How to Turn Old Content Into Lead-Generating Marketing Ebooks

Ebooks are fantastic tools for content marketing, which is probably why you probably have at least one (if not a few) gated, generating those sweet, sweet leads around the clock. But while marketing ebooks are great, they also take work to create. From copywriting to design, ebooks require time and resources that many marketers just don’t have.

But what if you could produce an ebook in less time, streamline production, and give your content way more reach? You can. Just repurpose your existing content.

Every content marketer is sitting on an archive full of valuable content that is usually just collecting dust. That content takes many forms, from public-facing content on your blog or website to internal docs circulated among your team. But it can do more work for you than you realize if you simply turn it into an ebook.

8 Types of Content to Turn Into Marketing Ebooks

Repurposing content is a simple, smart, and economical strategy that helps you get more mileage from everything you create. The hardest part of ebook creation is writing and designing something from scratch. But with a little creativity, you can reduce that labor, reuse assets, and create something fresh with a lot less work. (This tactic is also useful if you’re stuck on ideas.)

So, where should you start? Here are 8 types of content you probably already have that can be great fodder for your next ebook.

1) Blog Posts and Articles

This one’s a no-brainer, yet so many marketers don’t take advantage. You probably have a blog full of articles on similar themes or topics. These can easily be packaged into a useful guide or ebook that can provide real value to your audience.

Example: We’ve written about content strategy for years, but we realized we didn’t have a truly comprehensive guide to walk people through the process. So, we reviewed our existing archive of content and built a totally fresh guide based on our many articles. The result was The Ultimate Guide to Content Strategy, a complete guide and downloadable toolkit to help people build a simple, measurable content strategy. It’s one of our most popular pieces of content to date. 

Content strategy guide new

2) Infographics

Infographics already have a solid narrative, and they often include data, which always enhances your content. You may have a series of infographics that could be cut up and repackaged into a marketing ebook. Or you can use one as your foundation, then expand more on the subject in an ebook.

Example: The Sophisticated Marketer’s Guide to LinkedIn ebook features data visualizations that could easily be sourced from infographics. Reusing existing designs like this can significantly cut down on production time. 

marketing ebook

3) Surveys, Research, and Reports

Whether it’s your site analytics or your latest customer survey, anything that contains data is a goldmine for an ebook. (Also, data-based marketing ebooks can draw the attention of publications or publishing partners who want to share it.) If you have great data on hand but aren’t sure what to do with it, follow this guide to find the story in your data if you need a unique angle. If you’re not sure if you have data, here are a few great places to look for internal data.

Example: Blend conducted industry research to find out what the application process looks like in various banking institutions. They turned the resulting insights into a state-of-the-industry report on the keys to a good process, as well as tips to help institutions better serve their customers. This piece of content establishes them as industry thought-leaders and provides their audience with valuable insights. 

turn old content into ebook

4) Interactive infographics

Interactive infographics are high-value pieces of content that take even more time to produce than an ebook. If you don’t repurpose that content, you’re not making the most of it. Like infographics, interactives often include a strong narrative or a large data set that may contain new and unique stories.

Example: We collaborated with Microsoft to create the Anatomy of a Breach interactive, which details the stages of a data breach and positions Microsoft’s security solutions as the answer to the problem. Even better, the interactive points to a related ebook that provides more detail into the problem and Microsoft’s products. 

anatomy of a breach marketing ebooks

5) Presentations

Any time you create a presentation, you are demonstrating your expertise in some way. Don’t let those valuable pieces of communication go to waste. These are particularly easy to turn into an ebook because they tend to follow a narrative flow and feature interesting visuals or data.

Example: We collaborated with Sharethrough to create an interactive ebook that walks you through the science behind native ads. This was a simple way to communicate the information in an engaging way, and cross-promote additional ebooks. 

Column Five with Sharethrough "Native Ad Science" - "Native ads are effective because they require the use of the entire brain..."

6) Internal Documents

When you create process docs, tutorials, or guidelines for your internal team, you are engaging in the transfer of knowledge. This knowledge is helpful for your own team, but anything that includes instruction or tips would probably be relevant or interesting to others in your industry.

We’ve found internal docs to be a surprising source of great content, and we’ve used them to create useful content for a larger audience.

Example: The training documents we used to use to educate new producers inspired our free ebook, Everything You Need to Know About Visual Content, a comprehensive guide to using visual content in your marketing. 

7) Motion Graphics or Brand Videos

Motion graphics, brand videos, or explainer videos are great to convey an idea quickly and succinctly. But there are times when people might need more information. If you’ve covered a certain topic in a video, you might expand on that narrative and supplement it with additional information to create an educational ebook.

Example: After creating a motion graphic to communicate the value of data visualization, we realized we needed to help marketers take the next step to embrace storytelling. Thus, we created the Content Marketer’s Guide to Data Storytelling ebook.

Data-storytelling marketing ebooks 

8) Misc. Collateral

As we mentioned before, any piece of communication can become the inspiration for your next ebook. You might have a piece of sales collateral, a webinar, or an interesting podcast Q&A on hand. All of these pieces can be repurposed into an ebook, whether it’s a sidebar, a chapter, or the entire ebook.

Example: We turned a variety of templates we use for our own clients into the Brand Strategy toolkit, a comprehensive guide to build a brand strategy from scratch. 

static-brand-strategy-visual-final-01

5 Tips to Repurpose Content Into Fresh Ebooks

If you think you have some good content on hand, here are a few ways to spin it into your next ebook design.

  1. Create a comprehensive guide. If you have a ton of content on the same theme, you probably have enough to spin it into an A-Z guide on the subject. This helps you demonstrate your thought-leadership, and it can also be useful to rank for certain keywords, as search engines love rich, high-value content. 
  2. Choose a specific angle. Sometimes subjects are too broad or generic, in which case focusing on a niche subject relevant to your industry or readers is a smarter move. An ebook on how to provide great customer service might be overdone. But an ebook about how to deliver great customer service on Twitter will resonate with a specific group.
  3. Consider news and trending topics. If your content is related to an industry trend, popular theme, or something in the news, you may find an interesting angle or tie-in for your ebook—if it’s appropriate. (Follow these tips to make sure you’re newsjacking the right way.)
  4. Repurpose design assets. If you’re working with visual content, reuse, remix, and repurpose those visual assets to reduce design time and preserve your brand’s visual identity. That includes charts, diagrams, illustrations, or data visualizations. (Avoid these common ebook design mistakes, though.)
  5. Use the original piece of content to promote your new ebook. You can give your original piece new life by using it to promo the new ebook. You can also break your new ebook into even more assets. (Here’s how to expand its shelf life with a divisibile content strategy.)

Most importantly, keep looking for opportunities to make the most of your content, streamline your process, and improve the quality of your ebooks. For more on how to do that:

And if you need an extra hand with your marketing ebooks, let’s talk about it.

Why Data Storytelling Is Marketing Gold for Your Brand

Data, data, data—as marketers, we hear that word thrown around all the time. But data alone can’t improve your results; it’s what you do with that data that matters. Enter data storytelling. Through data storytelling, you can make better decisions, create effective content that connects with the right people, and improve your content marketing operation all around.

Today, we’re diving into the power of data storytelling to show you how your brand can use it to transform your content strategy. So let’s start with the basics.

What Is Data Storytelling?

Contrary to popular belief, data storytelling is not simply data visualization, analytics reporting, or a handful of stats sitting in a PowerPoint somewhere.

Data storytelling is the general term we use to describe the full act of gathering data, extracting insights, and translating those insights into a story. Data storytelling is the blending of two worlds: hard data and human communication. It’s a compelling narrative crafted around and anchored by compelling data, used to guide decision-making, reveal an interesting trend, or provide valuable information to your audience.

What Does Data Storytelling Require?

Good data storytelling isn’t just slapping together a few charts. It requires several ingredients.

  • Good data: The raw data your company collects.
  • Synthesis: Identifying the story the data is telling.
  • Narrative: Translating those data insights into a clear story.
  • Data visualization: Communicating data insights through visualizations that make it easy to “see” the story you’re telling (e.g., the increase in seasonal sales or the percentage of satisfied customers).

To do data storytelling well, you need every piece of the puzzle.

Power of data storytelling-01

How Do Marketers Use Data Storytelling?

Data storytelling comes in many forms, and it can be used both internally and externally.

  • Internal 
    • Analytics
    • Marketing reports
    • Research
    • Customer surveys
    • Presentations
  • External
    • Annual reports
    • Infographics
    • E-books
    • Whitepapers
    • Reports
    • Articles

Note: This is not a comprehensive list; these are simply some of the most common applications.

How Does Data Storytelling Help Marketers?

Data storytelling is uniquely positioned (and scientifically supported) to help marketers gain unique insights and communicate more effectively. By incorporating data storytelling into your content strategy, you can create quality content that makes an impact. Here’s how.

1) Data storytelling provides meaning and value.

Technically, all content is interpreted as data by the brain, but the highest-value content provides more than knowledge; it provides insight. This insight helps decision-making and spurns action; therefore, it’s the most meaningful.

In a world where we are besieged by data but desperate for meaning, data storytelling is a powerful tool to connect the dots and provide insight. By assigning meaning and context to data that otherwise lives as numbers in an Excel spreadsheet, we gain—and can share—clarity and understanding.

For brands, this is hugely beneficial. Data storytelling allows you to extract and communicate insight through compelling stories, helping both your marketing operation and the people you’re trying to reach.

Data storytelling chart-01Dave Campbell’s model of information refinement.

For your audience, this is a way to differentiate your content, as people crave useful, valuable content that expands their knowledge, solves their problems, and helps them better navigate the world. By delivering this content through data storytelling, your brand provides a real service to the people you’re trying to reach, positioning you as a trusted resource.

For your brand, data storytelling can guide the way you work and the decisions you make, informing everything from your entire content strategy to your latest campaign to improve your ROI. 

Tip: Use these prompts to brainstorm fresh content marketing stories that provide true value.

Example: Incapsula surveyed 300 companies about their SAAS site availability, then turned that research into an animated infographic that offered readers a state-of-the-industry look at the issue. This type of data storytelling is the perfect way to speak to a niche audience and provide a new perspective.

2) It’s PR gold.

To differentiate yourself from the competition, you need unique, original story ideas. Data is an easy way to get these stories. This is especially true for stories based on internal data. When you have proprietary data that no other brand has access to, you can tell a story that no one else can tell about your industry, your customers, and more.

These insights can help you shed light on a previously unexplored topic, introduce an interesting angle, or provide a useful perspective to people and/or industry.

Not only are these stories compelling, publishers are also hungry for great storytelling. In a world of regurgitated content, data storytelling helps you stand out above the noise. A great piece published in a high-profile publication can elevate your brand, expand your reach, and introduce you to an entirely new group of people.

The Data Stories That Brands Should Tell

data visualization data storytelling 3

Tip: If you want to get your content covered, check out our tips to get publishers to fall in love with your content and promote your content like an agency.

