#this episode offers invaluable insights on creating future value

[jayconner-raisingprivatemoney]

Creating Wealth in Real Estate: Insights from Chris Linger’s $270M Portfolio

https://www.jayconner.com/podcast/episode-200-creating-wealth-in-real-estate-insights-from-chris-lingers-270m-portfolio/

Raising private money without the need to ask for it directly is a skill that not many possess. However, Chris Linger, a seasoned real estate investor and accredited investor, has mastered this art. As a general partner in nine apartment syndications, encompassing over 1,750 apartments valued at $270M, Chris has a wealth of knowledge to share. In a recent enlightening conversation with Jay Conner on the Raising Private Money” podcast, Chris detailed his journey and provided invaluable insights into real estate investing, raising private funds, and scaling one’s business.

From Humble Beginnings to Investing Powerhouse

Like many successful investors, Chris Linger began his venture into real estate with modest beginnings. While serving in the military, he faced a dilemma that many in the armed forces encounter—frequent relocations. Chris’s journey began in Pensacola, Florida, where he was unable to sell his home during a move in 2007. This necessitated renting out the property, unknowingly planting the seeds of his future real estate empire.

The Power of Partnership

Chris attributes much of his accelerated growth in real estate to his partnership with his wife Maricela. When they met in 2017, they discovered a mutual interest and synergy in real estate investing. By pooling their resources, Chris and Maricela began purchasing properties, starting with small quadplexes and gradually scaling up. This partnership was not just limited to pooling financial resources but extended to strategic decision-making and support, allowing them to take more calculated risks and bigger steps toward their goals.

The Shift to Raising Private Money

Their foray into raising private money began out of necessity when a lucrative opportunity arose unexpectedly. With funds tied up in another project, Chris and Maricela turned to individuals who had shown interest in investing with them. Instead of approaching institutional lenders—which could be time-consuming—they offered their potential investors short-term loans to fund their project. This approach not only sped up the process but also laid the foundation for future private money-raising endeavors.

The Benefits of Private Money

One of the significant advantages of private money, as highlighted by Chris, is speed. Real estate transactions, especially those involving wholesalers, often require swift action. Private money allows for rapid closings, enabling investors to seize time-sensitive opportunities. Chris also pointed out the value of teaching potential investors about private money, including the use of self-directed IRAs for tax-advantaged returns—an approach that aligns well with Jay Conner’s philosophy of educating rather than pitching.

Scaling Up: Beyond One-on-One Conversations

To scale beyond one-on-one interactions and raise over $20 million in less than four years, Chris leveraged various platforms. Networking at events, attending webinars, participating in podcasts, and maintaining a strong social media presence played significant roles. By consistently sharing their successes and educational content, Chris and Maricela built credibility and attracted a larger pool of investors.

Lessons Learned and Avoiding Pitfalls

Through their journey, Chris and Maricela have learned valuable lessons, some from costly mistakes. One major lesson was the importance of maintaining control of investment opportunities. While initially partnering with others for asset management, they realized the importance of direct oversight to ensure optimal property management and investment performance. Additionally, as lenders themselves, they learned to structure longer-term notes with interest rate increases to mitigate the opportunity costs of tying up capital for extended periods.

Diversifying Through Business Coaching

Beyond real estate, Chris and Maricela are elite business coaches affiliated with Grant Cardone’s 10x community. They coach entrepreneurs on growing their businesses and creating passive income streams. By offering services including business boot camps, sales, and marketing training, they help others achieve accelerated success. This coaching program not only provides an additional revenue stream but also strengthens their network, further supporting their real estate ventures.

Up-Plex: Elevating Real Estate and Business

Chris and Maricela’s company, Up-Plex, embodies their mission to elevate others through real estate investing. Up-Plex offers opportunities for passive investors to benefit from Chris and Maricela’s extensive experience and success in multifamily investments. The company focuses not just on financial returns but also on improving properties and tenant experiences.

Key Questions for New Investors

For those new to passive investing, Chris advises asking key questions before committing to a syndication. Understanding the experience of the syndicators, reviewing past performance, asking for referrals, and ensuring transparent communication are crucial steps. These questions help potential investors gauge the reliability and expertise of the investment managers, ensuring their money is in capable hands.

