Timing is everything. Especially when it comes to content creation and content strategy. We all want up to date, hot off the press content to hijack public sentiment and current events. But without proper planning and strategic thinking, it can come across as irrelevant or inappropriate.
But when ‘moment marketing’ is well conceived and thought through, it’s pure gold.
What may surprise you is that such opportunistic marketing, and the hijacking of global events to leverage sentiment for your brand, actually starts months in advance. First and foremost, it requires a change in mindset. You need to adapt your company culture, your brand, to become strategically proactive and executionally reactive.
Take the example of Oreo for example. These guys know their social media strategy and the proof is in the Cyber Lions Grand Prix they won at Cannes. Not to mention the millions of extra followers they attracted across social channels and the brand love they earned. When you think of the millions of dollars it costs to buy an ad slot at the Superbowl, it was a moment marketing tweet that was remembered the most. The tweet heard around the world they called it. And it was free.
So what’s the lesson to be learned from Oreo?
Hire a crack agency team of social media gurus to run your marketing department? Take advantage of relevant opportunities to leverage your brand? Keep your ear to the ground so that you don’t miss such opportunities? Eat more cookies? (not so much the dunk in the dark kind, but the digital footprints of web visitors).
It’s all good advice but really you need to take a step back, because the bigges= learning from all this best in class marketing advice is to start by changing your mindset. Be prepared. Plan well in advance. You need to oil the wheels before you set them in motion. You need to be on top of your content marketing strategy and planning before you can ever hope to execute moment marketing to your advantage, otherwise it can appear like a scattergun, haphazard approach that is destined (at best) to be hit or miss. As I said at the start of this article, timing is everything. But even more importantly - the time is now.
The time is now is start your prep work. The time is now is plan and strategise how you approach the market. The time is now to search for external help if you don’t have that expertise in-house. The time is now to evolve with the times and change your mindset to adapt to changing consumer behaviour.
Why now?
Well that’s simple. Because around this time of the year, the B2B world slows down, people go on holidays, both your team and your clients and potential clients. If you use this lull in the year to your advantage to change your mindset and plan for the year end, you can steal a march on your competitors.
It takes a specialist inbound agency around 4 weeks to study your market, research your target audience and competitors, analyse and optimise your SEO, and any other number of variables before putting together a considered and strategic quarterly content schedule. Start planning now, delegate responsibilities before you take off on your own summer vacation, and by the time you’re back from the beaches of your sun kissed getaway, you’ll have a killer content schedule waiting for you to sign off on your return. A fourth quarter schedule that perfectly aligns with your end of year targets - when you really need quality leads to follow up on.
But that’s only the start of the benefits...
If you’re proactive now, you can be reactive later. If you get into that mindset and plan your content going forward (or outsource it to experts) you’ll also have your research done, your planning honed and your strategy living and breathing…all of which means you’ll be well armed and prepared to identify and take advantage of moment marketing opportunities as they arise - ensuring they are always on brief, on brand and on the money.
Do you currently take advantage of moment marketing opportunities? Do you plan for them and put a strategy in place like Oreo, or do you take a spontaneous approach every now and again? We’d love to hear your opinion…