Example: LinkedIn has access to the data of 174 million U.S. LinkedIn profiles, over 20,000 companies, and 3 million job postings on the platform, which gives the brand totally unique insight into U.S. workforce trends. Through their monthly Workforce Report, LinkedIn shares interesting data on employment trends that gives job hunters, employers, and the media an intimate understanding of the state of employment in the U.S. By sharing this data, they are providing content that sets them apart and establishes them as the ultimate resource for employment.  

linked in workforce data storytelling

3) It’s credible.

There is a lot of content out there—and a lot of it is bullshit (especially these days). In a world full of conjecture, people want cold, hard numbers that anchor claims to reality. If you can anchor your story to credible data, they are more inclined to trust both your message and your brand.

Tip: Find out how to source good data.

Example: To shed light on the issue of Food Insecurity in America, GOOD magazine created this infographic using data from USDA.gov and the U.S. Census Bureau—two reputable sources. 

data visualization data storytelling

4) It makes your message stick.

By blending storytelling and visualization, you are appealing to both the analytical side of the brain and the emotional experience side, effectively cementing the information in your reader. Data visualization is particularly powerful here because it increases:

  • Comprehension: Our brains are hardwired to process visuals faster than language. Being able to “see” the data makes it much easier to understand. Coupled with the language-based context, the data really makes an impact.
  • Retention: Information visually processed makes it easier to recall later.
  • Appeal: Data visualization is visually stimulating, making the content more attractive to the viewer.

Example: To see how data visualization targets your brain’s processing centers, see this motion graphic.

5) It’s engaging.

In addition to the inherent stimulation that visualization provides, data storytelling also encourages people to engage in the storytelling. There are two types of data storytelling: narrative and explorative. Both foster engagement but allow the viewer to take different approaches. (This is especially relevant for interactive data storytelling.)

Narrative: Viewers are guided through a narrative to arrive at a specific conclusion.

Example: Microsoft’s Anatomy of a Breach interactive infographic guides readers through a data heist to show how prevalent breaches are.

data visualization data storytelling 6

Explorative: Viewers are encouraged to explore the data to draw their own conclusions and focus on the stories most relevant to them.

Example: The 2020 EggTrack Interactive Report is an innovative tool to track company progress toward using 100% cage-free eggs by 2026 or sooner. By synthesizing the data and turning it into a hefty interactive, people can explore the data as they like.

data storytelling

Although explorative storytelling requires more activity than narrative, both forms of data storytelling require people to actively view and synthesize the data.

Tip: Find out why interactive experiences are so great for data storytelling, and find out how to brainstorm good interactive ideas. 

6) It’s versatile.

The insights gained from data stories can be communicated in many different formats, including:

Even better, these insights can be repurposed, reused, and incorporated into additional content. For example, you might use a compelling data visualization in an article, or use a portion of an infographic in an e-book. This gives you more mileage for every piece of data storytelling you create.

Tip: Find out how a divisible content strategy works, and learn how to repurpose your visualizations.

Where Do You Get Data Stories?

Unfortunately, although data storytelling is an important tool, most companies don’t take full advantage. This is often because teams are siloed. The data reporting/analysis that many companies undertake seldom makes it into marketers’ hands. Even when it does, marketers are oftentimes ill-equipped to work through the data to unearth great stories. This results in a tremendous amount of valuable data unused.

If you haven’t pursued data storytelling before, it all starts with great data. Luckily, there are many ways to get your hands on it.

  • Internal: The absolute best, most original stories come from your own data. When you are focused on creating content marketing to build your brand and boost visibility, proprietary data is key. Plus, you already have a wealth of data in your organization, including:
    • Analytics
    • Customer data
    • Reports
    • Surveys
    • Etc.
  • External: The Internet is full of fantastic data from many credible organizations that likely have more resources than you. For content marketing tailored to people’s pain points or interests, these can be valuable sources to build data stories around (or use to support your internal data). Examples of these sources include:
    • Government agencies
    • Research firms
    • Industry organizations/publications

Tip: Check out our roundup of 104 free data sources, find out more about why internal data storytelling is so powerful, and learn how to find stories in your own data.

How to Tell a Great Data Story

Data storytelling may sound intimidating, and for those who come from a decidedly non-mathematical background, it may seem like a foreign language. But marketers can actually be most effective at bringing data stories to life.

Analysts and statisticians have fantastic technical skill, but when it comes to the human element, they often find it difficult to effectively translate all those data points into an interesting story.

Marketers know who they’re trying to reach, so it is easier to translate that data into a language they understand. If you’re diving into data storytelling, here’s how to do it the right way.

1) Source credible data.

Data storytelling builds trust, but only when it’s based on solid data. Data can easily be manipulated, misrepresented, or misinterpreted, so having a solid, non-biased source is incredibly important.

Tip: Read our 5 tips for sourcing your data to follow best practices, and learn about data storytelling basics.

2) Find the story.

You may think your data will tell you one story, but you may be surprised. You may find interesting outliers, an unexpected trend, or a data point that disproves a widely held belief. These can all make for great data storytelling.

Tip: Follow these tips to find the story in your data.

3) Craft an interesting, engaging, and enlightening narrative.

Good data alone does not make a good data story. Data storytelling is only effective when it provides value, whether it teaches people something new, gives them a fresh perspective, or inspires them to take action.

The way you deliver that story determines whether that message is communicated. Your narrative should guide readers through, provide context, and help them synthesize the data story as effectively as possible.

Tip: Find out how to craft an effective narrative and how to choose the right format for your data story.

4) Design data according to best practices.

One of the best ways to sabotage your data storytelling is with incorrect or ill-designed data visualizations. Data visualization is meant to make the data as easy to understand as possible, which is why it’s important to work with a designer who understands best practices.

Tip: If you need a refresher, find out how to design the most common charts and graphs and follow these 25 tips to improve your data design.

Don’t Let Data Storytelling Scare You

The most innovative content marketers will learn to master this medium, but it all starts with experimentation. Data storytelling will only become more prevalent, so it’s in your best interest to become as data-literate as possible, stay up-to-date on content marketing best practices, and learn to become a true storyteller.

To get you on the right track, you might want to:

In the meantime, always be on the lookout for your best data stories. And if you need a little outside help with your, find out what to look for in a data storytelling agency and follow these tips to make sure you do great work together. We’d also love to chat through anything if you’re stuck.

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3 Scientific Reasons Your Marketing Report Needs Good Design

Every report takes a lot of energy to create. Whether it’s survey results or a campaign retrospective in your marketing report, the information gathering, collating, and synthesizing into valuable insights is a lot of hard work. But why do so many people put so much work into the report but totally ignore the report design?

Content is often thrown into a document and sent off by deadline with little thought, which is a huge missed opportunity. A strong marketing report should distill information, communicate it succinctly, and present it in an easy-to-navigate format. Report design plays a huge role in this, but it’s too often overlooked.

How Design Can Transform a Marketing Report

A great report can—and should—be a compelling story that helps people process information (and often, make decisions based on it). Good report design can drastically improve how people experience that story, especially when you’re sharing data insights that are often lost in a spreadsheet. Why? Because our brains are prewired to process visual content more effectively than written content alone. If you want to make it easier for your audience to interpret, understand, and extract meaning from your reports, here are three reasons to make design a priority.

1) It increases appeal.

According to MIT research, humans can process visual content in as little as 13 milliseconds. This is because the brain is innately drawn to beautiful things. Color, shape, and other design elements grab attention. A column of numbers in a spreadsheet might seem impenetrable, but a few colorful charts are visually stimulating and, therefore, instantly spark interest. This is especially important if:

  • Your report is for external use. According to the Content Marketing Institute, 37% of B2B marketers use research reports for content marketing. If you are trying to stand out in a sea of content, something as simple as a visually arresting cover will pique interest. This is especially important for SEO traffic. According to Hoosh Technology and ISDIA research, 63% of all visitors who click on a Google image will go to the website.
  • You have a ton of content. White space provides enough breathing room on the page to not overwhelm your audience, and a clear hierarchy makes it easier to navigate.
  • You need to call out certain highlights. Design elements make it easier to draw attention to certain info.

Regardless of what your report contains, you need to attract and keep your readers’ attention. A beautifully designed report does that far better than a boring, text-heavy document.

Want to increase the appeal of your reports?

Example: We partnered with the NFL to produce print reports featuring data and analytics for each team’s web performance. Each report contained detailed information, presented in a visually engaging way for easy reference. 

3 reasons report design matters

2) Content is easier to comprehend.

Many marketing reports are incredibly data-heavy, and it can be exhausting to slog through. Data visualization is powerful because it makes all that data easier to interpret by helping your audience “see” what the numbers are saying.

Through preattentive processing, the brain picks up on visual cues and helps you instantly derive meaning from the visual. Report design that includes charts, graphs, or other visual elements makes this easier for the brain. This is why visual communication is so useful to depict not only data but things like process or hierarchy.

You can see your own preattentive processing at work here:

Want to enhance comprehension? 

Example: We partnered with Zendesk to create The Zendesk Customer Satisfaction Index, a report that includes insights from an analyzation of key help desk metrics. The report design presents the data in a straightforward manner and uses design elements like color to call out interesting insights.

3) It helps the reader retain information.

When your brain sees visual information, it identifies, recalls, and ultimately stores those images in your memory. Visualizations trigger your brain to reference long-term memory, making your brain connect to already stored information while cementing new concepts. 

As John Medina says in Brain Rules, “Hear a piece of information, and three days later you’ll remember 10% of it. Add a picture, and you’ll remember 65%.” 

Want to make your marketing report more memorable? 

Example: The data visualizations in the National Association of Realtors 2013 Annual Report bring data to life, making the info easier to synthesize and recall. 

annual report design

Don’t Let Your Reports Go to Waste

Reports are often used to make major decisions internally, but the information they contain can be relevant to your customers, your colleagues, your industry, and major publishers. Thus, one of the best ways to make the most of your reports is to translate those insights into unique content marketing. If you’re not sure what that looks like, here’s how 7 brands are creating unique marketing with their reports

That said, we know you may not have the bandwidth or resources to produce high-quality reports (or incorporate them into your content strategy). If you need some pro help, take a look at our tips to find the right content agency, or holler at us. 

3 Infographic Trends to Try in Your Content Marketing

Are infographics still relevant? We hear this question all the time. The answer is yes, absolutely, 100%. Infographics have always been—and will always be—a powerful tool to deliver information. By combining copy, data, and imagery, they target the brain’s visual processing center, making content easier to digest (and remember) than text alone. But over the years, the medium has evolved. Today, we’re seeing infographic trends that can help your brand better connect with people, work more efficiently, and make the most of every infographic you create. 

3 Infographic Trends to Experiment With Now

Look, we all remember the infographics of the 2010s—the ones that were longer than the Great Wall of China, packed with dense text, and plastered with brand logos. (TBH, you might have come across one last week since plenty of brands are still churning them out.) Luckily, infographics have come so far since then, and they can do so much more. Here are three smart ways to create and use infographics to tell your brand story and support your content strategy goals. 

1) Modular Infographics 

The classic infographic is a handy way to deliver information, but it’s usually meant to be consumed as a whole. More and more platforms are catering to visual content, but often with dimension restrictions (e.g., Instagram). This makes longer infographics difficult to share on those platforms. 

