People often ask us if we can create content. We get it. We’re a marketing company. It might be content for a digital campaign, a short promotional video or a live streaming sales event. Even though the short answer is yes, there’s more to marketing than creating content. If you want to create greater engagement online, then you have to start with strategy. Are you creating the right content for the right audience and delivering it on the right platform? Always starting with a solid strategy and a plan is key to getting what you need instead of just what you asked for.
However, before you stop reading because either you think you have a strategy or you just don’t believe you need one, please think again. Martin Reeves, Senior Partner of BCG wrote in his book “Your Strategy Needs a Strategy”, companies should adopt new and appropriate strategic styles to their particular situation and in doing so will outperform their competitors. In other words, there is no one strategy style and furthermore, strategy changes over the lifetime of an organisation and even changes depending on the products, services and campaigns.
"...companies that continually match their strategic styles to their situation will enjoy a tremendous advantage over those that don’t."
We are story strategists who ask the right questions upfront to ensure you have success, which will save you time and money.
Effective communication is all about storytelling, and great stories are highly shareable. Your story is your product, brand, or service. Your audience is your customer, donor or supporter. But what’s the most effective platform or space to do that? What platforms are your audience using to find answers to the questions they’re asking? Where are they?
Story strategists navigate a strategic process to find answers to these questions, design the right solution and create a plan to implement it.
Before you create or make anything, here are three essential steps not to miss, for creating greater engagement:
Step #1 – Story: Define clearly what it is you’re inviting people to engage with. What’s the story behind your campaign idea or objectives? What are you offering your customer, and why? What new initiatives do you want to start, and what obstacles are holding you back? Who else is doing what you’re doing?
Step #2 – Audience: Knowing your customer is key to creating content that resonates with them. Who is your target market, and how do they discover you? What’s your relationship like with your existing audience? What platforms do you currently use to engage your audience?
Step #3 – Platform: Determine where your customers typically frequent to inform your content distribution strategy. What platforms/solutions have you already explored but not used? What other platforms/solutions from competitors do you like, and what features of their platform do you want? What database or CRM do you use, and can you ask your customers via a survey what platforms they might use to search for the kinds of products and services you offer?
Marketing strategy is the blueprint for a company’s marketing activities, outlining how the company will reach its desired target audience to achieve its marketing goals. By creating a marketing strategy tailored to meet the unique needs of the business, businesses can identify key areas to focus their efforts to reach their goals.
Today, marketing is all about engaging people through different types and sizes of media platforms, from phones and tablets to computers, televisions, radios, smart home devices, and movie theaters. Navigating the right platform(s) to reach the intended audience (strategy) is the start. Media production is the process of creating content based on a strategic marketing plan for a variety of mediums.
At Story Strategist, we use our proprietary Strategy Explorer framework, which is a marketing strategy workshop designed to help discover the root of the challenge. By gathering your team together and discussing the challenges and opportunities you’re facing, you can start to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy tailored to your target audience and goals. With a well-defined marketing strategy in place, your team can move forward with confidence, knowing that they have the tools they need to succeed.
Now it’s time to create. We’ll develop tailored strategies and tactics to help you succeed with your business objectives and marketing challenges, working with you on an implementation plan by creating a roadmap forward. Implementation might include brand building, video production, digital marketing, app and platform development, live streaming events, websites, and conferences. We resource your project using our own network of marketing specialist contractors, keeping our overheads down and ensuring we are adaptable, attuned with trends, and agile as a team.
Don’t get caught asking why your marketing campaign didn’t create greater engagement. Do the hard work up front. Be a story strategist and don’t skip the process. Start with strategy.