I believe it was this article by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan on TechCrunch that sent me down the ‘Context is King’ path.
Among other things, the article points out that 45% of video content is ‘discovered’ and the remainder of the time (55%) we find content randomly – “the truth is, only half of all of the content consumed is actually searched for, the other half is stumbled upon, meaning you actually have to distribute it widely enough to increase the likelihood that people even notice it, let alone give a damn!”
Now that Google Buzz has made it’s debut, we’ve got to start creating content that fits into all levels of our customers’ lives.
Creating Content For The Universe of Buyers
It is extremely likely that people will find your content outside of the old AIDA standard, but for the interest of this post let’s keep this conversation around sales content.
According to the very smart people over at Future Now, content should be created for three types of buyers,
- Just Browsing
- Knows Approximately
- Knows Exactly
Who fall into four temperaments:
- Competitive
- Spontaneous
- Methodical
- Humanistic
So, we can start with this as a baseline. Either our customers are looking for something we sell or not. If they are looking in our baileywick, then we should help them through the purchase process.
If a potential customer is not looking for a product then there must be something about our content that is discoverable, shareable, and potentially modifiable based on the audience’s context.
So what is contextually relevant content? What follows is meager attempt to categorize the types of contexts ( or temperaments) in which we find content important.
I Have A Problem
This is the SEO approach. A potential customer has a problem or a question, does a search and your content, keyed to the right terms, with the appropriate number of links will show up as an answer. This is the backbone of an inbound strategy and it’s pretty hard to beat.
Beauty
On the other side of the answer seeker is the person looking for form over facts. This is the person who shares content just because it looks cool. Within your audience is there a subset of customers who want to pass along sheer beauty or emotion?
The Gearhead
This consumer is going to be interested in the nitty gritty details of the products in your niche. They might find technical specs and videos outlining every detail of a product to be completely fascinating.
Seasons
Direct marketers are keenly tuned to the sounds of the seasons. There are all kinds of seasons too – Spring, Fall, Football…Your audience is following an internal clock and your content could be following it.
Trends
We’re not just talking about the weekly Twitter meme here. Trends in your industry become relevant to your audience about once a quarter.
Social Networks
This goes without saying. Our social networks are probably the most important when it comes to finding and sharing content.
So, how do you create for it?