Thus, one of our favorite infographic trends is modular design. This approach makes it easy to extract specific portions of an infographic (such as a chart or statistic) to promote on social media. This provides value on the platform, and encourages people to see the full graphic on your site.

The big benefits:

  • Shareability: Smaller sections are optimized for social sharing to extend content’s reach.
  • Flexibility: Sections can be used to support a larger story. For example, you might use a single chart to enhance a blog post as well.
  • Expanded reach: Different sections can be targeted to different groups of people. 

Tip: Microcontent is a great way to expand your infographic’s reach through smaller graphics. Find out why microcontent benefits marketers, and how to make it work for you.

Example: The modular design of this Incapsula infographic makes it easy to break into multiple parts for sharing. 

Infographic trends to follow

2) Destination Storytelling

Static infographics are the old standby, but interactive infographics can provide a unique and immersive experience. Through a microsite or landing page, interactives let you use every storytelling tool, including copy, images, audio, video, animation, and other interactive elements to bring the story to life.

  • If you’re telling a specific narrative, you can craft a guided experience. For example, a clothing brand might use an animated slideshow to take readers through their production process, from the sheep they source their wool from to the wool coat that ends up on a clothing rack.
  • If you want viewers to derive their own conclusions, you can present the information in an exploratory experience. For example, a nonprofit that provides clean water might create a complex interactive data visualization that shows water shortage data around the world.

Regardless, this type of destination storytelling puts viewers in the driver’s seat in ways that standard static infographics don’t. 

The big benefits:

  • More engagement: Readers control the story, allowing them to actively participate.
  • Stronger impact: By creating an isolated environment, people focus solely on the story at hand. 
  • Flexible storytelling: Elements such as video, animation, and interactivity allow the story to be told in more ways.

Tip: Find out why interactive experiences are so effective, and follow these tips to come up with interesting interactive story ideas. 

Example: Microsoft details the anatomy of a data breach through a guided interactive infographic, using interactivity and data visualization to walk people through the stages. 

anatomy of a breach infographic trends

3) Divisible Content

If you’re using infographics in your content strategy, you’re likely creating other content around the same themes, be it articles, e-books, videos, or other social content. Each of these pieces takes energy and resources to produce, but with shrinking budgets and more challenges, these resources are in short supply for many marketers. How do you make the most of what you have? Use a divisible content strategy.

This is a lean approach to content campaigns that gives you a steady stream of content to publish on a monthly or quarterly basis—with less work. The concept is simple. Create a high-value asset (e.g., an e-book), then break that asset into supporting content pieces to promote said asset, and distribute those pieces across your channels.

marketing campaigns divisible content

This approach extends your content’s reach and shelf life while ensuring you tell a consistent, cohesive story. 

Benefits:

  • Increased value: You get more mileage out of the content you create, helping you improve your ROI
  • More consistency: Content is created as a batch, allowing for a consistent visual style and cohesive message. 
  • Expanded reach: People can engage with different pieces across a variety of platforms.

Tip: Find out more about how a divisible content strategy works

FYI, if you want to share these concepts with the visual learners on your team, here’s a handy infographic that covers it all.

Future of Infographics

How to Make the Most of Your Visual Content

We hope these infographic trends inspire you, but remember that infographics are just one of many awesome forms of visual content that can help you share your brand story, connect with people, and create communities around your shared values. As you refine your content strategy going forward, here are a few things to keep in mind. 

  1. Choose the right ideas. No matter what content you create, it should be interesting and relevant to the people you’re trying to reach. Find out how to brainstorm better ideas, and use these prompts to come up with ideas people will actually connect to. 
  2. Choose the right format. Find out how infographics, videos, motion graphics, data storytelling, and interactives can help you tell your story.
  3. Follow best practices. See our guide to improve every part of the infographic process, and find out how to avoid these common visual content mistakes

And if you feel overwhelmed or intimidated, consider turning to expert help. Use these tips to find the right content marketing agency for you, or hit us up. We’d love to bring your content strategy to life. 

Content strategy guide new

7 Traits Every Content Marketer Needs to Cultivate

If you want to build an awesome content marketing operation that gets real results, you need a lot of things: the right team, the right ideas, the right resources. But most importantly, you need the right mindset. A good content marketer knows what it takes to do their job well, and they cultivate those traits every day. If you want to be a successful marketer, you can—and should—too.

7 Things That Make a Great Content Marketer

Content marketing is an ever-evolving practice, and as a marketer, you’re ever-evolving too. Work to nurture these key traits in yourself (and your team), and you’ll improve your work, strengthen your content, and achieve the marketing goals you want. 

1) Patience

This one is tough, especially when you want instant results to show your boss. But all good things take time, and content marketing is no exception.

Whether you’re experimenting with a new format, a new social platform, or a new campaign, it’s natural to want to know whether or not it’s working now. But good content marketing requires an investment of time. 

Tip: If you’re not getting the immediate results you want, don’t pause the campaign or throw your work in the trash. Instead, wait a set amount of time (e.g., a month) to see what the whole picture looks like before you make a big decision. This will show you if the work you’re patiently putting in is actually paying off. If not, it will hopefully show you how you can tweak and improve.

2) Empathetic Listening

One of the most common mistakes a content marketer can make is focusing on what they want to say, not what their audience needs to hear. No matter how great your content is, if it isn’t interesting, relevant, or valuable to the people you’re trying to reach, it isn’t going to work.

When you’re trying to come up with good content marketing ideas, flip the script. Talk to your target customers, find out what problems they’re struggling with, what solutions they’re looking for, what subjects they want to learn more about, etc. The more you get inside their mind, the easier it will be to find content that will connect with them. 

Tip: If you don’t know your target audience, see our guide to craft marketing personas to understand them. You can also try these simple prompts to brainstorm content ideas that deliver true value, and see how other brands create empathetic content marketing. 

Example: Course Hero is a brand that provides course-specific study resources for students and educators. To make their audience’s lives easier, they produced a series of infographics that condense famous books into simple study guides. By synthesizing the information and presenting it in a visual package, they give students a valuable resource that saves them precious study time. 

content marketer traits

3) Curiosity

If you create the same old lackluster content, you’ll get the same old lackluster results. What might happen if you try something different? 

A good content marketer is curious about everything—the people they’re serving, the industry they’re in, the way other marketers work, etc.

Tip: To keep yourself on your toes, challenge yourself to learn about a new topic, try a new content format, or mix up your brainstorms. You never know what you might learn, and how that knowledge can improve your practice. 

Example: Visual content provides some of the most exciting opportunities for brands to experiment. Delassus Group is a Moroccan grower of snacking tomatoes, citrus, grapes, avocados, and flowers. They used beautiful papercraft to bring their website to life in an eye-catching way. 

Delassus group fruit 1 Delassus group fruit 2 Delassus group fruit 3

4) Humility

Content marketing can be exciting, and it can be really frustrating. If you’re brave enough to stay curious and take risks, it won’t always work out. But, as Nelson Mandela said, “I never lose. I either win or I learn.” Being vulnerable enough to make a mistake, or admit you don’t know something, is the key to maintaining your empathy and becoming a better marketer, coworker, and person. If you look at your shortcomings as opportunities for exploration—not epic flaws—you can maintain resiliency and even enthusiasm about your work. 

Tip: If you tried something that didn’t work out (or didn’t work as well as you hoped), you can turn the lessons learned into great content. 

Example: We’ve written about the biggest lessons we’ve learned during our first decade in businessthe challenges of creative work, and our biggest content strategy mistakes. Sharing these lessons helps us see how far we’ve come—and, hopefully, helps our audience feel less alone in their challenges. 

5) Confidence

If things are working just fine, it’s tempting to stick with what works. But if you want to grow your content marketing operation, you need to think bigger—and move in that direction confidently. The good news is if you build your practice around good data, you often have the numbers to back up your decisions. Whether you want to ask for more budget or create an ambitious campaign, let your experience and data give you the confidence you need to pursue your goal wholeheartedly. 

Tip: Find out how to choose the right metrics for your content strategy. No matter what you want to do, stakeholders will always be easier to convince if you have the data on hand. 

Example: We partnered with SAP to produce their first podcast, a 9-part science fiction series. It was a bold choice that paid off, as we won the Content Marketing Institute’s “Content Marketing Project of the Year.

6) Discipline

The quality of your content is everything. But when you have a large volume of content to get out the door, it’s easy to let a few things slide here and there. Maybe you didn’t proof that e-book as thoroughly as you could, or maybe your Art Director didn’t sign off on the design. These things may not seem significant in the moment, but if you want to create a strong brand, you need to create quality content consistently. If you aren’t disciplined about applying your brand, you will quickly degrade it. 

Tip: See our guide to keep your content on brand to ensure every piece of content you create is up to par.

7) Sincerity

We’ve all seen soulless corporations try to insert themselves into a cause, hop onto a trend for the likes (aka newsjack), or make grand public statements about their values (which are often in direct opposition to the way they behave). When this happens, they might be the laughingstock of Twitter for a 24-hour cycle, but they’ve hurt their reputation for much longer. 

As a content marketer, you need to be hyperaware of what your brand believes, and how it communicates these beliefs through both content and actions. Remember: Trust is the most valuable asset you have, and when you behave insincerely, you break that trust with your audience. 

Tip: Identify and articulate your Brand Heart, including your purpose, vision, mission, and values. This document can serve as your North Star to help you stay aligned to your core principles and guide your brand in the right way.   

Example: See how these 10 companies share their Brand Heart through content. 

Keep Challenging Yourself

One of the most beautiful and frustrating things about content marketing is that the work is never done. There are always new things to learn, and new ways to grow. What matters most, however, is building your content marketing operation on the right foundation. 

And if you find yourself stuck at any point, turn to the experts. See our tips to find the right content marketing agency for you, find out what it’s like to work with us on a content strategy, or chat with us about the challenges you’re facing. We’d love to help you bring your brand story to life. 

How to Create a Brand Style Guide in 5 Steps (Tips + Examples)

Maintaining quality and consistency in your brand’s content is a challenge, especially if you’re creating a large volume of content (or working with many content creators). Without the right direction, you can easily end up with Frankensteined content plagued by incorrect colors, misplaced logos, and off-brand messaging. This isn’t just an oversight; it can be a true threat to your brand’s integrity. How do you ensure your content is always on brand? Create a comprehensive brand style guide—and use it.  

What Is a Brand Style Guide?

A style guide is simply the documentation of your brand identity, presented in a format that makes it easy to apply the identity to any content you create. From your logo to your brand voice, it’s a toolkit to help you present a consistent, cohesive brand to the world. 

Why Do You Need a Brand Style Guide?

Everything you create should represent your brand accurately. But the larger your network, the harder it can be to monitor content and make sure everything is up to par. (Sometimes it isn’t even a freelancer’s fault; in-house teams can get a little too lax as well.)

This is why a brand style guide is so important. Not only does this provide consistency but it actually benefits your brand in several ways.

