By Brenna Lofquist, Senior Advertising Guide / Consumer Companies Operations at Heinz Advertising
There’s been lots of speak about traits for 2023, which we at all times see initially of a brand new yr as a result of, duh. Individuals need to know what the long run holds and what they are going to doubtlessly have to organize for.
My colleague Mina not too long ago wrote a put up on traits particular to the Healthcare trade and recognized that extra corporations are shifting inventive studios in-house. I figured lets increase on that and speak about the way to develop a content material technique, particularly since shifting inventive in-house can appear daunting and costly, hopefully this places you comfortable (at the very least somewhat bit).
What’s a content material technique?
Yet another factor earlier than we dive in to the good things. What’s a content material technique? To place it merely it’s the planning, growth, and administration of content material. The Content material Advertising Institute says consider a content material advertising and marketing technique as a top level view of your key enterprise and buyer wants, plus an in depth plan for a way you’ll use content material to deal with them.
In my expertise, issues like content material methods, can look very totally different relying on who you discuss to. And that’s okay. There’s lots of selection within the advertising and marketing trade and the principle level is to find out which content material technique works finest in your group. Okay, now lets get into it.
First issues first
Earlier than you possibly can even start to consider a content material technique there’s one thing it’s best to do first. In case you don’t have already got a content material stock, library, no matter you need to name it, that is the place it’s best to begin. It’s nothing fancy. Create an excel sheet and stock all present content material. You need to embrace some vital info for every content material asset akin to:
- Audience
- Funnel stage (prime, center, backside)
- Content material format
- Content material title
- Matter or focus space
When you’ve accomplished this, you’ll need to conduct an audit of the content material to see the place you may have gaps. This will simply be completed by creating a number of pivot tables to summarize the variety of content material belongings by the data listed about. Those to actually deal with are target market, funnel stage, and matter or focus space. When figuring out content material for healthcare campaigns or different advertising and marketing efforts, you need to be sure to have choices throughout the board so that you aren’t delayed since you don’t have content material obtainable.
After finishing these two steps, try to be able to develop your healthcare content material technique.
How one can create a content material technique?
First, should you don’t have a number of core matters or focus areas you’ll need to begin right here. You may also consider these as themes. To develop themes, I like to recommend doing analysis to determine what’s occurring within the trade, therefore the Healthcare trade traits put up.
When you’ve discovered a number of traits, try to hyperlink them again to problem messages out of your messaging framework. That is vital as a result of it routinely creates a connection between the pattern and the way your product or answer can assist or resolve the difficulty. A number of examples of healthcare themes are affected person consumerization and personalization of care, built-in applied sciences for a contemporary apply, and the danger of value-based care.
If you have already got core matters or focus areas outlined, you’ll need to do the identical factor and determine traits you could map to these problem messages. When you’ve accomplished this step, transfer on to the content material (or editorial) calendar.
Content material calendar
The content material calendar goes to take all of those items (content material audit and themes) and mix them to find out which content material to create when. Often a content material calendar is damaged down by quarter nevertheless, you possibly can alter it primarily based in your targets and goals. Whereas going by means of this train you’ll need to hold the corporate’s targets in thoughts. Perhaps there’s a particular initiative to deal with akin to personalization of care. If that’s the case, you’ll need to prioritize growth of content material in that space if it’s wanted.
That is the place the content material audit comes into play. Check out the audit and see what number of items of content material you may have for the subject and what number of items of content material fall through which funnel stage and by target market. In some circumstances, personalization of care is perhaps relevant to sure personas, not all, through which case you’ll need to filter by the relevant personas. Do you may have any gaps? Or areas the place content material is missing?
Right here’s a situation utilizing the personalization of care instance. Let’s say this matter is particularly vital to your Champions (Follow managers) and Influencers (Physicians/medical doctors/suppliers) and when wanting on the content material audit you discover many of the content material is for prime funnel, there’s somewhat little bit of content material for center and none for backside funnel. That is the place you’d need to focus your content material growth efforts for the quarter. It’s essential to guarantee you may have content material obtainable to help the businesses’ initiatives.
Beneath is an instance template of an editorial or content material calendar. It’s fairly easy, simply fill within the blanks!
You’ll undergo the identical course of till you may have every quarter stuffed in and perceive which content material must be developed when. After everyone seems to be aligned, you possibly can transfer on to content material growth.
Content material growth
This step can take totally different varieties, as famous earlier within the put up, determine what works finest in your group. At Heinz Advertising when working with purchasers, we put collectively a desk of content material concepts. Concepts vary from internet new to repurposed belongings, specializing in filling the gaps recognized within the content material calendar. You need to deal with the quarter that’s arising, relying on the place you’re at within the present quarter. Content material growth can take time, so be sure to’re giving your self and your crew sufficient time.
We use a precedence rating to assist purchasers know the place to start out when creating content material. The rating is normally primarily based on effort mixed with targets and/or the place the content material gaps are. If we proceed utilizing the personalization of care instance from above, you’d need to prioritize creation of a backside funnel asset over center funnel. You have already got a number of center funnel belongings however none for backside funnel, so begin there.
Effort relies upon if the asset is internet new or repurposed. Repurposed content material is less complicated to create as a result of you have already got many of the info. An instance of a repurposed asset is perhaps taking a long-form whitepaper and taking the important thing sections and turning it right into a guidelines or infographic. You’re distilling the data into a special format that may act as a abstract and even lead-in to the longer kind asset.
After getting your priorities so as, you can begin creating content material!
Now what?
You’ll need to revisit this train as soon as 1 / 4. Healthcare initiatives would possibly change which may impression the corporate’s goals; subsequently you need to be certain that your content material technique can help these modifications. There’s nothing worse than every thing coming to a halt since you notice you don’t have usable content material. So, as you’re employed by means of every quarter, you’ll need to proceed creating future quarters within the content material calendar so content material growth efforts proceed.
