What if you could assess your marketing content the same way your audiences do?
How would that improve content quality, audience relevance, performance?
Of course. Makes sense. But what exactly does this mean — in practice?
I invite you to collaborate in this real-time case example. I have a video for you to view, assess, and provide feedback for recommended improvements. We’ll source reader inputs over a couple of weeks and post the best suggestions.
Principle being applied: it’s easier to criticize someone else’s content than our own.
But maybe there are lessons we can all learn from this experience.
THE SCENARIO
AlignMeeting is a new, interactive, online sales meeting platform from AlignRevenue. Their target users are B2B inside sales reps and managers. AlignRevenue created a short introductory video to outline the problems that inside sales reps and managers are experiencing—and a new solution to those problems.
The primary goal of the video is to get their target audience to a) learn more about AlignMeeting (viewing more info on the website); and, as a result, b) express an interest in signing up for the private Beta and/or sign up for the newsletter to keep track of this company/product.
The assumption in evaluating this video is that you have arrived at the AlignRevenue website and are viewing their video because you heard about the company/product from someone, you read about it somewhere, you Googled something like “remote sales meeting software,” etc. There’s some sort of interest on your part, whether it’s relevant or not.
Please view the video before continuing with this post.
HOW AUDIENCES ASSESS YOUR MARKETING “CONTENT”
What goes through people’s mind when they come to any “content”? Not just a document or video, but even a conversation or engagement experience?
There’s no documented science here. I haven’t surveyed 350 people to collect this “data”. These are ideas I’ve learned from years of reading, thinking about, and working on content for clients. Another part comes from observing what happens to me, and others, as content is consumed.
Content consumers ask these questions even before they engage content:
- Who is this for, is this for me?
- Is it about something I care about, right now?
- Will I get something new, important, worthwhile, that I don’t know about already, for my time investment?
- How much time is required?
- Do I trust this source to deliver on these implied promises?
As people start to consume content their questions shift, they become even more judgmental:
- Is this any good? (interesting, worth it – they experience “viewers remorse”)
- Should I really be spending my time with this?
- Will it deliver what I expect?
- How much time should I give before I bail?
- Stay longer or go now?
- Does this content make me want to find out more?
I’ve found these questions can start almost instantly.
This is what our collective content is up against. Don’t confuse this with any notion of “content shock.” This is how we filter EVERYTHING that makes up our daily overwhelm. It’s now an automatic defense mechanism. You may not have been able to articulate it if asked, but I bet you recognize it when you see it.
These ideas are taken from checklists we use when we create content, and coach clients on better practices to improve content quality, engagement and performance.
This might not be a complete list. I’m looking for new insights to supplement or modify this list, so please make that part of your sharing (see below).
DIAGNOSE THE VIDEO
OK, let’s provide specific feedback on this video.
- Think about the video in the context of the target audience —B2B inside sales reps / managers (and state if you are / are not part of the target audience. Context matters.)
- What do you like and why?
- What don’t you like and why?
- How to you see and experience the problem of conducting online sales meetings?
- Does the video make you more likely / less likely to want to learn more about the company / product?
- Would you take the desired action(s) – learn more about the product and potentially sign up for the beta or the newsletter?
- What specific recommendations would you make to improve this video? What exactly would you do, and why?
If you tie specific recommendations to core principles, and better practices, we can all benefit from this case example and acquire foundational principles and practices that apply to all projects.
The post How Do Audiences Assess Your Marketing Content? appeared first on Avitage.
