Table of contents
Key takeawaysCollaboration platforms are essential to the new way of workingEmployees prefer engati over emailEmployees play a growing part in software purchasing decisionsThe future of work is collaborativeMethodologyIntroduction
Content Marketing wizard, Christoph Trappe, joined us on Engati CX to talk about ways to enhance marketing campaigns and reel leads in.
Christoph is the Chief Content & Marketing Officer of The Authentic Storytelling Project.
Christoph helps companies share their unique stories efficiently to reach prospects and retain existing customers.
He’s a global top 14 content marketer and a top 100 digital marketer.
His blog has been listed as a valuable resource in the marketing industry.
A three-time author, Christoph helps editorial and marketing teams evolve with a content-performance culture and the use of the Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE) model.
Interview with Christoph Trappe
This section will contain a summary of our interview with Christoph Trappe. But, if you'd prefer to listen to the entire interview, our Spotify Podcast will be embedded below the summary.
Christoph said that you need to remember that it's good to have a plan, but it comes down to implementation. And to implement it, you need to know whom you're trying to reach.
If you don't have personas, you won't know whom to create content for.
You need to think about the different tasks. You need to have someone who owns the strategy. Then, you need the content creators. Now, someone needs to distribute it. And on the backend, you need to analyze it. Find out what pieces of content are driving the most results for you.
You can't really plan for an entire year. Things are always changing. Plan for a few weeks and roll it out in a phased manner.
You need to pick the right words.
Irrespective of whether you're making blogs, podcasts or videos- you need to pick the right words.
Figure out what terms people use when they talk about and search for the topic you're creating content around.
Figure out the topics that you have something unique to say about.
And now, create as much content around it as possible. Use the Create Once, Publish Everywhere (COPE) principle.
As an example, this interview was published as a YouTube video, a podcast, a blog article and all of this will also be pushed on social media.
The video, podcast and blog will all be indexed on the internet. You need to repurpose and maximize the content you create.
Your content needs to solve a problem for your reader.
It can't be all about you. It needs to address a problem that your readers are facing and then offer solutions. Offer your product as a solution and create effective CTAs.
Dramatize it a bit (not too much). Focus on the issue the reader is facing. If there's no issue and no conflict, why would they even consume your content?
You can show them what steps they can take to solve their problems on their own (and show them how much effort that would take). Now, they might not feel like making that effort and just go ahead and hire you to solve their problem.
Or, they may try doing it and realize that it's too hard a task. Now, when they consider getting someone to do it for them, you're on the top of their mind. And they'll trust you more, because you've shown them how to do that and effectively provided value to them.
You need to provide value, create trust and get your audience to regard you as an expert.
Just giving knowledge away doesn't necessarily hurt sales. It just helps generate trust. It helps position you as an expert.
Marketing is already playing an important role. There's a lot of things that can be automated. Social media is on autopilot. Same with email marketing.
If you're not running an automated email campaign, you're missing out.
In addition to offering related content to consumers, we also need to use AI to start offering personalized content.
Automation will become easier down the road. It's definitely going to be used to a greater extent.
But, we can't leave it completely unsupervised. You need to have humans keeping a check on it.
Most social signals are neutral. There might be a lot of positive or negative posts, but you need to be careful about what you make of it.
For example, a couple of years ago, Nike launched a campaign with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick who was protesting against police brutality by kneeling while the national anthem played.
They faced a lot of backlash on social media for that campaign. But, their sales actually jumped substantially.
A lot of people were not posting about it a lot, but actually related to and identified with Colin Kaepernick and his protest and anchored that emotion to Nike's brand. So, they felt an urge to wear Nike products.
It depends on your brand and also on the topic. It is a challenge for brands to meaningfully insert themselves into the conversation.
It's okay for brands to debate on issues if they have something to do with them. You need to speak up about issues. But, if they don't have any connection to you, you might want to avoid it because people might take something out of context.
Sure, in the current situation, pretty much everyone is affected. All of us want to get rid of racism.
But, there are other topics that are controversial and have no connection to you, your brand, or your community and it may not make sense to create content around it. If you do create content around it, review that content to make sure it can't be taken out of context.
Christoph tells us about one of the guests on his podcasts who said, 'Marketers should behave more like journalists.'
Marketers worry about how much content to publish, while journalists say, 'Do I have a story to publish? Okay, let's publish it!'
Quite often, they have multiple stories a day.
If you have a story, find a way to tell that story.
Rob & Kennedy, The Email Marketing Heros, say that, 'If you're emailing people once a month, you're only talking to them 12 times a year'.
That's crazy.
Christoph himself publishes his own podcast thrice a week. When the lockdowns were starting, he published articles everyday about remote working.
On social media, not everyone sees your content anyways. So, putting out more content would increase a brand's chances of being seen more often.
You need to make your CTAs clear and place them early on. Towards the start or middle of your content. You don't want to have them just at the end, because people may drop off before reaching there.
If your CTAs are always in one place, people may start ignoring them. They won't notice them.
So, switch up sometimes.
You could place them at the top, right before starting out. You could experiment with CTAs in the form of inline ads, images or even copy. Sometimes, you could even try a pop-up, but don't overdo pop-ups, they could get annoying.