  • More quality control: Not everyone has an Art Director available to look over every project, and oftentimes you’re up against a deadline. These, and many other variables, can result in content that is disjointed and ineffective. Your reputation depends on the quality of your creative content, so having well-documented guidelines ensures that you’re always putting out content you’re proud of. 
  • Increased comprehension: Clear communication and good design make life easier for your reader or viewer. Guidelines for things like data visualization, color use, or typography help creators design content that is more effective, creating a better content experience overall. Also, this simple act is a tremendous service for the people you want to connect with. It shows that you value their time and are invested in helping them get the info they need and want.
  • Better brand recognition: Brand guidelines help you deliver a cohesive brand experience, making it easier for people to recognize your valuable content. When you provide consistent, high-quality content, people come to rely on you and—even better—seek out your content. They trust you will deliver what they want every time, and that trust is the basis of every strong relationship. 

Ultimately, if you want to build a successful brand, you need a style guide.

Example: Whether it’s an e-book or infographic, LinkedIn adheres to a strict visual language, including consistent use of their signature blue color, data visualization style, and other details. 

LinkedIn Brand Guidelines

What Should a Brand Style Guide Include?

Your goal is to create a practical style guide that empowers brand creators to create a variety of on-brand content. While style guides are often thought of as design-only, you want a document that helps people understand how your brand looks and speaks. What might that look like?

  • Brand Heart: This is basically the high-level explanation of your brand’s core principles, which can influence everything from the way you speak to customers to the way you design your websites. It encompasses your:
    • Purpose: Why do you exist?
    • Vision: What future do you want to help create? What does the future look like?
    • Mission: What are you here to do? How do you create that future?
    • Values: What principles guide your behavior? 
  • Verbal Identity: This is everything related to how you speak about your company, describe your products, communicate with customers, etc. This includes your:
    • Brand essence
      • Voice
      • Tone
      • Personality
    • Messaging
      • Tagline
      • Value proposition
      • Messaging pillars/differentiators
  • Visual Identity
    • Logo
    • Colors
    • Typography
    • Additional elements (if needed)
      • Photography
      • Illustration
      • Iconography
      • Data visualization

Note: If you’re a new brand, you may not have a full brand identity created. But you should at least have the basics (logo, color, typography), as well as brand voice and personality guidelines.

If there are any of these elements you haven’t built out yet, see our guides to:

What Makes a Good Style Guide?

An incomplete style guide is basically just as effective as no style guide at all. If you want yours to be as helpful as possible, it should be:

  • Comprehensive: Again, your style guide should help anyone create on-brand content, so make sure you have included as much relevant information as possible.
  • Practical: You want your style guide to be comprehensive, but you don’t need to overwhelm people with information. (This will make it cumbersome, and your team will probably avoid using it.) Provide clear direction with simple, succinct language, and helpful examples.
  • Accessible: Everyone on your team should know where to find your style guide.

Most importantly, your style guide should be customized for your brand’s unique needs—whatever they may be.

How to Create a Style Guide

So how do you make guidelines that work for everyone? Just follow this step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Choose Your Format

Depending on your needs, you can design your style guide for multiple mediums. 

  • Static (print): If you’re going old school, you can create printed guidelines. We’ve seen plenty of brands transform their guidelines into works of art in this way. (See the award-winning hard copy of the Fisher and Paykel brand guidelines.)
  • Static (web): Digital guidelines are the easiest way to make your guidelines accessible from anywhere. You can simply create a PDF for your site or server.
  • Interactive (web): More and more brands are opting for interactive style guides, which are easy to navigate and more dynamic. 

You may even experiment with all three formats, depending on your needs.

Step 2: Create a TOC

Your brand guidelines are the summation of your brand strategy. They basically function as your bible; therefore, they should include everything anyone might need to know about your brand. To guide your creation, outline the elements you plan to include.

Again, you don’t have to include each of these items if they aren’t relevant, but you should include the basics (verbal identity and logo, color, typography).

  • Brand Heart: You can also include your company history, milestones, or any other relevant info one would want to know about the company’s background. This information is important because it explains the core of your brand: who you are, what you do, and why it matters. 
    • Purpose
    • Vision
    • Mission
    • Value
  • Verbal Identity: In addition to these, you can include any other elements that help people communicate more effectively or provide more context (e.g., a list of words you DON’T use, or the standard descriptions of your services).
    • Brand essence
      • Voice
      • Tone
      • Personality
    • Messaging
      • Tagline
      • Value proposition
      • Messaging pillars/differentiators
  • Visual Identity: 
    • Logo
    • Colors
    • Typography
    • Additional elements (if needed)
      • Photography
      • Illustration
      • Iconography
      • Data visualization

Depending on the size of your company, the industry you’re in, or the content or products you produce, you might include directions for additional things, such as audio branding or even scent branding.

Step 3: Build Out Your Style Guide

Now that you have your outline, you can start to flesh out your guidelines. Focus on clarity and practicality as you write your copy and add design. To make your style guide easier to apply, you can also include tips, call-outs, sidebars, etc. We find it especially helpful to include: 

  • Dos and don’ts: This is helpful to identify the key mistakes to avoid.
  • Checklists: It’s probably not realistic for every single piece of creative content to be approved by an Art Director, but it’s important to give content a final edit/once-over to ensure on-brand design. A simple checklist can help catch any of those little errors like incorrect logo usage—before it goes out the door. 
  • Examples: How should your brand voice be used for social, press releases, marketing emails, or product descriptions? What does your typography hierarchy look like? What are the correct logo dimensions? Showing what these things look like in real life makes them much easier to emulate.
  • Tools and resources: Do you use an app to double-check your hex codes? If it helps you, it will probably help others.

For each section, give enough detail to explain but don’t exhaust your reader. If your brand guidelines are the size of an encyclopedia, they will only serve as a beautiful paperweight on someone’s desk. (And if a noob can’t interpret it, you’ll be in trouble.)

Example: The Expanded Special Project for Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases guidelines provide direction on proper logo use, including when and where colored logos should be used. 

Brand guidelines

Remember: Helpful brand guidelines don’t just tell—they show. When and where you can, let design do the heavy lifting. Also, your brand guidelines themselves are a piece of branded content. Inject your brand personality wherever you can.

Step 4: Vet Your Style Guide

The whole point of a style guide is to eliminate questions about how to design on-brand content. Whether you have 5 content creators or 500 working for your brand, it’s smart to ask someone to proof and sanity-check your style guide before you distribute it to everyone. (Otherwise, you may be flooded with questions and comments.)

Share it with someone who is intimately familiar with the brand to find out:

  • Is it clear?
  • Is there anything missing?
  • Are there additions that may improve the reader’s experience?

Ultimately, a style guide only helps a brand if it helps the people who work for the brand.

Step 5: Make Your Brand Guidelines Easy to Access

One of the most common reasons people ignore brand guidelines is simply because they can’t find them, and that’s how you end up with 1,000 brochures printed with your old logo.

Make sure your guidelines are in an easy-to-find place (e.g., company server or company Wiki) and shared with everyone, especially new employees or creative partners. Even if you have a printed version, render a digital PDF too. 

5 Awesome Brand Style Guides to Inspire You

Every brand is unique, but if you want to add a dash of creativity to your guidelines (and who doesn’t?), here are some of our favorite style guide examples that do it the right way.

1) Mailchimp

Mailchimp offers interactive guidelines for both copywriting and design. The level of detail they provide for copywriters is unparalleled. Want to know how to write legal content? Newsletters? Social content? They detail it all, along with writing principles, web tips, word stylization, and more.

Similarly, their design guidelines are both beautiful and succinct, communicating the brand’s design philosophy through the guidelines themselves.

2) Zendesk

A strong brand identity is able to tell a strong story, and Zendesk does that supremely well. In fact, their style guide feels less instructional and more editorial, as they break down the elements of their brand identity, including simple dos and don’ts, tips, and resources to make it easy to apply.

zendesk style guide example - tips

zendesk style guide example - shapes

3) Gusto

Not every brand needs to design a clean interactive. A well-designed PDF can be just as helpful, as Gusto proves. Their brand guidelines shine because of their simplicity and efficacy. Not only do they provide practical guidelines but they really educate the user on why these guidelines are so important and how they communicate the brand’s philosophy.

gusto brand guidelines 1 gusto brand guidelines 3

4) ELM

Colorful, clean, and engaging—those are the hallmarks of ELM’s brand guidelines. Smooth interactivity, animation, and visuals make this a joy to behold. They do a fantastic job of letting design do the heavy lifting, too. For example, instead of simply explaining how the primary, secondary, and accent colors should be applied, they created a colorful data visualization that breaks down usage across the brand. This is exactly the type of creativity that can turn brand guidelines into a powerful piece of communication. 

ELM style 2 ELM style

5) Starbucks

For a megabrand like Starbucks, maintaining a cohesive brand identity is a challenge. But with their comprehensive brand style guide, Starbucks provides all the guidelines creators need to succeed.

The interactive guidelines are beautifully designed according to the brand identity itself, featuring the brand’s signature colors, as well as animation and a bevy of case studies (aka visual real-world examples) to capture attention.

Always Keep Your Brand Guidelines Updated

Your brand is always growing and changing, so your brand guidelines should reflect that. Work with your brand team to schedule regular content reviews to make sure the guidelines are being appropriately applied. Brand stakeholders should also identify what needs to be updated, expanded, clarified, removed, or edited.

Most importantly, have regular conversations about what is or isn’t working, and ask your team for any ideas that will make using brand guidelines easier. 

And, of course, if you don’t have the bandwidth to create your guidelines, find out what it’s like to work with us on your brand identity or holler at us. We’d be happy to take it off your plate.

10 Tips to Brainstorm Fresh Content Marketing Ideas

When was the last time you hosted a content marketing brainstorm that was really productive? One that ended with actionable ideas (not out-of-scope concepts or copycats of everything your competitors are doing)? If that sounds familiar, don’t feel bad. Coming up with strong content marketing ideas is one of the most challenging parts of marketing. But your brainstorms don’t have to suck. With a little planning and structure, you can ensure that every meeting is as productive as possible—and the ideas you come up with will actually help you achieve your marketing goals.

How to Come Up with Good Content Marketing Ideas

From infographics and e-books to videos and interactives, we’ve brainstormed simple pieces and massive campaigns to help our clients connect with their audiences. In the process, we’ve also learned what does and doesn’t work when you’re trying to come up with fresh ideas.

No matter what type of content marketing ideas you’re looking for, these 10 tips can help you find the right ideas faster and with less frustration.

1) Assemble the right team.

“The more the merrier” might seem like a good idea when it comes to brainstorming, but it usually has the opposite effect. Usually, a few people talk while the majority stay quiet or tune out entirely.

Think about including the key stakeholders at each stage of the content production process (and anyone else who might add value to your brainstorm).

Tip: To ensure a successful brainstorm, try to keep it under seven people. Any larger and people tend to shut down.

2) Set expectations.

Clearly define the meeting objectives. Trust us, a “general ideas” brainstorm rarely produces truly actionable ideas that are aligned to your larger goals. Whoever is leading the charge should send a brainstorm brief at least a day ahead that defines the content goals, and encourage everyone to come to the meeting with a specific number of ideas (3-5 is a pretty good number to start).

