Inside this Post
- Recap of Part I – You should read it if you have not already: Why Your Content Strategy Is Reaching Just 1/3 Of Your Audience
- We need to stop building pieces of content. We need to scale content from a single video production. Almost every time. (“Great content is born in the studio”)
- The Switchr Method (using YOU as an example)
- The Webcast
- The Blog Posst
- Publishing
- Conversion #1 – The 30-second highlight clips (social content)
- Conversion #2 – The Podcast
- Conversion #3 – The ebooks (gated content), infographics (image content), and more…
- Showing customers that you care about their content needs
- Repeat.
My Bad (Why I had to break this post up)
If you read my previous blog post where I told you a story that you can probably relate to (if you’re a marketer), about facing the fact that we were not building enough content for our full customer audience, I then left you hanging on the details, and I appreciate you coming back. I admit that felt like click bait and that’s not the business I’m in, but you know, you decide to write a blog post while traveling and then your plane lands.
So the story goes, we decided that yes, we need to start building content for 3/3 (that’s 100%) of our audience, and not just 1/3, the blog readers.
The challenge – how to do this, and how to make those videos pro, and on-brand without requiring too much lift from our video team or adding more head count to the video team… and also it just sounds like way too much work, especially the thought of building a podcast.
I’m excited to say that not only is this not at all hard to do, but the Switchr method, which might as well be your method, actually gives our writers a break. Yes, you read that right. The hardest part for you to pull this off is to keep on reading and take the time to really understand the Switchr concept. It works.
Let’s say that you work on the marketing team for for an IT security provider and your content calendar is requiring a blog post about why two-factor authentication is becoming a new, regulated standard for businesses. A pretty boring title, but your writer is paid to write and not ask questions. So off she goes and she spends a week doing a lot of research and starts working on a blog post.
The Switchr Method Might As Well Be Your Method
Let’s pump the brakes right there. Instead, imagine you’re using the Switchr method, so you’re going to take a different approach. You tell your writer, “Hang on, we’re going to record a webcast with a security expert first. Let’s write a summary from that and check this one off later”.
So you find an expert in security, invite her to have a 30-45 minute recorded discussion at your office.
The Webcast
She arrives, and you bring her to a media room. Inside, there are three cameras, some really great mics, LED lights, sound panels, and a set design that’s thoughtfully designed and reflective of your brand.
You’ve recruited a host internally who speaks well and is conversational and you sit them both down on the set.
Your marketing manager has been trained, and knows how to turn everything on. Cameras need a little angle adjusting, quick sound test and then he hits the record button.
Your host and guest runs through a series of questions that were written out in advance, but otherwise, nothing has been scripted. Their job? Just to have a great conversation about two-factor authentication.
Once the production is over, your manager hits “stop” and heads over to his desk. He downloads the video, and with a very basic video editing platform, he drops in an intro, an outro, a brand watermark, and places in some presenter names/titles at the front of the video. He clicks export. And after about an hour, he’s uploading the video to YouTube.
The Blog Post
Then he links the video in an email and sends it to your writer. Her job is to watch the video, and write up a summary. No need to go out and do a bunch of research. She’s just writing a review or a summary of the interview. It takes a fraction of the time required to write up a blog post from scratch.
For bonus SEO points, she adds the full, unedited transcript at the bottom of the post. And finally a link to “watch this interview on YouTube”.
The Podcast
Before she publishes the blog, she clicks on a button to “publish podcast”, which is a plugin you’ve added to your blog platform. Upon publishing, the blog goes live and the audio pushes out to iTunes, Switcher, Spotify and other channels. That’s right. Publishing to all of your podcast channels is just a single click.
The 30-Second Video Highlights (Social Content)
The next day, your marketing manager clips out 3-5 30-second highlights, and adds a special intro/outro that you’ve had built for social media posts. He exports those and sends them to your social media manager.
Your social media manager plugs these highlights with a powerful summary into Linkedin, Twitter, Insta/FB, all with three options:
Watch the video | Listen to the interview | Read the summary
Your marketing manager also saves these clips for next month’s customer newsletter.
In a week, you’ve created highly valuable editorial content for both prospects and customers:
1 long-form video
1 podcast
1 blog post
3-5 social media assets
The eBooks, Infographics, and More…
…And maybe, if it was an awesome interview, you send a clip to a creative person to build an infographic to serve another segment of content consumers: the watchers. Now you’re also showing up in the image results for two-factor authentication. Or maybe you ALSO want to build an e-book.
There’s no way around it, your audience is being served!
Two weeks later – you repeat on another topic.
A year later, you’ve generated 200 best-in-class marketing assets from 20 webcast/podcast segments. You’re ranking higher than ever on Google, your YouTube channel has quadrupled viewership, and you’ve got a podcast that outshines all of your competitors (and it’s doubtful they even have a podcast)!
This is the Switcher method. Over the past 6 years, I’ve been building studios and training marketing teams to use them just like this example.
Do you want to talk about this stuff without worry about being sold something? We can do that. I love talking shop, and I like helping. Give me a shout! I can also help you build this machine – just sayin’. In either case, I love talking. Let’s connect.
Mark Cafiero