How Simplifying Your Content Ecosystem Amplifies Your Brand Experience

Content. Do you really know what it is and what it means for your brand? When you think about the customers shopping for your brand, have you considered what that journey looks like?

We live in a world overrun with so many different channels, all demanding some kind of content. During that path to purchase, a customer will touch or see your brand a multitude of times and that content experience is a key influence to driving sales.

Consistent messaging across a variety of channels can improve purchase intent by 90% and brand perception by 68% and 1 in 3 consumers will choose a different product to their intended purchase as a result of poor information.

That demand for content is giving brands a challenge: increase content spend as budgets are reduced or restricted.

No matter at what point in the content journey a brand is in, they acknowledge that their content could be better. The challenge is in knowing where to begin to improve it. Start by asking ‘what content do you produce?’ and whilst this might appear to be a relatively simple question, we often get a fragmented, incomplete and inconsistent answer.

In most organisations content and product data in general is dispersed throughout multiple internal business systems, partner networks and supply chain networks.

Some of the most common observations we’ve found include:

• Different definitions of what is considered to be ‘content’ within an organisation
• Many departments work in isolation
• Each department creates their own content based on their own needs, strategy and budget
• Different partners and agencies create content
• There is no single source of created content
• The same or similar content is created by different departments
• Brand integrity is diluted
• There is no single owner of content
• Global processes are even more complex

The digital marketing solution to this demand for growing content is not about creating more content, it’s about simplifying your content to amplify its impact.

How can you create one piece of content and then repurpose it for use in other areas?

This could be as simple as taking one product shot in multiple formats that will enable you to use it across different channels. Sounds simple enough but in order to do this you have to rethink your approach to digital content.

It has to be an organisationally collaborative approach that defines and aligns four key areas:

Brand strategy: the value proposition for each market segment

Brand experience: the feelings the brand wants to inspire people

Customer experience: the sales channels in which the customers interact with the brand

Consumer experience: the end consumer’s interaction with the brand

When we talk to our clients about content optimisation, we work with them to simplify their content journey, or ecosystem. We start with the journey of the end customers and the touch point they interact with.

By looking at who is involved in creating content, the systems in place to manage, hold and deliver content, the content channels and the end users, we can identify—in detail—the problems and causes. This allows us to to build the framework and solutions to deliver improved content.
A common question is whether we can build a DAM system for a client’s content. The answer is yes, but we first have to understand what its intended use is. As we review their content ecosystem and their content journey, the end solution is often very different.

Only by simplifying your understanding your content ecosystem can you start to build the foundations for a more focused, structured, centralised, streamlined and ultimately amplified content strategy.

So, as you think about creating a new piece of content, think about it in the context of your content ecosystem and consider how it can be leveraged across the organisation and make it work harder.