“Sooner or later, everything old is new again” was the saying running through my mind as I interviewed Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO at Casted, about amplified marketing.
“An amplified marketing strategy starts with having great conversations,” says Lindsay. “The more human and authentic the conversation, the more opportunities to find nuggets, takeaways, clips, and quips that you can amplify across a range of marketing channels.”
Content marketing has exploded in recent years. The number of channels marketing teams are expected to master has expanded dramatically. Tools to measure buyer engagement and intent have become much more sophisticated.
Lindsay believes marketers should of course leverage all these elements of the modern marketing stack. However, unlike many modern marketers, she recognizes the best buyer engagement starts with an old-fashioned conversation.
“We have to move beyond the mindset of producing more, more, more,” says Lindsay. “We need to be more strategic in creating authentic content that builds human connection and creating the fuel for deeper, richer conversations that can be amplified over time, across formats and channels.”
Amplified marketing is about making buyer interactions more authentic and human while also increasing efficiency in repurposing existing content.
-
Start with a Conversation 👂
“Once upon a time, good content meant writing on behalf of the subject matter expert. Content writers felt like they had to go really deep technically,” says Lindsay. “If you focus on content coming out of great conversations, you do not need to be an expert, you need to harness others’ expertise.”
Lindsay gives the example of developing blogs, stories, or white papers for a really technical area like semiconductors or biotech. The focus should be on good questions and an engaging conversation that get an expert to talk and share their knowledge in a digestible way.
The content writer can then focus on what they do best, which is making the content come alive by finding nuggets or takeaways that could work in podcast or video or blog content.
-
Experiment with Channels and Content 📲
“You never really know what is going to work,” continued Lindsay. “But what you can do is focus on ‘show creation’ with a regular rhythm and cadence to content. You might start with a RSS feed, LinkedIn posts, or another channel. The point is to see where your content is landing.”
Lindsay points out that your goal is audience growth and engagement. First, you focus on nuggets and takeaways that can be amplified. Then, you think about “show creation” with messaging themes and target channels so you see what works best to build engagement.
Using the same message over and over again in various different angles and different formats makes it possible to reach more possible people. Everyone has different content preferences and different learning styles.
-
The Holy Grail of Multi-Channel Expansion 🏺
“We want to flip the traditional focus on measuring more, more, more,” finishes Lindsay. “We want to see teams start with the creative, prove it across multiple channels, and then show the value to your business on how deeper connections can influence revenue.”
Lindsay maintains that to really see business impact, you have to think about and measure content as a qualifier. You need to know which accounts are engaging, how many and who are engaging in each account, and how they are consuming the content. Making this information actionable for sales is the path to influence revenue.
The holy grail for marketers is to capture and share experiences that engage again and again across audio, video, and written media. That is amplified marketing.
It is an attractive strategy in a world where we are all struggling to capture mindshare.