Conclusion

Chris Linger’s journey from military service to a multifamily real estate mogul is a testament to the power of strategic investing, partnership, and continuous learning. By sharing his experiences and insights, Chris offers a roadmap for aspiring investors to follow. Whether through direct investments like Up-Plex or through educational platforms, Chris and Maricela continue to elevate the field of real estate investing, proving that with the right approach, building a multimillion-dollar portfolio is within reach.

10 Discussion Questions from this Episode:

Chris Linger mentioned transitioning from small rental portfolios to larger commercial real estate and apartment syndications. What steps did he take to make this transition successful?

How did Chris Linger and his wife manage to raise over $20,000,000 in private money in less than four years? What strategies did they employ to achieve this?

Speed is often cited as a major advantage of using private money. Can you discuss other benefits and potential drawbacks of using private money for real estate investments?

Chris emphasized the importance of educating potential investors and sharing success stories. How can new investors effectively communicate their successes to attract private money?

Both Chris and Jay mentioned never having to “pitch deals” to raise private money. What are some of the key differences between educating potential investors and pitching them a deal?

Chris discussed his experience as both a private money raiser and provider. How can being involved on both sides of private money lending provide valuable insights and advantages?

One of the key lessons Chris mentioned was ensuring a higher level of control over investment opportunities. Why is this important, and how can investors achieve more control in their deals?

Chris and his wife also coach other business owners and entrepreneurs. How might business coaching skills translate to successful real estate investing, particularly in raising private money?

Chris suggests that new private lenders ask syndicators about their team, their track record, and whether they’ve ever lost an investor’s money. What other questions could potential investors ask to safeguard their investments?

The episode highlights the role of networking and attending events in raising private money. What are some effective ways to network with potential investors, both in-person and online?

Fun facts that were revealed in the episode:

Chris Linger and his wife Maricela impressively raised over $20 million in private money in less than four years, showcasing their rapid success in the real estate investment world.

Initially, Chris and his wife managed all of their real estate investments on their own, including single-family homes and smaller multi-family properties, before transitioning into larger syndication deals.

Chris Linger has a robust background serving 26.5 years in the military, where he also took on the role of program director for his nursing specialty, highlighting his extensive leadership and mentoring experience.

Timestamps:

00:01 Raising Private Money Without Asking For It

06:32 Benefits of private money: speed and flexibility.

09:23 Educating about private money and self-directed IRAs.

12:07 Real estate networking, education, and targeted outreach.

14:45 Building control in opportunities for private money.

20:44 Connect with Chris Linger:

https://www.Up-Plex.com  

23:27 Question team size, experience, and challenges faced.

25:32 Value consistency, accountability, and direct communication.

27:58 Jay Conner’s Free Money Guide:

https://www.JayConner.com/MoneyGuide

Private Money Academy Conference:

https://www.JaysLiveEvent.com

Free Report:

https://www.jayconner.com/MoneyReport

Join the Private Money Academy:

https://www.JayConner.com/trial/

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now?

It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at

https://www.JayConner.com/Book

What is Private Money? Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner

https://www.JayConner.com/MoneyPodcast

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. He maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $67,000 per deal without using his money or credit.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

https://youtu.be/QyeBbDOF4wo

YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner

Apple Podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/private-money-academy-real-estate-investing-with-jay/id1377723034

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/jay.conner.marketing

Listen to our Podcast:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2025961/episodes/15736433-creating-wealth-in-real-estate-insights-from-chris-linger-s-270m-portfolio

[lapietadi]

Dealing with negative feedback

Feedback is a two-way street

Way way back I blogged and podcast on giving and receiving feedback, both positive and negative, at season 1, episode 4. The main focus of that podcast and blog was on giving feedback well, but I touched on receiving feedback well too, specifically I talked about the importance of being respectful, listening well and asking clarifying questions. So do please go back and have a listen particularly if you’re looking for a simple effective method for giving feedback well.

