Have you asked yourself whether you should deliver your content to any specific channel; social media, YouTube or a 3rd party aggregator site? A common misconception is by delivering content on a particular platform it may dilute the brand, or diminish content value. The predominant truth is if your strategy is subscriber growth you must engage through Consumer Preference Platforms. Meet them where they seek interaction! Once you garner their attention you embolden them into your Platform organically.
The first step is to delineate how and where to bolster your content strategy? There are times when delivering content to specific platforms is effectual if you are already executing a marketing initiative. However, there are advantageous methods to achieve both the how and the when. The key consideration is based on increasing value of brand and content. And, we know that value is a “Person’s determined usefulness of a product”. So it is essential to expose as many users to your brand to boost engagement.
Your goal, is to build your fan base or kingdom. By partnering with other companies you can leverage their technology, marketing and sales resources and distribution networks. The most common distribution partnership is called content licensing. Content licensing is the distribution of media assets to any third party, generally for a fixed term, and for a fixed price. Put in other words, there are vast audiences of fitness consumers who are starving for content. Licensing companies take your content and distribute it through their channels to reach the consumers who want it and who are willing to pay for it. The resulting transactions create an extended fan base and revenue stream for you while giving the Licensor the inventory they need to meet the demand.
Three areas drive value in cross-pollinating content:
Social Media – Consumers preferences are very personal. One person’s preferred channel is not another’s. Did you know YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world? You must expose your brand across many channels via video, micro-content, posts, surveys and freebies, all in an effort to capture ATTENTION. You will not dilute your brand by leveraging snippets of content or hosting a class. Research has proven Social Media as a leading channel for discovery of Online Fitness Brands and Content. And, videos are leading content for engagement.
Targeted/Niched Aggregators Sites – Some aggregators compete with you for the same consumer, but niche aggregators targeting specific market segments or using different business models can be lucrative. Why? Because it’s THEIR spend, marketing YOUR content. In most cases you are licensing some content, so you aren’t diluting your brand. You’re exposing it to a market you likely would not be targeting. Think of it as someone paying to promote your brand and you only pay when a user engages, gravy. You make money, and control the content. Correlate this to music, imagine you hear a song you like. You might go buy the Album because of this track. In this scenario your content is the Album. You leverage a great promotional tool to gain broad exposure to a new target and create revenue at no expense.
Branded Video Platforms – These are brands who also provide fitness videos or closely related content. There are multiple ways to look at this. For example you may be niched in Boxing and we know that a high percentage of these consumers also do Yoga. Think compliment product (co-op marketing). If you’re not interested creating yoga content then adding it to your site or delivering your boxing content on a compliment product site makes sense. The co-partner platform has a customer base who benefits and likes to engage with your content and it gives you exposure to a customer who is highly correlated to your product. We know a large percentage of consumers engage with multiple fitness workouts. Allowing them to try yours on their preferred platform is simply picking the low-hanging fruit.
We all have our regular “preferred” search platforms. Some search everything on Google, some use YouTube and others are addicted to Instagram and Facebook. If a user is making a buying decision and searching or browsing on a specific platform and you’re not on that “Shelf” then you miss the opportunity to make a sale or engage a potential customer.
The key is to ensure you have a branded site with your own monetization/paywall so you have a sizeable content library to engage visitors. Once they land on your site you can control the journey to re-engage based on their preferences. It is critical to continue to have both free content that leads to a free trial as well as story-based content so they can get to know your brand and instructors. When executed effectively you can expect a 60%-70% conversion rate or greater.
In traditional media content you create it once and deliver it across as many channels as possible to monetize and grow awareness. You can achieve greater engagement and garner more ATTENTION by adding bonus platforms to your strategy. If you would like to gain a deeper understanding of what content you should deliver across their platform vs yours, reach out to us at Hello@Endorphinz.Net We will design a playbook for your content creation and delivery. The first step is to meet them where THEY engage!
Thanks,
Mike Hansen, Managing Partner of Endorphinz