Tip: If you don’t know your goals, follow our guide to document your content strategy, and use our creative brief template to get everyone on the same page from the start.

3) Change your environment.

Your physical (and psychic) environment has a huge effect on how you work. That goes for collaboration, creative endeavors, and pretty much everything that requires focused thinking. When you’re struggling to come up with ideas, it helps to mix it up. Our team does this in several ways.

Tip: In a post-pandemic world, you might go to a coffee shop off-site, sit outdoors, or even take a brainstorming walk. (Studies have shown that walking is tremendously beneficial for creative thinking. You can still do a walk-and-talk call if you’re working remotely.

#TBT: We miss the days when we could work together IRL. 

how to find good content marketing ideas

4) Document every idea.

There’s nothing more frustrating than coming up with a great idea during a brainstorm (or even the seed of an idea) and realizing that nobody wrote it down. To ensure that no idea goes wasted, it helps to assign point people to run each meeting.

Tip: Choose individuals who can run the agenda, time-keep, and note-take. BTW, even if you don’t use these ideas this go around, they might come in handy in the future.

5) Unplug

Let’s be real: Creative thinking just doesn’t happen when you have Slack notifications, text messages, and emails coming in left and right. This one may seem extreme, but setting yourself free of all technological distractions can be very effective.

If you’re working in person, you may ask people to ditch cell phones or even laptops. If you’re working remotely, that may institute a “no cell phones while on Zoom” rule—or request that everyone’s notifications are turned off. This way everyone can stay present and engaged in the brainstorm.

Tip: Let your team talk ideas out, and have the note-taker take it all down. This way everyone else can let ideas flow freely without stopping to document everything.

For more practical tips to improve your brainstorms, see our SlideShare.

6) Hold back criticism.

People say there are no bad content marketing ideas. We’d say there certainly are, but oftentimes a bad idea can trigger a thought that inspires a really good idea. So don’t censor yourself. The truth is most ideas are fragile and need time to incubate. Don’t kill them immediately by criticizing. It’s important to build an inclusive environment where people feel safe, encouraged, and enthusiastic about sharing their ideas.

Tip: Make a “no interruptions” rule while someone is sharing an idea. This gives people time to really listen and compose their thoughts before they ask questions or share feedback about the idea.

7) Vet your ideas through personas.

Good content marketing ideas provide value to people in some way. Whether your idea is educational, entertaining, or inspirational, you should be able to clearly identify how and why your target audience would find it interesting and relevant. If you can’t answer that question, you shouldn’t proceed with the idea. The good news is that this simple practice can help you easily identify your best ideas.

Tip: If you’re not sure who you’re trying to reach, use our guide to craft useful marketing personas. You should also ask yourself these 5 questions to know if your content idea will work.

8) Vet your ideas through different types of cognitive thinkers.

Even if your idea does speak to your audience, if it doesn’t support your larger marketing goals, it won’t be effective. The problem is it’s easy to get excited about a singular idea, especially if you’re the one who came up with it, and forget to look at the larger picture. Luckily, since you’re working with a group, it’s easier to vet your ideas to make sure they really align.

If you’re not familiar with the four types of creative thinkers, you should be. (Seriously, go read that article. We’ll wait.)

This framework is hugely beneficial to help you:

  1. Identify how different people think (including yourself)
  2. Understand how their type of thinking influences their behavior (and might frustrate you)
  3. Learn how to use their special thinking to improve your ideas

For example, if you perceive that someone is constantly shooting down your ideas or poking holes in a concept, you’re actually dealing with an Agile Strategist, someone whose superpower is critical thinking. We can say firsthand that understanding these dynamics has hugely improved our interactions and ideations.

Tip: You probably have a mix of the four creative thinkers in the room. So before you move forward with an idea, encourage your team to point out any potential pitfalls or opportunities you might be missing.

9) Combine and improve ideas.

Hivemind can be a beautiful thing, helping you bring your best ideas to the forefront. While this isn’t always going to work, sometimes you can give your ideas new life by combining them. For example, if you have an idea for a how-to article but want to do a video campaign on your social channels, turning that how-to article into an explainer video might be a better idea.

Tip: A good content marketing idea comes to life through multiple elements: the core idea, the copywriting, the design, the format, etc. If you can’t decide between two ideas, think about which elements would be best combined.

10) Deconstruct ideas that worked.

A successful idea can feel like a lightning strike, but there are probably very specific reasons it worked. When you’re looking for future inspiration, look back at your most successful content.

  • Who did it speak to?
  • What value did it provide?
  • What worked throughout the process?
  • What could have been improved?
  • What have you learned?

While you can’t necessarily replicate the formula each time, you can learn what elements can bolster (or hurt) your creativity.

Tip: If you want to understand the keys to your most successful content (and find out how it stands up to your competitors), do a full content audit.

FYI, we know that different people absorb information differently. If you want to share some of these concepts with the audio/visual learners on your team, see the video below. 

More Tips for Good Content Marketing Ideas

There are many ways to come up with content marketing ideas, and part of the path of creativity is discovering those. That said, there are a few extra tips that can help you find those ideas faster.

And if you need help coming up with ideas—or turning your ideas into interesting brand storytelling—hit us up.

Content strategy guide new

10 Report Design and Storytelling Tips (Plus Examples)

Whether it’s for marketing, sales, clients, or accounting, every report is created to communicate valuable information. But the best reports don’t just deliver information; they distill it into a simple, concise package to tell a compelling story. To do this well, you need to use every storytelling tool in your arsenal. That means writing good copy and using report design elements like color, shape, imagery, and data visualization to make your content not only aesthetically pleasing but easier to comprehend (a huge service to your reader). Luckily, there are many simple things you can do to enhance your reports.

10 Tips to Turn Your Reports into Compelling Stories

We’ve helped all sorts of brands create beautiful, on-brand reports. And we’re here to let you in on a few tricks of the trade. Whether you’re presenting a project recap or a quarterly review, try these tactics to enhance your next report design.

1) Know the story you’re telling.

There’s a reason you’re creating a report. You might want to educate your reader, influence their decision-making, shed light on a challenge, or reveal interesting insights. Regardless of your objective, your job is to craft a report that communicates that narrative.

Tip: Know the takeaway. After reading your report, is the reader meant to draw their own conclusions or come away with a specific takeaway? If your report is meant to garner support for your brand in some way, make sure that underlying story is clear and reinforced.

Example: We collaborated with Goodwill of Orange County to create an annual report that told the story of “The Good Effect,” outlining how the organization and its contributors helped the community over the year. Since the annual report is meant to showcase the organization’s accomplishments and inspire support for the coming year, putting this story front and center was a great way to create a cohesive narrative.

7 keys to a compelling annual report design

2) Use the right language.

Language and tone affect how the reader absorbs your narrative. It also affects how they perceive your brand. It’s important to speak in their language, at their level. Don’t talk above them or down to them, and don’t bore them to death with jargon and buzzwords.

Tip: Use things like subheads and callouts to entice your reader, introduce the subject, and make important information easy to synthesize. 

3) Be brief.

Yes, you probably have a lot of information to include in your report design, but if all your content is crammed in there for the sake of being “economical,” you’re only giving your reader an excuse to tune out. Long, winding paragraphs of text can make any report feel especially dense and overwhelming. Remember: The more succinct you are, the easier it will be to tell a strong story and create a beautiful report design to reinforce it.

Tip: Compile your report, then give a second pass to condense, edit, and extract only the most relevant insights and information that support your narrative. Look for opportunities to let design do the heavy lifting as well. For example, you might compare two data sets instead of visualizing them separately, or craft a flowchart to explain organizational systems. 

Example: The 2015 Pacific Life Annual Report makes great use of negative space, offering key insights through simple blurbs and data points. 

report design life insurance

4) Add a wrap-up.

Consider ending your report with a simple one-page wrap-up that explicitly outlines key takeaways. This is especially helpful if your report insights will influence decision-making or help you garner support for your cause.

Tip: If you don’t have much space, just include a simple bulleted list.

Example: Nielsen’s 2021 Era of Adaptation annual marketing report includes a final page of key takeaways to help marketers put the info shared into real-life practice. 

5) Infuse your brand personality.

Regardless of what type of report you’re creating, if it’s a piece of communication your company makes, then it’s a reflection of your brand. Thus, it should feature your brand’s voice, personality, and visual identity to maintain consistency and cohesiveness.

Tip: Give content a quick pass to see if any words or messaging seem off, and keep an eye out for specific words you should and should not use. For example, we do our best to avoid cheesy marketing speak like “rockstar” or “guru.” (If you don’t have a uniform voice, see our guide to identify your brand personality and voice.)

Similarly, make sure you’re applying your visual elements correctly, such as logo, color, and typography. If you don’t have a documented brand identity, see our guide to build a style guide. (Make sure it’s up to date too.)

6) Use color to increase comprehension.

Color is a visual cue that helps the brain instantly identify and process information. As such, it’s a useful tool to highlight certain information, whether it’s the highest bar in a bar chart or an important note in text. 

Tip: Choose a single color to use as your accent/highlight color throughout.

Example: The interactive Girls Who Code 2016 Annual Report uses bold color and playful animations to bring the report to life. 

Brand storytelling example 1

7) Visualize your data.

If you don’t visualize your data, you’re doing your reader a disservice. Unfortunately, a lot of designers think throwing data into any old chart will do the job. No bueno. 

Good data design is about increasing comprehension, so it’s important to not only visualize data but choose the best visualization for that data.

Tip: To do this effectively, learn how to properly design the most common charts and graphs, and follow these 25 tips to improve your data visualizations.

Example: The 2014 Stony Brook Foundation Annual Report used clean, colorful data visualizations to engage readers. 

Report Design tips 1

8) Use an intuitive hierarchy. 

Your readers want to know the most important information from the get-go. (This is especially true if they’re reviewing the report on a time crunch or right before a meeting, which happens a lot.) For this reason, designing a clear hierarchy that guides the eye is crucial. 

Tip: Add callouts to provide important context or identify particularly meaningful insights. Also, make sure that headers, subheads, and callouts are easy to identify and consistently spaced. Follow the fundamentals of good report design and give the eye some breathing room.

Example: Clear Channel’s The State of Listening Today report uses clear callouts and headers to highlight new industry trends.

keys to a good report design

9) Add imagery.

This is especially helpful if you’re designing an annual report. Illustrations or photos can go a long way to communicate your personality, add a more human element, or reinforce a theme.

Tip: For inspiration, check out these 40 beautiful examples of annual report design.

Example: The 2014 National Association of Realtors Annual Report incorporated photos of their team, as well as brand colors, to infuse the report with brand personality. 

10 Report Design Tips 2

10) Design templates for future reports.

One of the reasons people struggle to create a cohesive brand is because they don’t have enough time to approve every piece of content that goes out the door. That’s understandable, but you can make your life easier with a simple trick, especially with reports that you regularly produce.

Tip: Design a simple report template that features a variety of elements to mix and match, such as images, charts, headers, and callouts. That way even a non-designer can create beautifully designed reports. (And you’ll rest easy knowing it’s on-brand.) You can follow these same steps to create templates that are easy to mix and match.

