2. OUTLINE
1. Content is the New Ad, #Hashtag is the New Tagline
2. Step-by-Step Content Marketing
3. Summary: Creating Conversations with Content
4. COSLA – Question A
5. COSLA – Question B
6. COSLA – Question C
3. 1. Content is the New Ad, #Hashtag is the New Tagline
Brand Promoters Story Tellers
Brand and it’s
Equity
Customers and
what it values
ROLE
FOCUS
6. COSLA Questions A & B
1. What is the content that you think will be valuable to your
customers?
2. How can the content tell a story about your brand?
3. How do you plan to execute your content-marketing strategy?
Editor's Notes
Content marketing shifts the role of marketers from brand promoters to storytellers, where hashtags has replaced the traditional taglines. In today’s world of internet connectivity, the challenge is how to keep your customers who are exposed to different influences – family, friends, or community opinions on your brands. Nowadays when customers are also exposed to user-generated content they find more credible and significantly more appealing, it gives them options or variety in whatever, whenever they intend to consume it. Content marketing is regarded as more effective as well as most cost-efficient but must also be complimented by traditional advertising or marketing. Advertising differs from content as the latter aims to provide its customers information to use for their own personal and professional objectives. With content, the shift is on the focus from brands and it’s equity to the customers and to what it values.
Content marketing involves content production and distribution. But before marketers even engage with the production and distribution, proper pre-production and post-distribution activities should be done as well as due diligence to achieve the optimal results. Distribution of content should be done using the best mix of channels. On Step1. Goal Setting, without a clearly defined goals, whether (a) sales-related goals or (b) brand-related goals, marketers will tend to get lost when they deep dive into content and distribution. On Step2. Audience mapping, defining a specific audience will help in sharper and deeper content creation, which in turn contributes to the brand’s effective storytelling. On Step3. Content Ideation and planning, it involves critical decision as to (a) relevant themes – connecting the brand’s stories to customer’s anxiety and desires, (b) suitable formats – consider multiple formats to ensure content visibility and accessibility. E.g. press releases, articles, newsletters, white papers, case studies, and even books, and (c) solid content-marketing narrative – often episodic, with different small story arcs that support the overall storyline. On Step4. Content Creation, the most important step which is a continuous and demanding process that requires precision and consistency, enormous commitment in terms of resources – time, budget, etc. in order to create entertaining and compelling stories. On Step5. Content Distribution, marketers need to ensure their content reach or be discovered by their intended audience through proper distribution through the media channels :(a) owned, (b) paid and (c) earned media. On Step6. Content Amplification, once content reach the intended audience groups, key is to secure and build a win/win situation with the influencers, as they have the power and influence to make a content go viral. On Step7. Content Marketing Evaluation, post-distribution step that evaluates the achievement of its sales-related and brand-related goals as well as other useful metrics that measure whether the content is visible (aware), relatable (appeal), searchable (ask), actionable (act), and shareable (advocate).On Step8. Content Marketing Improvement, since content is dynamic, periodic improvements of content marketing is essential by looking at the performance and evaluation of (a) content theme, (b) content format, and (c) distribution channel, through a persistent and consistent implementation of the content marketing plan.
More and more marketers are making the shift from advertising to content marketing. A mindset shift is required. Instead of delivering value-proposition messages, marketers should be distributing content that is useful and valuable for the customers. In developing content marketing, marketers often focus on content production and content distribution. However, good content marketing also requires proper pre-production and post-distribution activities. Therefore, there are eight major steps of content marketing that marketers should follow in order to initiate customer conversations. Marketers should listen to conversations taking place about their content. This can be overwhelming at times considering the magnitude of the conversations and the number of media involved. Thus, marketers must carefully select the conversations in which they want to participate
What is the content that you think will be valuable to your customers?
I always think the content that will be regarded as valuable to AIG’s customers is about two things (1) the uncertainty of the future and (2) the security and reliability that customers can get out of its partnership with the brand, having a great reputation of making difficult promises and integrity in keeping them. In AIG’s mission, reducing the fear of the future is the main ingredient of its brand positioning which is appealing to its targeted audience. AIG must capitalize on this by using this storyline to create content that will focus on these things. Together, it must listen to conversations taking place about the content and use this as leverage to influence outcomes in the execution of their overall content marketing plan. Collaboration is always a part of the strategy in order to solve our client’s problem as embodied in the company’s vision/mission and culture.
How can the content tell a story about your brand?
The content should appeal to millennials making up almost 3 quarters of the entire Insurance population/customers. Millennials expect instant results as they tap through their smartphones. If they can deposit a check or book a flight in seconds, they expect insurers to provide the same: instant quote, policy issuance, and claims submission all through a mobile app. Insurers need to evolve to deliver on millennial expectations, just like most industries have already done. That means using digital technology to create simple, easy user interfaces (UIs) and processes. Answering the question how the content tells the story about the AIG brand, the answer starts with flexibility of the content created as part of the digital branding. Digital tools require two key components: (1) a simple, easy-to-use UI and (2) a flexible back end. Both elements can provide instant approvals and exceptional customer experience. Impressive UI layers and mobile aps don’t offer much value unless the processes themselves are digital. Real transformation begins deep within the process layer and data core processing systems.
How do you plan to execute your content-marketing strategy?
AIG’s content marketing strategy should undergo careful planning in order to execute it properly. This means it should undergo pre-production, production, distribution and post-distribution planning steps in order to execute the plans properly. While in the process of executing the plans, the company should listen to customer conversations happening simultaneously and adopt and adjust accordingly, and be flexible and persistent enough to follow through. Modern marketers also need to compliment the traditional marketing strategy with its digital content marketing strategy in order to win the hearts/minds of insurance customers with the aim to converting them into advocates of the brand.
