graphic courtesy of curata.com
Success in an agency environment requires a constant balancing act. You want your client to view you as a full member of their team, ready to go to any lengths to get results. At the same time you need to stay in business, which requires matching the time and attention given to each account with its respective budget level.
This is especially true with content marketing programs. A quality content marketing program requires a culture shift on the client side to adopt the mindset of a trade publisher. It simply takes more time to consistently produce high quality editorial content than it does marketing collateral. Different formats of content, from blog post to eBooks, present production demands on top of the content development itself.
As an example, click on the image below to review an eBook we developed with one of my healthcare clients. Titled Trailblazers, it’s a compilation of ten interviews with senior level healthcare executives talking about the transformation the healthcare industry is going through in this country.
The eBook has paid for itself many times over through use as an online premium, a thought leadership conversation starter for sales and as a tool to secure additional C-level editorial interviews. Deliverables like this however require significant budget time and close collaboration with the client.
That’s why the pyramid graphic immediately resonated with me. It effectively illustrates the differing time investments of content formats. The author talks about how to repurpose content at each stage — it’s a good read. In a sense he’s repurposing the pyramid graphic itself, since the Department of Agriculture retired its famous food pyramid in 2011.
My first thought on seeing the pyramid was time investment rather than repurposing. This graphic can be an effective tool to help clients plan for the time needed to execute various formats of content. Shared expectations regarding time and budget investments are essential for a healthy and productive client relationship.
At my firm we call a flat retainer with no associated scope of work the “black hole of death.” It’s no way to run a business and not beneficial for either party. There are only two possible outcomes — an unhappy client or over-investment in the program that burns out staff and is unfair to other clients. Of course, mutual expectation setting needs to start well before the engagement begins.
Executing on a quality content marketing program isn’t easy. It requires a long-term commitment and a cultural shift on the client side towards conversational marketing. It’s a process, and like all processes success comes easier with shared expectations of the investment required.