How to Do More with Your Reports

Creating a good report takes effort, so why not make the most of your investment? While many reports are designed for internal eyes only, you may be able to translate report insights into interesting and unique content marketing. If your report tells an interesting story about an industry trend or reveals a surprising insight about your business, why not share those insights with your audience?

For example, we turned one of our internal marketing reports into a blog post about how our new marketing strategy increased leads 78%. If you want to see what this can look like in the wild, check out how these 7 brands have translated their reports into content marketing to extend their reach.

Of course, if you’re already maxed out on brain space or resources, you may not have the energy to do that. If so, we’d be happy to chat about how we can turn your data into content that gets results. 

Content strategy guide new

5 Ways to Know if Your Content Marketing Ideas Will Work

When you’re in a brainstorm for content marketing ideas and the creative juices are flowing, it’s easy to get carried away. Before you know it, you’re pitching ideas about cats in tuxedos and wondering if there’s any room in your video budget for a Michael Bay-style explosion. And while that all sounds great in the room, those ideas may not get you the results you really want. 

The best marketing ideas serve both the people you’re trying to reach and your content strategy. If your great idea doesn’t do both, it might not be so great after all. 

How to Know If You Have a Good Content Marketing Idea

The secret to creating consistent, quality content is to vet your content marketing ideas to make sure they’re aligned to your larger goals. Next time a light bulb goes off, ask yourself these 5 questions to find out if you should move forward or go back to square one.

1) Will it interest your audience?

Just because you think something is interesting doesn’t mean your audience will. Ultimately, you’re trying to connect with people through content, demonstrate that you understand who they are, and show that you’re there to enhance their lives. Whether you’re educating, entertaining, or inspiring them, identify exactly how your idea will speak to their wants and needs. 

If you’re not entirely sure who your target audience is or what they’re interested in, follow our guide to create marketing personas

2) Can it be distributed effectively to reach them? 

In an ideal world, people would magically stumble upon your content and become an instant fan. In reality, you need to do the legwork to make sure they see it. That means identifying the channels that will help you reach them—and tailoring content for those channels. 

  • Know your channels up front. Distribution can influence the way you craft your content, so it’s important to know where this content will live before you’ve brought the concept to life. Follow our guide to choose the right distribution channels, and see our guide to craft a content distribution strategy if you don’t have a plan in place.
  • Choose the right format for the channel. Different channels are better suited to different types of content (e.g., Instagram for photos or LinkedIn for longer thinkpieces). Consider which presentation might work best for your particular content idea. 
  • Know how you’re going to measure success. You won’t know how good your idea really was if you can’t measure its impact. If you’re not sure how to determine success, see our guide to choose the right metrics for your content strategy.  

Once you’ve chosen the best channels, follow our guide to promote your content like an agency would

3) Does it align with your engagement goals? 

A good idea connects with your audience, but a great content marketing idea inspires them to take action. The long-term goal is to turn people into lifelong customers, but they need to take the first step. If the story you’re telling doesn’t offer a clear next step, it’s probably not worth telling. 

  • Deliver the right messaging. The right marketing ideas support your brand’s benefits or key messaging. Use our brand messaging framework to make sure your content tells a cohesive story.
  • Say the right thing at the right time. Map your buyer journey to make sure your content moves them to the next stage seamlessly. 
  • Engage people at different touchpoints. Find out how a divisible content strategy helps you reuse assets across channels to maximize your content’s reach. 

Note: A one-off piece of content won’t be as effective as a strategic campaign. Find out how to run great campaigns that get results. 

4) How is this an original idea?

It’s easy to imitate what you’re used to seeing, but the most effective content provides something unique or different to your audience. That’s not to say you have to be a visionary; there are plenty of ways to put an original spin on an old subject or come up with interesting new ideas. 

  • Dig into your data. Proprietary data is a great way to translate your unique insights into interesting content. Whether you’re sharing surprising findings or debunking myths, there are all sorts of stories hiding in your spreadsheets. Here are 9 places to look for data, as well as our best tips to find the story in that data. 
  • Try something new. Experiment with a new format or design style to mix it up. Here are 5 formats to try now.
  • Survey your customers. Talking directly to your customers about their challenges can inspire new content ideas. You might identify a content gap to fill, or even turn those survey results into an interesting industry report (which might even get you coverage in an industry publication). 

If you’re having trouble brainstorming, use these 9 prompts to come up with fresh content marketing ideas. 

5) Does it fit your brand?

Just because another cool brand is doing something doesn’t mean it will translate for your brand. Similarly, just because something is trending in the news doesn’t mean you need to hop on it. Good content marketing ideas are a natural extension of your brand. 

  • Consider your expertise. What subjects do you have the authority and credibility to speak on? What unique insights can you share? How can you add to the conversation? If you want to touch on a timely topic, find out how to newsjack without being a jackass. 
  • Consider your resources. Is this idea something you can execute and execute well? If you can’t, it will only hurt your credibility. It’s always better to create something smaller (of quality) than half-ass something big. To work more efficiently, find out how to optimize your production process. 

Remember: Good brand content reflects the brand in voice, personality, and visual identity. To make sure your brand is consistently applied, craft strong brand guidelines (or even a content checklist) to make sure content is cohesive and consistent.  

content marketing ideas infographicDon’t Get Complacent

Above all, the key to good content marketing is experimentation and iteration. The more you try, the more you learn, and the better your results will be. Just stay focused, and keep educating yourself on best practices. In the meantime, here are a few final tips to help you get the best results from your work. 

And if you need a little support, turn to expert help. Follow our tips to find the right content marketing agency for you. And if you want to know how we can bring your ideas to life, see our FAQs or holler at us.

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The Ultimate Guide to Visual Content Marketing (Tips + Examples)

Visual content marketing is not just about pretty pictures in blog posts and ever-popular infographics. It’s a powerful communication tool that leverages the human visual system to deliver information in a compelling way, making it an incredibly effective way to tell your brand story and achieve your content marketing goals.

Over the last decade, we’ve lived and breathed visual content marketing. (We even wrote the book on it—see Infographics: The Power of Visual Storytelling.) In that time, thanks to evolving technology and publishing platforms, visual content marketing has become one of the most valuable tools for content marketers, whether you’re a small startup or Fortune 100 company.

If you haven’t experimented with visual content marketing before, or want to know how to improve the visual content you create, buckle up. In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about visual content marketing, from why it works to how to do it the right way. 


Table of Contents


What Is Visual Content?

In short, it is the graphics and images that you see, read, and interact with as you consume media.

Visual content marketing

Why Is Visual Content Effective?

Visual content is unique because our brains process visual information almost instantly. Compared to other forms of communication, like text-only content, this makes visual content easier to consume in three specific ways. 

  1. Appeal: Visual content uses design to present information in a format that is stimulating, attractive, and engaging. This makes it easier to synthesize and piques the viewer’s interest immediately. Visual content grabs people’s attention, which helps your brand stand out from the competition.
  2. Comprehension: The brain’s visual processing system is faster and more efficient than other communication systems, which means we are able to interpret visual information almost instantly and with minimal effort. In fact, a 2014 MIT study found that the brain can process an image in as little as 13 milliseconds. This means visual content is easier to understand, making it more enjoyable to engage with.
  3. Retention: The visual processing system also works with our long-term memory, connecting the images we see to information already stored in the brain. This makes visual content more memorable than other mediums. (For more on this, check out MIT’s research on what makes a visualization memorable.)

To see the power of visual communication at work, check out this quick video. 

How Can Visual Content Marketing Help Your Brand?

Whereas brand publishing was once relegated to traditional ads, sales collateral, and the occasional press release, content marketing is the new paradigm. People don’t want content that sells to them; they want valuable content that entertains, educates, and/or inspires. Infographics, e-books, videos, and other forms of visual communication are the perfect way to deliver that content online and achieve a variety of marketing goals.

  • Awareness: Old and new publishing platforms alike are increasingly focusing on visual content, attracting and engaging enormous audiences. Delivering your content through these channels helps you reach audiences outside of your owned properties. This is especially important for your SEO. In addition to quality written content, visual content can attract more people to your site because it is something your audience craves and actively seeks out. According to LewisPR, image-rich content gets 94% more views than content without relevant images. And according to Hoosh Technology and ISDIA research, 63% of all visitors who click on a Google image will go to the website.
  • Engagement: Visual content is particularly engaging on social. Users spend more time with it, and they are more likely to share it. Even a simple image can boost social engagement. According to Twitter research, tweets with photos get an average 35% boost in retweets, and videos get a 28% boost. Unsurprisingly, more and more social platforms are making big moves toward more visual content (online video is also on the rise, especially on platforms like Facebook).
  • Lead generation: High-value, quality content is the best way to build a relationship with people and turn them into long-term customers. E-books, videos, infographics, etc., are all helpful ways to use visual content to establish your knowledge and credibility.
  • Employee retention: Successful brands succeed with a solid team of engaged, committed employees. In a competitive job market, you need ways to connect with current and potential employees. Visual content helps you showcase your company’s personality, culture, and values in creative ways, whether it’s through your annual report or Instagram. This helps people get to know and participate in your employer brand. (See our Ultimate Guide to Building an Employer Brand for more on this.)

Example: Blizzard’s Instagram is full of employee photos that give you a peek into their company culture.

In addition to supporting these goals, visual content is a good solution for some of the challenges that marketers say prevent them from being able to achieve their goals.

  • Content variety: Visual content is highly versatile, as there are many formats to experiment with. Plus, the content you create can be broken up into microcontent for use on social and in blog posts, extending your content’s reach. For example, a single visualization from an infographic may also be used in an e-book and as a teaser on social. 
  • Budget: Because visual content allows for more repurposing, you get more value and mileage out of everything you create. (Try a divisible content strategy to get more bang for your buck.) 
  • Content creation resources: There are more content creation tools available than ever for visual content. (You might want to check out Visage, our sister company’s design platform, as well as our roundup of 100 resources for content marketing.)

⇒ Posts with one image get 2X as much traffic, 30% more shares, and 25% more backlinks than posts containing text only.

 2020 State of Content Marketing Report by SEMrush

Types of Visual Content

Visual content includes many different formats, which can serve your brand in unique ways either by enhancing the content you already produce or adding new formats to your content strategy.

Annual Reports

Your annual report is an ongoing representation of your brand story. Making that content engaging is important not only to capture your reader’s attention but build trust in who you are and what you’re doing.

Tips to Create Annual Reports 

Data Visualization

Data lends credibility to your message and, when properly visualized, can bring hidden insights to life. You can use data to enhance many types of communication, whether it’s a presentation or whitepaper. Even a single stat shared online can create an interesting dialogue.

Tips to Create Data Visualizations

E-books 

E-books are a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and provide value to your audience. Think of ways to turn dull information into visually impactful communication, whether it’s visualizing data or humanizing through imagery.

Tips to Create E-books

Infographics

Infographics have been the bread-and-butter of visual content marketing for several years, and they’re not going away. They are visually stimulating and highly shareable, making them great tools for communicating your message.

