How to save on content budget

Cutting to the chase, content is expensive, and it’s hard to get a grip on it. Speaking from experience, the origin of this is the absence of a real content strategy. 

Brands think they have a content strategy; mostly, it’s a spin-off of their marketing calendar with a focus on campaigns.

However, if you have a solid content strategy, you can save on budget

• Get more content  
• Get more reach for the same content

Why it matters

Content can be amazing. And it’s an indispensable part of all communications; marketing, corporate communications, employer branding, and customer care. It's everywhere, and very hard to get a grip on it and be accountable.

Honestly, the fastest way to f*ck up your content budget for next year is to make an extension of marketing with a campaign-to-campaign heartbeat.

Two things to know

First, you probably need to realize you don’t have a proper strategy; you have a planning.

Second, you need to invest money to make money. Meaning; you need to invest in a senior in-house content strategist to develop a content strategy. 

With a thorough content strategy, you get more bang for your buck, save on budget, get more content, and get more reach.

First things first. What is a content strategy?

Why your content strategy is not a strategy (probably)

The most made mistake is that the content strategy is an extension of the marketing strategy. Meaning the content calendar follows the marketing calendar, and about 99% of this content is campaign based.

This results in a (duh) performance marketing-driven content calendar measured in micro campaign data. The long-term effect of content and how it fills the top of the funnel is neglected.

No overarching always on continuous storytelling; content that merges the brand story and thought leadership while you show the mission, vision, and values of the brand. In the meantime, you tap into what matters in society; transparency, diversity, and sustainability, to name a few topics.

Content comes from within the brand, from marketing, corporate communications, and employer branding to customer care and everything in between.

It deserves its own strategy.

What is a content strategy?

In a nutshell: a content strategy is based on an insight with an objective measured in KPIs. How to get from your starting point (now) to the desired situation (later) using content is your strategy: allocation of the scarce resources in budget, time, and FTE. The result of your strategy is a plan with the content planning.

• Insight: this is the needle you want to move with content.
• Your ‘now’: a problem well defined is a problem half solved. Be honest with yourself; what aren’t you doing right now that you should be doing?
• Your ‘later,’ your objective: what’s the desired situation in the long-term? As we all know, content takes time. It’s not a start-stop campaign with immediate results that will last.

Example: you're a coffee producer 

If you want to be the thought leader in your industry, ‘Coffee,’ then you need to produce content that shows your vision and expertise in the coffee industry, from recipes to roasting processes, taste, and flavor, origin of coffee beans, hacks tips, and tricks. 

You’ll need to push this content continuously and be always on. It’s not a marketing start-stop campaign; it’s being there, showing your passion for coffee, and wanting to share this with the world.

More content for the same budget

This sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s pretty easy once you know the trick. As content emerges from all departments, why not re-use and re-cycle inter-departmental? If you share, you’ll get more content without spending big budgets.

Let’s not forget the hidden gold within the customer care department. Why not tap into their content library with answers to FAQs and use those, in adjusted format, for always-on content?

You can use marketing content for employer branding. If there’s one place to sell your brand, is in recruitment. Why not use the big product launch to show the passion and pride of the people behind the product?

You can use employer branding content for corporate communications. All those employees' videos? Why not use them to give a human face to your brand? And let them chat about what matters to them; in the meantime, you can mitigate reputation risks with this behind-the-scenes content.

The coffee producer explains

In the coffee example: with the big hero introduction of the new coffee beans, make a short social video with the roasters and let them explain the optimal grinding of the beans to enhance the mocca flavor of these beans. And give some behind-the-scenes with the local farmers and producers of the beans to show you care about the origin and sustainability. 

And when you have your PPM for the TVC, add the high-paced 20 seconds script for social vertical videos for reels and for TikTok. Add some landscape and portrait stills for the careers website, and while you are at it, add in some headers for emails and socials, some more verticals and squares, etcetera, etcetera.

ANWB podcast example

Or, if you’re in a podcast about your marketing and data strategy, why not use some of the snippets for recruitment? Check out this gem in the CMOtalk podcast, Dutch only. 

ANWB is the Dutch mobility club, existing since 1883. Think about two elderly people in matching rain jackets on electric bikes, and you have the stereotypical ANWB member. ANWB has all kinds of products, famous for its roadside assistance. With over 5M members, ANWB has got tons of data, not only on their products but also on the roads, the traffic, and much much more.

In this podcast, Charlotte Zelders, CMO of ANWB, explains very passionately about their data and insights strategy. A marketer's wet dream coming true. 

Why not use this in employer branding and recruitment content?

More reach with the same content

This also sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? Also, pretty easy to fix.

Notice this goes for marketing content, corporate content, and employer branding content. All need media to get the eyeballs. No exceptions

I’m astonished by how many brands produce expensive content and don’t push it with media. Maybe it’s got to do with an organization split between paid and organic. I don’t know. However, it’s time to wake up.

Organic content is dead; quite a few years already.

If you produce content, any content, push it with media to get the reach. No media equals no reach, no matter the excellence of your content.

Some final words

Content. It’s hard to get a grip on it. It’s still the playing field of marketing. Yet, content is everywhere in the organization. If you share the assets, you’ll get more for the same budget. And if you always push your content with media, you’ll get more reach.

All you need to do is take content out of the marketing department and give it its own dedicated content strategy. 

Want to know more about how to do this and what you need? Drop me a DM, as this is too complicated to explain in a blog post.