Most brands understand how to deliver a satisfying content experience—or think they do.
But what your brand thinks will drive engagement may not align with what works for your audience.
When measuring value, audience perception is reality. If your content experience isn’t delivered the first time someone comes in, you likely won’t get a second chance.
Organization-wide coordination is required to meet audience expectations. Here’s how to help everyone understand the assignment.
Disconnect leads to consumer dissatisfaction
An effective content experience should capture the interest of a casual audience and gradually convert it into a trusted and lasting customer relationship.
However, when isolated function Independently manage specific components of the experience.
If these content partners don’t understand their audience’s intentions and motivations, they may confuse their messaging priorities and marketing goals with their audience’s needs and concerns.
That’s why Cupid PR co-founder Mark McShane Says: “Every good communication starts not with the message you want to send, but with a deep understanding of what your audience is already thinking, feeling, needing, and wanting.”
Audiences can tell when an experience (or its content components) is built to advance business goals rather than address challenges.
Adjust the audience lens
Say, it’s crucial to view every decision from the perspective of your audience’s understanding Steve PritchardManaging Director of It Works Media. One that combines multimodal research with Performance data analysis This understanding can be deepened. “Storytelling through your brand will only happen naturally when all content functions have a direct, consistent understanding of what’s interesting to your audience,” Steve says.
Use direct feedback to humanize your audience
Rich MarcelloIntellek’s marketing manager points out some data-driven signs of when you’re not seeing eye-to-eye with your audience: “Engagement plummets, people give up soon after using your product, and conversions become increasingly rare. .
But indicators alone don’t give a full picture of the situation. Diana ChengPlatform metrics can give brands a false or incomplete view of engagement, says Stallion Express marketing executive.
While these metrics pinpoint surface behaviors and patterns, they do little to illuminate the underlying causes or context of interactions. These insights are critical for decision-making.
Both Diana and Rich recommend combining quantitative analysis with direct feedback mechanisms to enhance your understanding of your audience.
“Surveys, focus groups and user testing reveal their motivations, pain points and decision-making frameworks,” Ritchie said. “Layering it through quantitative data patterns will give you a 3D view of your customers, which you can then share with functional content partners.”
“Seamless” starts with strategies that bridge silos
Knowing your audience is priceless. But turning every moment of engagement into an opportunity for deeper connection requires strategic orchestration of all content touchpoints.
For many corporate brands, this requires rethinking how experiences are built. Content experiences should not be isolated steps on a path, but a network of valuable, contextually resonant insights—no matter where, when, or how the customer initiates the connection.
Seamlessly connecting every brand asset and interaction point is a challenge that needs to be solved.
When I spoke with CMI’s Robert Rose, he recommended reviewing your existing experience first. This data may reveal your audience’s key interests, which can help you identify key priorities across your organization. Robert claims this will help you pivot and create a manageable schedule so you’re not redesigning everything at once.
Join your collaborators
You need to be involved and prepared cross-functional partners (such as sales, communications, and other teams collaborating on content) work together to create a cohesive experience. As Rich said, each player needs to understand their responsibilities and how their role in the audience’s journey fits together.
Journey map
Mark McShane of Cupid PR suggested creating Integrated customer journey map Articulate audience needs that your collaborators may not be aware of. The map should include all touchpoints and the expected experience at each stage of the journey.
“This may uncover opportunity gaps—where the experience may be frustrating or overwhelming for customers, or where roadblocks and delays occur,” he said.
Establish workflow and communication channels
Next, Establish efficient workflow and clear lines of communication. Ensure all relevant teams are engaged in the strategic direction and understand the execution process. These steps can help eliminate the friction and resistance that often arise in comprehensive organizational change.
While your team may be reluctant to reach across the aisle and work outside of their comfort zone, doing so is critical to delivering a cohesive and compelling content experience.
Maxwell Pollock“(You) have to do it, and (you) have to incorporate all the necessary efforts into your workflow,” said the former content marketing expert at Memora Health.
A collaborative process will help develop and deploy audience experiences.
Maxwell noted that his team built a library of content that simplifies cross-functional collaboration for the brand. “This makes it easier for salespeople to access our content to achieve their goals. It also sparks valuable conversations among our teams in a direct, mission-focused way,” he said.
Establish consistent standards for quality and user experience
Set enterprise-wide standards for content quality and value. Not aligning your The tone, style and voice of your brandyou may get confused as people move from one touchpoint to another.
Maxwell recommends working with key stakeholders to develop a Company-wide editorial style guide.
“It ensures that our customers receive a consistent, high-quality content experience from our brands across all different platforms and content types,” he said.
In addition to content quality, consider setting usability guidelines. Make it easy for consumers to find what they’re looking for and move on to the next step, no matter where they enter your brand experience.
Diana Cheng of Stallion Express recommends focusing on these user experience considerations to ensure positive interactions and increase customer satisfaction:
Her tip: Make navigation more useful by organizing content based on your visitors’ most common challenges, rather than by content format (e.g., videos, white papers, blog posts), use cases, or target verticals. These structural approaches address your brand’s priorities and assumptions better than your customers’ actual needs and preferences.
Monitor, test, learn and experiment
As you rebuild your experience with a more customer-centric vision, don’t overlook the following values: Testing and Experimenting. The digital space is constantly changing, and the popularity of platforms, technologies, and trends can wax and wane without warning.
You may have to test new strategies and make adjustments as new insights and opportunities arise. These opportunities will be more aligned if monitoring the customer feedback pipeline is an integrated part of the content experience workflow.
Taking advantage of any opportunities you identify also requires a willingness to try new ideas and operational agility.
According to Mark McShane, embracing experimentation has become a core tenet of Cupid’s PR approach. “The key is to find what works and double down on it,” he said, “but also keep asking, ‘I wonder if…?'”
Audience-centric strategies promote mutually beneficial experiences
Brands win when their content experiences provide value that their audience appreciates. To achieve this, your entire organization must work from a unified strategy that is aligned with their vision for success at every step of the journey.
one version of this article Originally appeared in the March 2024 edition of Chief Content Officer.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