Interactive Infographics

Interactive infographics are especially beneficial because they invite your audience to actively engage in the content. Whether it’s a simple interactive slideshow or a complex data set to explore, interactives are a great way to welcome your audience into the story.

Tips to Create Interactive Infographics

Microcontent

Microcontent is a budget-friendly way to make the most of the content you have. By extracting or repurposing existing visual assets, you can enhance other types of visual content you create, extend the life of the content you have, and engage your audience on different platforms.

Tips to Create Microcontent

Motion Graphics

When you have an abstract concept that you need to explain or a brand message you want to deliver in a succinct way, an animated motion graphic can be especially useful.

Tips to Create Motion Graphics

Presentation Design

A good presentation helps you communicate your information, establish authority, and make an impact on your audience. You may use data visualization to support your argument, graphics to break down a concept, or a video to intro a sales presentation. Regardless, good design is a must.

Tips to Design Presentations

Explainer Videos

Explainer videos are super useful tools to help introduce your company, explain a product or service, teach your audience about an abstract concept, or offer a helpful tutorial.

Tips to Create Explainer Videos

To find out more about why explainers are so effective, take a look at this video.

Video

Video has exploded in popularity in recent years. Social media platforms are putting video front and center, and many audiences crave this type of communication over other formats. If you want to get more exposure, video can give you the reach.

Tips to Create Video

Guide to visual content marketing

Visual Content and the Buyer’s Journey

Your customers are looking for different information throughout the buyer’s journey. Visual content, in all its forms, can help you deliver that information in an interesting package. To be effective, you simply need to deliver the right content, in the right format, at the right stage. Here’s how you can make it work for you. 

Stage 1: Awareness

Traffic Generation Content

Introduce yourself to the people you’re trying to connect with, and acknowledge their pain points. Focus on content that helps as many people as possible get to know you. This may be entertaining, educational, or inspiring editorial content.

Example: We collaborated with Charles Schwab to create their Invest Like a Woman video series, used to promote the brand across channels. These featurettes show how women from all walks of life have taken control of their financial futures. This approach is the perfect way for the brand to humanize its work, inspire women, and encourage them to learn more about how Charles Schwab can empower them. 

Stage 2: Consideration

Lead Generation Content

Showcase your familiarity with the problems your audience is trying to solve. Demonstrate your value and the value of working with a partner to solve those problems. This content builds trust and establishes your brand’s credibility.

Example: This e-book, created in partnership with LinkedIn Marketing Solutions, educates marketers about native advertising practices to help them achieve their own goals. Presented in a bright, bold, and photography-packed e-book, LinkedIn connects with their audience through visual content that is both educational and appealing. 

visual-content-marketing-linkedin

Stage 3: Analysis

Prospect Generation Content

Give your target audience the info they need to make an informed decision about working with a company in your space. Create thought-leadership and other content to showcases that you are the definitive leader in the space with a unique perspective, the right experience, etc.

Example: Through an engaging Anatomy of a Breach interactive, Microsoft walks viewers through the stages of a major security breach—and educates them about how Microsoft’s products protect their customers. This is the perfect way to combine visual storytelling and product information.

microsoft-data-breach-interactive-infographic

Stage 4: Purchase

Customer Acquisition Content

Provide information that will support your audience’s purchase decisions, such as sales collateral or product demos.

Example: We created an interactive animated product demo for iPort to help people see the product in action. It’s the perfect example of how to “show not tell.” 

visual content

Stage 5: Loyalty

Partner Retention Content

Show appreciation for your audience, remind them why they like to work with you, and offer them content that continues to help them solve their problems or enhance their life.

Example: To celebrate our clients, we create a unique gift each holiday season. After being inspired by a Benjamin Franklin letter, we turned the words into a visual art print for people to hang in their homes or offices. It was a simple way to offer our gratitude for our partnership.

Column Five - Pay It Forward Poster

No matter what stage of the buyer’s journey you’re targeting, focus on delivering real value. (And check out our tips for creating the right content marketing mix to make sure you maintain a balance.)

visual content marketing buyer's journey

How to Create a Visual Content Strategy

No matter how boring your content or lofty your content marketing goal, when applied strategically, visual content can help you get there. That said, simply throwing together a photo and words does not guarantee visual content marketing success. You need a visual content strategy to help you bring your content to life—and make sure the right people see it. 

Step 1: Specify Your Brand Goals

Identify exactly what goals you are trying to achieve with your visual content. What steps are you hoping people take after they interact with your content? The clearer you are about your goal, the easier it will be to come up with the right ideas. 

Step 2: Identify Your Audience

To create successful visual content marketing, you need to know who’s gonna see it. Ask yourself:

  • Who are you trying to reach?
  • What type of content do they consume?
  • What level of knowledge do they have?

To really get inside your audience’s mind, use our guide to create strong marketing personas, 

Step 3: Know Your Channels 

Even the best content will fail if no one sees it. Luckily, there are more distribution channels than ever—and more platforms are being introduced each year. (When we started in 2008, Instagram wasn’t even around.)

Determine the best channels for distributing the content you create before you make it. Based on your budget and goals, choose the platforms that serve your needs. When deciding which outlet to use, consider the audience it reaches, as well as the content formats it supports.

You should have a solid plan for all channels, including:

  • Owned: Company site, social accounts, newsletter, etc.
  • Earned: Major publications, influencers.
  • Paid: Sponsored posts, content.

For more tips, see our guide to choose the right distribution channels. 

Step 4: Build the Right Team

To create effective visual content, you need the skill, knowledge, and infrastructure to pull it off. This means you need to have the right team who can get things done. You may be able to produce some content yourself, you may need to reach out to a creative network, or you may need an agency to do the heavy lifting. If you’re not sure what support you’ll need, here are some things to consider. 

  • If you’re doing it in house…
    Make sure you have the right team assembled. You need experts to make sure that you’ve covered everything from designing in the right dimensions to optimizing for SEO. Take a look at our rundown of the key players you need to create great content before you pursue production. You can also check out our tips to optimize your content creation process.
  • If you use a visual content agency…
    They can take some of the stress out of the process. They are experts in their field, who keep abreast of trends and best practices. They have experience helping a variety of brands, which means they can help you find the right format for your message. And they have established relationships to help you get that content to the right audience. (If you’re on the hunt, here are 12 things to look for in a content marketing agency.)

Whether you outsource the work or not, staying organized is key. Create a timeline to guide the content creation process, and make sure content is approved by the right stakeholders at each stage, whether it’s outlining, copywriting, or designing. 


63% of B2B marketers cite content creation challenges as their biggest pain point.

 Content Marketing Institute 2021 B2B Content Marketing Report

Step 5: Brainstorm Your Ideas

Once you understand your goals, audience, and channels, your task is to develop captivating content that will be successful.

Before you start pitching ideas, write a creative brief. This will keep everyone on the same page as you brainstorm. 

Once you’ve completed your brief, assemble a group of individuals from different disciplines to increase your pool of thought. (Oh, and make sure there are no outstanding questions before you start to brainstorm.)

Every idea you generate should be able to achieve the objective designated in the creative brief. As you ideate, vet each idea accordingly. Questions to ask:

  • What unique value can your content provide your audience?
  • Will it be interesting to your audience?
  • Will it compel them to take the desired action?
  • Can it be distributed effectively to reach them?
  • Does it align with your engagement goals?
  • How original is this idea?
  • Does it fit your brand?

(If you’re stuck, see our 10 tips for a productive brainstorm and use these 9 prompts to come up with your next content marketing idea.)

Step 6: Choose Your Format

Some story ideas are better suited for certain formats or channels than others. It’s important to identify your format early, as it can change the way you tell your story. 

When it comes to visual content, different formats take more work than others. As you begin to explore what types of visual content your brand may be interested in, keep cost, format, and time in mind.

Visual content marketing 3

Step 7: Tell a Strong Story 

Good brand storytelling is multidimensional: It communicates who you are, what you do, and how you want to help your customers. (We honestly think that communicating these stories through content marketing can change the world.)

You can tell your story in big and small ways. It may come in the form of a helpful tip on Twitter. It may be an infographic series that explores your industry’s biggest challenges. It may be an interactive tool that helps your audience solve a problem. Regardless, your visual content marketing should serve to support—and reflect—what you’re all about.

Follow these tips to craft a strong story in your content. 

Step 8: Nail Your Design

Good design is the foundation of successful visual content. (In fact, research has even shown that companies that put design first may have a better bottom line.)

Having a professional oversee the project, whether that’s an art director, creative director, or lead designer, is essential to ensure the end result is both beautiful and effective.

Whether you use an in-house designer or hire a freelancer, make sure you’re following best practices

You should also apply your visual identity. Your logo, fonts, illustration style, and other brand elements make a powerful impression on your audience. When it comes to visual content marketing, a visual language is necessary to help you:

  • Distinguish your brand from competitors. Is everyone in your industry using a red-and-black logo? That’s an opportunity to differentiate.
  • Create a cohesive look. Apple. Nike. Google. These brands have such specific branding and style you can recognize their products and ads before you see the logo pop up.
  • Build trust and credibility. The more recognizable your content, the more your audience will acknowledge, embrace, and interact with it. This helps you form a deeper relationship.

If your visual language needs a little refresh, see our step-by-step guide to building a brand identity.

Step 9: Distribute your content.

Once you’ve created your visual content, it’s time to get it in front of the right eyes. Since you know what channels you plan to target, make sure you’re following best distribution practices across the board. 

To learn more about developing your distribution strategy, download The Ultimate Guide to Content Distribution.

Step 10: Measure Your ROI

Online marketers have long focused primarily on the volume of visitors they can attract to a site, relying on the almighty page view as the most significant metric to gauge ROI. Certainly, a single piece of content can receive millions of hits, but when it comes to nurturing a long-term relationship with your brand, there are other meaningful metrics you should also consider.

  • Conversions: Effective visual content compels action. As visitors explore your content, they encounter related CTAs that nudge them to take the desired action, whether that’s a newsletter sign-up or product demo download.
  • Interactions: When you compel your audience to interact with you, you are creating true engagement. This interaction cements your relationship, allowing you to nurture it over time. Interaction can be gauged by things such as comments, likes, or new followers.
  • Time on page/completion rate: It isn’t just about getting an audience to your site; it’s about providing that audience with a meaningful experience that will form a lasting connection. The longer a consumer spends watching a video, scanning through photos, or interacting with your visual content, the closer you are to forming a bond.
  • Shares: Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing. When consumers share your visual content, they are putting their own stamp of approval on it. Although a share does not necessarily guarantee that consumers have read all content, this credibility is tremendously valuable, helping expand your reach through your audience’s personal networks.

To measure ROI effectively, follow our guide to choose the right metrics for your content strategy. 

Stay Educated About Visual Content Marketing

Above all, if you want your visual content marketing to succeed, stay educated and experiment often. Keep up to date on the latest trends in design, follow distribution best practices, and track what works.

And if you need support bringing your visual content to life, let’s chat about how we can help you do it. 

