Today, the quality of your content can either make or break your brand. Content is now consumed at scale, and this is often the goal for many brands as they look to ramp up their content supply. In this op-ed, Irene Sarris, head of content at Prodigious talks about how increasing volume alone however isn’t necessarily increasing impact, brands need to look deeper into how they create value for today’s digital audience, as well as how to extract more value throughout the content creation process.
There’s an enormous amount of content being created and distributed online every day, adding to a very cluttered digital environment. Advancements in AI are further accelerating this pace, making it easier than ever before to create large volumes of content. What’s not as easy, however, is making sure that content is getting the scale and cut-through intended.
I recently read that the industry has evaporated $100 billion on content that is either unseen or unused.
Content wastage is costing marketers a fortune, but the good news is that it can be avoided. With greater focus on value, we can significantly enhance the effectiveness of brand content while also minimising resource expenditure.
This takes a strategic, agile way of working and a collaborative mindset.
You don’t build a house without a blueprint.
As brands look to increase their content supply, content strategy becomes an essential tool in how we create value and how we address the ‘unseen and unused’ aspect of content marketing.
Today’s content strategist aims to establish alignment between business goals and audience needs. Where the real challenge lies, is the need to also plan for greater effectiveness and usability, as today’s digital audience becomes harder to reach and engage.
The digital world is becoming a highly automated place, driven by algorithms that prioritise content that is of high value to its audience, relevant and timely. With so much content competing for our attention, how we cut through in these high scroll environments all comes down to these essential components.
This is why integrated planning with media is critical to deliver better utilisation and visibility across channels. Greater insight into audience trends and behaviours on platforms, as well as keeping in tune with the formats that platforms are prioritising, will help to guide the content creation process and increase the likelihood of content being seen.
Whilst integrated planning is important for enhancing effectiveness, it’s also critical to minimising resource expenditure. Something like 50% of commissioned content has never been used. Media alignment ahead of creation will avoid unnecessary content wastage, and instead, you can extract more value from your content production efforts.
Agile workflows keep costs at bay but also spark new forms of creativity.
Quality content is the result of seamless collaboration across creative and production too. As we work in a more agile, integrated way, we can experiment in ways that drive new efficiencies and spark creativity.
At Prodigious, we recently worked with a client to turn a static e-book into an audio-visual campaign that would be more engaging, easier to navigate, and interact with.
In two days, we repurposed the content into an audiobook, using influencers as the voiceover talent to build greater relevance, and filmed nine entertaining video reels for social, as part of our strategy to attract new listeners. The influencers promoted the audiobook to their community, who were the primary audience, creating a pathway to view, stream and download the content. A good example of blending value to audience with consideration of what works well in channel to help increase visibility and drive deeper audience engagement.
Think of ways to reuse, repurpose, or refresh existing content to meet the changing needs of your audience, so that you are always delivering and extracting more value from your brand content.
We worked collaboratively in an agile team consisting of content strategy, social, creative, media and production talent, a truly integrated process. Through agile resource utilisation you can keep control of costs, but not compromise on quality.
AI for efficiency whilst maintaining quality.
AI has quickly revolutionised the way content is planned and created. For a while now we have used AI to gain greater insights into our customers, track trends in real-time and audit content so our strategies are more targeted. AI is now being used to enhance creative ideation and significantly accelerate the production process.
Will this lead to more low-value content that drives less impact as a result? In my opinion, if leveraged in the right way AI can enhance the possibilities for innovative, efficient, and impactful brand content. Where we make efficiency gains by integrating AI into workflows, we can reallocate budget towards creating more value through strategy, creativity and craft.
Whilst AI has proven to be a great tool in content creation, it’s important to remember that quality content relies on the collaborative efforts of content strategy, media, creative and production talent working together to create meaningful impact for audiences and brands.
This is how we can achieve greater effectiveness and cut-through in the overflowing stream of online content, whilst also providing marketers with a more sustainable solution to content creation.
