Today your prospects are drowning in a tidal wave of information. Many different forms of communication compete for their attention (emails, blog posts, articles, case studies, videos, news clips, etc.). Tomorrow it all starts over again.
Two Problems with The Daily Tidal
Waves Drowning Your Prospects
This poses 2 problems for you as a marketer. The first is getting your prospects to learn about your company and the product or service you offer. The second is having them remember what they have learned so that when they are ready to buy, your company is the one they turn to for this product or service.
Right now you may be doing a pretty good job of getting information on your company and what you offer in front of your prospects. They may get pretty excited about your product or service while reading your marketing. After doing more research, they realize they should look at your company as one of the ones to supply what they need.
However, they may not act immediately and delay moving forward. So they get back to work. Other things fill their minds. By the end of the day your product or service is still on their minds but they’re not as excited as they were.
Days go by. They think less and less about your product or service. By the time they have to buy what you offer, they remember little about your product or service. They may not even recall your company’s name. Their search starts all over again and they may not find what they read today about your product or service and your company.
You don’t want to be in this spot. Your company and your product or service have to be on the minds of your prospects. When they are ready to buy, yours is the first company you want them to come to.
The Training Industry Has a Very Similar Problem.
How are Companies There Addressing it?
Right along people have been attending training events (conferences, workshops, seminars or webinars). At those they have learned much. However, they went right back to work after the training. They put very little of what they learned into practice and started to forget what they had heard
By the end of the first week they forgot about 80% of what they learned. In a month’s time, they had forgotten almost all of it.
Microlearning
To combat this, the Training industry is moving to Microlearning.
The conferences, workshops, seminars or webinars still go on. What the participants learned at those is being reinforced by Microlearning sessions. These are short five to ten minute segments, typically online. Each one is focused on reminding each participant of one point or concept they learned during the original training session.
The Training Industry is finding these short five to ten minute segments make the original training sessions more successful. Participants not only retain more of what they learned but also use it on a regular basis.
How Can You Apply This to
Your Content Marketing Campaigns?
Follow up you articles, white papers and case studies on your company and the product or service you offer with shorter pieces – emails or blog posts These should be sent fairly frequently, normally every week or two. In each of these highlight a different aspect of your company or the product or service you offer.
Have a series of four or five. Stagger the order. Send an email and then follow up with a log post. After you have sent the fourth or fifth, start over again. Say the same thing you said in each in a slightly different way. Reverse the order. If you started with an email, now start with a blog post.
By doing this you will be keeping the name of your company and what you offer on the top of your prospects’ minds. At the time they are ready to buy, your company will be on their minds. They will look to you to buy what they need.
Go ahead. Start this now. You will get an advantage on your competitors.