In this podcast, though, I go more in depth on dealing with negative feedback that comes your way in terms of its emotional impact, how to respond to it and how to potentially act on it.

    I’ll be bringing in personal examples to illustrate what I mean. I’ll be drawing on examples of dealing with negative feedback from work and home for this podcast because both are relevant and just as important and high stakes as one another, because emotions and well-being are involved, often of both parties.

What do we mean by ‘feedback’?

First up, when I say ‘feedback’, I’m talking about something that someone says to or about you that relates to something they’ve experienced in the way that you’ve behaved – something you may have said or done.  When people ask…‘Can I just talk about something that happened in that meeting?’ or ‘I’d like to talk about something that’s not quite sitting right with me…’ or the more obvious, ‘Can I give you some feedback…?’, you know that they’re likely to be about to offer you an observation about something you’ve said or done that has had an impact on them.

So my tips for dealing with feedback, particularly feedback that has emotional weight to it are to prepare for it, ask for examples, don’t take it personally, sit with it then decide and finally to ask for it.

1. How to prepare to receive feedback

First of all, preparing yourself for feedback. Most humans, when faced with a sentence like ‘Can I give you some feedback…’ or ‘I’m not very happy about something I’d like to talk to you about…’ will perceive what’s about to arrive as a threat, and that’s likely to trigger an automatic defensive response of fight or flight or freeze.

This is a totally understandable and natural response so don’t worry if it happens to you. It’s like you plus pretty much everyone else, ever. However,  going into an automatic survival mode probably won’t make you as receptive as you might be to hearing the feedback and asking questions, so the preparation I’m talking about is to try and get yourself into an emotional state that will allow you to receive the feedback well. Try to allow the person giving you the feedback to be heard and to ask clarifying questions to make sure you’ve heard it right.

    Example: carving out space to hear the feedback well

This isn’t easy but there are ways you can help yourself. Example: my partner recently said to me that there was something that wasn’t quite right for her about the way we were sharing household duties that day and she was feeling there was too much on her. But the way she did that really helped me to get to a better place emotionally to truly hear her.

Earlier in the day I said ‘You ok?’ and she said ‘I’m not sure, let me sit with it and we can talk about it later’. In response, I had tried to get a read on what was going on for her so that I could take immediate action and had started asking her questions right in the midst of kid and work pressures, interruptions and no headspace.  But it was the wrong time.

For a bunch of reasons, my partner saying ‘let’s talk about it later’ is a really good tactic because she’s giving herself future space to work through what she’s observing and feeling AND she’s mentally carving out a future time that day when we will have a chance to talk in a connected, unrushed way not surrounded by children wanting adult input or being focused on work demands.

I’ll level with you, it wasn’t that easy for me to sit with the not knowing what was going on for her because I like taking action so that everyone’s happy. But it was the right thing to do.  When we did talk later, it was on the sofa, just us and she said exactly what she had been feeling and we both explored how we could handle the next day differently. Which we did.

We were both less stressed by that point. I could really listen, I was able to physically connect with her, we could both reassure each other and I could ask for examples. I hope that example’s been helpful. So my first tip is to give yourself the best chance of being prepared to hear the feedback, which will usually involve creating the right space and the right environment to be ready to listen and to allow the other person to be heard.

2. Understand what you’re hearing

My second tip is to really understand what the feedback means for the other person. And that might mean respectfully asking for examples or to clarify where there’s a difference of view. While the survive/defend/justify part of you might be screaming ‘But I also need to say my part! This isn’t fair! I want to be understood! When do I get to speak my truth!’, now is not the time. Get straight what they mean first and show that you’ve understood by clarifying until you arrive at the same place.

3. Take your time and sit with the feedback

My third tip is to receive negative feedback seriously, but never personally. When someone is giving you feedback, it’s rare that it will be a personal attack on you. And if it is, that’s not really feedback, something else is likely to be going on with the other person relating to their agenda only and it may need a different approach.

Sometimes, negative feedback may feel unfair, it may feel like you have been misunderstood or that your interpretation of events is very different from someone else’s. And that’s all ok. The purpose here is to get value from the feedback that’s being offered and not for your point of view to be heard, or for you to satisfy your ego.  So, assuming that you’re receiving negative feedback from someone who has positive intentions, how are you going to get the positives from it?

