal marketing team to execute, including billboards, social media visuals, graphics standards, and motion graphics video content.

The client praised our work in an email. Subject line: “Wow!”

“Even in the short time we’ve spent with it, I am excited for the possibility it will give the station,” it read. “Your team has done it again with your work for KPTS. Thank you and your staff for another outstanding campaign. You’ve done so many, but this is another feather in your caps.”

That’s good feedback from anyone, and especially from an old friend. It was a pleasure to work on a campaign for the station that taught many of us at the agency our ABCs. From A-Z, it is a campaign that says local PBS is free, fun, and for everyone. Seriously.

01.17.21 · Sonia Greteman

Put a Ring On It

Want more audience engagement? Is your content engaging? A little tough love here. No one is waiting to hear from your brand.

Inboxes are full. Social media timelines are an unending scroll. Our smartphones chirp for attention when we look away. If your content is going to pop up on our screen, it’s gotta be interesting. Quickly. Or we’ll move on.

Be Interesting

You should be creating content about what interests you. It will probably interest others as well, especially if you have a real passion for it. That will come through. Your expertise and experience will earn you readers and trust.

you should create content about what interests you

If you’re just writing to fill a hole or to bury some SEO into the copy, that shows. Better to hold off and write when you have something to say. Or interview someone who does, if it is a subject you want to feature for strategic reasons but are not an expert on the topic. Question and answer formats work well and are easy to put together.

Don’t Be Dull

This was supposed to be a blog about content and best practices on “how to produce the good stuff and blah, blah, blah.” Truth is, there’s no one formula. All that you can hope to do is be entertaining and informative. People won’t read or watch videos of even the most useful things if they’re dull.

How not to be dull:

  • Brief is good.
  • Smart works.
  • It helps to be funny.
  • Look sharp. Design matters.

Of course, we can’t all be all of those things. That’s why many companies have marketing teams or agencies handling their social accounts. But if you’re going it alone, here’s some more advice.

content audiences love

Be Yourself

Remember: No one is waiting to hear from your brand. Or your marketing team. Or to read your latest press release. But people are always happy to hear from you.

Why? Because you are such a gosh darn delight.

Everyone out there is seeking validation, and you have been kind enough to validate us a time or two with a like or share. Simple and sweet as that: You once made us feel good. We remember that every time we see your handsome logo on the screen (swoon), and now we take the time to read your content.

Don’t Overthink It

Content is just another word for stuff. Now, get out there and strut yours.

01.15.21 · Sonia Greteman