Darin Diehl, Director of Content at Tangerine.
After Scotiabank rebranded ING Direct Canada as Tangerine in 2014, the brand also took its first solid steps into content marketing – a logical move for a bank that has almost no bricks-and-mortar presence. To head up that effort, Tangerine turned to Darin Diehl, a veteran editor and content marketer who had previously led the team behind Sun Life Financial’s award-winning Brighter Life content hub.
As director, content and shared services, at Tangerine, Diehl has some solid advice for content marketers: make sure that authentic content fulfills the needs of its intended audience, integrate content into a broader marketing strategy, and take the long view on success.
“When I think of authentic content, I think of content that is authentically helpful to the target audience,” says Diehl. “If you present people with a list of five ways to save for a child’s university education that could have come off the top of anyone’s head, you haven’t done your work. Worse is bait-and-switch — presenting what looks like authentic content and then veering into a product pitch. The content must be expertly created to help people with actual problems or concerns they’re facing.”
Connecting with the audience and its needs requires significant research and a figurative wide-angle lens. Diehl often checks online sources to get a feel for the zeitgeist. What are people discussing, and what are the toughest problems they face now rather than five years ago?
“One of our most successful activations was the result of speaking to our sales and service team,” he says. “They said they received a lot of calls asking them to explain mutual fund distributions. We created a video that explained it in plain language, without a sales pitch for our products. The video achieved thousands of views in short order.
“Each company should engage in social listening — for example, checking resources such as Google search patterns. But they should also keep track of inbound calls, which are a great resource for determining what information clients need.”
Content marketing must also be fully integrated into broader marketing strategies. That’s not always easy for a number of reasons. The first is organizational.
“There are a lot of companies trying content marketing but, for some of them, the content marketing people are like the digital and social marketing people were considered years ago,” says Diehl. “They’re a weird group shunted off to one side. And they shouldn’t be.”
As well, the rhythms of traditional advertising don’t always mesh with those of content marketing. Big, traditional ad campaigns typically have a beginning, a middle and an end, all designed to encourage audiences to commit to a sale. The wheels of content marketing revolve at a separate pace: they continue to turn at a steady RPM, giving audiences what they need instead of telling them what you want them to do.
“Ad campaigns are built on seasonality, but content marketing can assist those campaigns by making an early connection with audiences,” says Diehl. “Content marketing can focus on their needs and wants and build brand trust. When an advertising campaign asks them to commit to pulling the trigger on a mortgage, they may be more inclined to be led to these products and services because of content marketing around mortgage education that they’ve been connecting with all year-round. There needs to be co-ordination between the two departments.”
Finally, content marketing needs to take a long view of success. Creating and updating valuable content creates a large resource pool that may continue to provide lasting brand value for years.
“The pursuit of the viral video is usually based on some entertainment factor and not teaching and education,” says Diehl. “You might click on a funny video because it happens to be in front of you, but good sponsored content works because the consumer is looking for it, not because they’re browsing. A few thousand views from people who sought out your content may be superior to hundreds of thousands of views on a viral video that’s merely entertaining.”
While brand alignment is meaningful only when it results in ultimate sales of products or services, Diehl cautions content marketers to take their eyes off the ultimate prize.
“The success of content marketing isn’t simply about pure acquisition,” he says. “The person who consumes your content may do so invisibly for a while before they’re even on your radar. Your content doesn’t need to sell the product, but it’s important to know what part it played along the road to converting consumers into customers.”