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How to Choose (and Use) the Right Content Marketing Metrics

There’s nothing more frustrating than sinking time, energy, budget, and resources into marketing that doesn’t move the needle. That’s why having a strong content strategy is crucial. And while there are many elements of a content strategy (e.g., your goals, content ideas, editorial calendar), the most important thing you need is a way to know if what you’re doing is actually working. This is why choosing the right content marketing metrics can make or break you. 

Luckily, we’ve helped plenty of brands set up their marketing strategies, and we’ve tinkered with our own a ton (which has helped us increase our leads tremendously). What we’ve learned in that time is that choosing the right marketing metrics is a unique process for every brand, but there are a few simple steps you can take to do it the right way.

marketing metrics content strategy

Why Do Content Marketing Metrics Matter?

In short, metrics are the key to working smarter and more effectively across the board.

  • Metrics give you benchmarks. To track your success, you need to know where you’re starting and where you want to go. Data is the secret to understanding what’s working, what’s not, and how you need to tweak your content strategy to stay on the right track.
  • Metrics help you justify creative decisions. Getting buy-in from your team, especially your more analytical or risk-averse stakeholders, can be a challenge. With data behind you, you can always defend your creative decisions. Note that this doesn’t always mean you need perfect justification for your decisions—you should always leave room for experimentation. But it’s important to know when you’re going out on a limb versus playing it safe so you can balance your risk-taking.
  • Metrics help you demonstrate ROI. For every marketer, ROI is what it’s all about. Whether you need to demonstrate your success or justify more budget, having the numbers on hand will help you make your case. (BTW, if you need more budget, here are 5 ways to get it.)

So how do you go about getting those numbers, and how do you use them to shape a strong (but flexible) strategy? Let’s dive in. 

1) Choose Your Goals

“Doing marketing” isn’t your job. Doing marketing that supports your business goals is your job. So when we talk about choosing content marketing metrics, the question is really, “What are you trying to achieve?”

It’s important to map your metrics to your objectives from the very start. That way you’ll know you’re always aligned. For example, a young, hip ecommerce store might focus on social engagement and sales, whereas a B2B software sales company will track product demos and subscriptions. 

(BTW, if you don’t know your goals and have never actually completed a content strategy, here’s our easy step-by-step guide to do it.)

2) Identify the Metrics That Support Your Goals

There are a million options to choose from. If you track everything, you’ll drown in data. That’s why it’s smarter to narrow down your metrics for each stage of the buyer’s journey to only those that provide the most insight and value. Again, this will depend on your goals, business, unique product/service, etc.

As a rule of thumb, prioritize 2-3 that are directly aligned with your business goals, and use any others as contextual indicators. Just remember that those metrics should be: 

  • Relevant: They map to your goals.
  • Accessible: You can actually track them. 

To help you narrow it down, we’ve outlined the most common marketing metrics below (broken down by stage). That said, there is overlap. You may categorize these differently according to your specific needs. 

Awareness

  • Reach:
    • Impressions
    • Page Views
    • Unique visitors
    • Publication pickup
    • Social content (followers, likes, subscribers)
    • Email/newsletter (subscribers, unsubscribers, open rate, churn rate)
    • Organic traffic (SEO)
  • Perception:
    • Brand indexes/surveys
    • Social sentiment

Consideration

  • Engagement:
    • Site traffic
    • Time on site
    • Lead gen rate
    • Bounce rate
    • Return rate
    • Pages per visit
    • Comments
    • Asset downloads (e-books, coupons, etc.)

Analysis

  • Conversions:
    • Leads
    • Qualified leads
      • MQLs
      • SAL

Purchase

  • Deals closed
  • Upgrades
  • Upsells

Loyalty

  • Satisfaction and advocacy:
    • Referrals
    • Product usage
    • Customer review scores
    • Product registrations
    • Account renewals
    • Product return rate
    • Testimonials

Once you narrow it down and get the OK from your team, you can put them to work.

Content-Strategy-Visuals-FINAL-04-new

3) Consider Your Formulas

After choosing your metrics, you may also want to take it a step further to extract even deeper meaning. Blending two metrics together will let you answer questions like:

  • How much does a lead cost to acquire? (leads totals / campaign costs)
  • What is the average lifetime value of a customer? (customer totals / average opportunity)

These can be incredibly valuable.

4) Ensure You Have Your Infrastructure Set Up

Depending on the marketing metrics you choose, make sure you have all tracking tools and analytics set up. Double and triple-check that they are working correctly. 

5) Measure and Experiment

To improve your results, it’s important to test and experiment, iterate, then test again. So now is the time to craft your hypotheses to test your efforts. 

What do you expect to happen, and why? A strategy is never foolproof; at the end of the day, your approach is the result of humans (with the support of robots, for now) taking best guesses as to how certain goals can be reached.

By taking a page from the scientific method and documenting your hypothesis, supporting data, and underlying assumptions, you’ll learn a great deal more once your strategy is executed in the market. You can’t expect to be right about everything, but a hypothesis will at least give you clarity about what went right, what went wrong, and how you can improve over time.

You may also find that, as your strategy changes, there are more relevant metrics to track. This is all part of the game. In fact, we recommend revisiting your metrics every 6 months or so to make sure they’re still working for you. 

That said, here are a few things to do to get the most from your metrics going forward.

  • Set up regular reporting. Don’t let your data die in spreadsheets. Create regular reports to dive into the data, extract interesting insights, and share with your team. Monthly reports are a good way to start. Many teams benefit from more informal weekly reporting check-ins as well, but keep your big picture in mind.
  • Identify weaknesses, and brainstorm solutions. It’s OK if you’re struggling in one area. (Again, the whole point is to identify what does and doesn’t work.) With regular reporting, you can come up with better tactics or suggest new things.
  • Play to strengths, and test hypotheses for why certain things are working. In the same way that hypotheses are valuable for large, strategic-level decisions, they’re also a smart way to add precision to your conclusions. If you think a certain Facebook ad was effective because you used the color blue, test it out in your next campaign on a different topic.
  • Compare the efficacy of your marketing tactics. Consider how some tactics may help you in other areas—and what might be hurting you. For example, what’s your ROI for paid social versus event attendance or sponsorship? Be open to the idea that it’s not the channel that’s not working but how you’re using it.
  • Engage in conversations about rates vs quantities. A low cost per lead might not last forever for a certain tactic. Keep pushing the limitations of your conclusions by investing more in what’s working and watching for diminishing returns. The results might give you an idea of your overall market size, a convenient business-intelligence byproduct of content marketing. Of course, maybe this is simply the point at which your message/campaign has run its course.
  • Look for opportunities to invest more. If you’re seeing major progress in one area, consider doubling down. Again, one of the biggest advantage of reporting (and a content strategy in general) is the ability to see your entire content ecosystem and make better economic choices. The more success you have, the more effective your tactics. These tactics may be translated across your strategy.  
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Remember: Marketing Is Ever-Evolving

No matter what, stay persistent and keep educating yourself. For more tips on creating more successful content marketing…

And if you get stuck, find out how a content agency can help you figure it out, or hit us up. We’d love to help you untangle your strategy.

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5 Smart Ways to Improve Your ROI (Plus Tools & Templates)

ROI is the bane of every marketer’s existence. And with increasing budget cuts, it’s more frustrating than ever. (According to Gartner research, 44% of CMOs faced budget cuts in the wake of the Pandemic.) Improving ROI is always a priority, but with limited resources and increasing pressure to perform, how do you make headway? 

Having experienced these challenges with our clients and within our own content marketing operation, we know the pitfalls of chasing ROI. But we also know a few ways to improve it, and today we’re sharing them with you.

How to Improve Your ROI

If you want to increase your ROI at every level of your marketing, here are our best tips to make the right moves today. 

1) Allocate your budget appropriately.

To improve your ROI, you need to spend wisely. That doesn’t mean you have to know the perfect formula for your spend; it does mean you need to approach everything strategically. 

  • Spend on what’s working. If you have tried-and-true strategies that are getting the results you want, consider doubling down.
  • Test, test, test. Testing doesn’t always give you immediate ROI, but it does give you information, which you can use to increase your ROI now—and in the future. Whether you’re testing ad copy, channels, or different types of content, set aside a portion of your budget for testing. 
  • Save some for reserve. You don’t want to blow your whole budget on testing. It’s important to leave some reserve to cover any unexpected mistakes, or invest in something that your test proves actually works. 

Tip: For more ideas, see Hubspot’s roundup of ways to spend your budget. 

2) Track the right metrics.

Before you set any campaign live, you need to know what your goal is and how you’re going to measure whether or not you achieved it. Hence, choosing the right metrics is crucial. 

That said, there are plenty of things you can track, but not all will tell you what you really want to know. To make sure you’re measuring the right things, make sure your metrics are…

  • Tied to your larger goal
  • Quantifiable
  • Accurate 

Note: Don’t get caught up in vanity metrics. A blog post might be getting tons of traffic, but if your ultimate goal is e-book downloads and people are taking one look at your blog and bouncing, then you need to try something else. Focus on quality over quantity and your audience taking the right next step.

Tip: Find out how to choose the right metrics for your content strategy and distribution strategy. Also, make sure your tracking tools are working correctly. 

3) Use better tools.

When you’re doing content marketing, you aren’t just spending money. You’re spending time, energy, and resources, too. If you want to increase ROI, look for ways to work smarter and maximize your resources effectively. 

Beyond traditional marketing automation tools, there are plenty of free online tools and resources that can make a marketer’s life much easier, especially if you’re working with a small team. (Also, many of those tools are multi-use, so you can do more with less.) 

Tip: Use our tool and tech stack checklist to audit all the tools you’re currently using. This can help you spot gaps or opportunities to consolidate. You can also check out our tool roundups for content marketing, brand identity, content creation, content strategy, infographics, e-books, and copywriting

4) Get more mileage from your content. 

Creating good content is a big investment, so maximize your return by making your content do more work. With a divisible content strategy, you can easily turn a large piece of content into multiple assets—or combine many smaller assets to make a larger piece of high-quality content. (Again, this is especially helpful if you’re working with a small team.) 

For example, you might combine several infographics to create an e-book, or break an e-book into multiple pieces of content to publish on social media. This extends the reach and lifespan of your content, helping you engage people across more touch points. 

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Tip: Find out more about how a divisible content strategy works

5) Scope out the competition.

Want to know what works without doing the work yourself? Look at what your competitors are doing. What do their ads look like? What messaging do they use? What pages are outranking you? Which publications are picking up their content? What’s their distribution strategy? What topics are they covering?

These answers can help you decide what you should (and should not) be doing. 

One easy way to get this perspective is to do a content audit. The insights you learn can help improve every part of your content strategy, including your ROI. 

Tip: Use our guide to conduct a content audit. And if you need a larger sense of how your competition is succeeding, see our guide to conduct a competitive analysis

How to Improve Your ROI Year-Round

While there’s no magic wand that can give you better ROI overnight, creating a steady stream of quality content will help you build a community of customers over time. As you work to improve your marketing operation overall, focus on providing value to your audience. For more tips…

Of course, if you need more help measuring ROI or creating better content, find out what it’s like to work on a content strategy with C5. Or just hit us up directly. We’d love to chat

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