When it comes to getting the best of the competition and taking your industry by storm, it’s easy to see that plenty of overlap exists between a game of high stakes poker and your content marketing strategy. Play things right and you can take down a massive pot – in this case a new target audience. However, one misstep or tell could see all of your hard work and effort go down the drain. To make sure you always come out on the right side of the content marketing showdown, let’s spend some time covering the particulars of an “all-in” approach. This way, the next time you put all of your chips on the line, you’ll have the right content to do a whole lot more than just bluffing.
What Is the All-in Approach?
Poker analogies aside, the “all-in” approach is a simple mindset that can pay off in a major way when compared to the sometimes committed, sometimes wary methods engaged by most organizations. As Penry Price of Advertising Age explains in her look at this way of handling content operations, the all-in approach eliminates the risks associated with partial acceptance and helps remove your brand from the realm of those businesses that are not fully committed to giving consumers what they want.
Instead of just running a blog and idly posting on social media occasionally, going all-in means that your brand is dedicated to attacking the needs of your target audience from every angle. Additionally, leaving the sales mentality behind and adopting a mindset closer to that of a news agency or publisher also holds a place of prominence in the process. Sure, this might sound overly aspirational or unrealistic, but the reward awaiting those who are willing to go all-in – namely, a massive boost in the return on investment (ROI) for your content operations – is well worth treading where other brands might be too wary to venture.
Enacting the Strategy
So what’s the best way to go all-in with your content marketing? According to Practical Ecommerce’s Armando Roggio and his look at some inventive content strategies in 2015, it all starts with breaking down any barriers you might currently hide behind. Whether it’s launching a branded podcast or adding video content to your marketing methods, going above and beyond in terms of variety and value can help you hone in on the spirit of the all-in approach and capture the attention of your target audience.
Outside of breaching uncharted realms in terms of content, Roggio goes on to explain that there’s plenty of opportunity to break the mold with your existing practices. Repurposing old content into viral infographics and gifs, as well as developing content exclusively for major events – like the upcoming Martin Luther King Jr. holiday – can continue the process of differentiating your offerings from those provided by brands still not willing to go all the way in terms of content marketing.
What’s Next?
Obviously this is a lot to take in in one sitting, but you still have one more thing to learn about the all-in approach. The final part of adopting a mentality that places a premium on content, and helps ensure you get the maximum return and impact for your hard work, is keeping an eye on the future.
Aside from the obvious need for planning and foresight, Daniel Newman of Forbes magazine suggests looking for the less obvious trends and shifts in the industry. By doing this, or working with a team of experts that can enact this process on your behalf, you can continue to press the advantage in the digital marketplace by creating content from a variety of angles that is also ahead of the curve.