My advice is to sit with the feedback, let it take its time.  That might be for a few minutes if the emotional element is limited. It might though be hours or even days. Or you might think you’ve processed it and understood it, but it may actually be days or weeks later when something else happens and it’s only then that you have your lightbulb moment of realisation. Things connect in your brain and the learning insight pops out. So be prepared for that, stay open to it, stay curious and keep challenging your own defensive response so that you can keep holding that broader interpretation of events. Only when you’re ready, take the learning forward.

After all, emotions are information, not a call to action. You can also choose to not do anything with the feedback, it is fine to decide to not do anything with it, other than to hear it and to show that you’ve heard it. It is possible that two alternative ‘truths’ or interpretations of an event can co-exist and that’s ok.

Example: taking the time before deciding on action

To illustrate that, my second example is a work one. I got some feedback recently about the importance for me of boundarying – I mean making sure that I am clear on the boundaries that I have with people at work, which I find challenging because I like to share and I encourage people to bring all of themselves to work authentically. And that can sometimes be difficult for people either to do themselves or to know how to respond to me doing it.

    This feedback came via a third party – not the perfect way for feedback to come to you, but it’s often the way it happens. When I first heard it, I was definitely triggered defensively, I had an emotional ‘That’s not fair and it’s not what you said at the time’ response. But the fact that it was delivered second-hand meant that I could get space from it quite quickly and sit with it for as long as I needed.

So, a few weeks later, having had some more time to reflect and to stay curious as to what I’m noticing in other parts of my work life, I’m now in a place where I feel I’d like to act on some of the feedback and to create stronger boundaries based on other people’s likely expectations of me, so that I’m perhaps not 100% me 100% of the time with 100% of the people, instead I choose to bring the most helpful or valuable part of me to meetings or one-to-ones to try and get the best outcome I can.

I can now see the journey I’ve been on with this feedback: from shock, to self-protection, to curiosity, to acceptance and in the end to action.

4. Ask for feedback

My final tip is to ask for feedback. We tend not to get enough feedback in general, so ask for it. Warts and all, the smooth and the crunchy. Be prepared that some people won’t enjoy giving tough feedback and some won’t ever do it, it’s important to respect that. But some people in your world (often those with a Courage strength I’ve found) WILL be prepared to give you supportive and challenging feedback and that will always be invaluable to keep you humble, learning and evolving.

Finally, try to cultivate a growth mindset

For a bit more on cultivating a learning mindset, which is closely related to receiving feedback well, check out my recent podcast/blog on how to develop a a growth mindset at Season 9, episode 10.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed this podcast. if you’d like to get more from your every day, please do sign up to our emails for simple and practical hints and tips on everything strengths and life. The sign up form is at the bottom of this page. Till next time, go get that feedback!

Get the The Strengths Guy podcast on all major podcast platforms.

Find it on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, Stitcher, ACast, TuneIn,  Breaker and Soundcloud. Please support this podcast by subscribing to get it at the start of the working week!

  Related posts:

Decision-making: getting the best from your head AND your heart

The energy lifeline – plotting your year ahead

Why you should be directing your learning towards your strengths

source https://www.strengthscope.com/dealing-with-negative-feedback/

[maritzaerwin]

7 YouTube Marketing Tips and Tricks To Promote Your Business

YouTube can be a haven for business growth where you get consistent traffic, leads, and more sales. If your business is currently not using YouTube as one of the marketing tools, then you are missing out on big opportunities. But, it’s never too late to start leveraging the power of YouTube in your marketing strategy.

In fact, there are a lot of opportunities to use YouTube to gain a competitive advantage of overtaking your rival brands. And that’s the focus of this blog to teach you how to use YouTube for your business growth.

If you are planning to begin marketing on YouTube, you need to be savvy about it.

This is because YouTube has over 50 million active content creators who passionately create videos consistently. For your brand to grow on YouTube, your content has to stand out in the crowded streaming space.

Another major challenge is reaching and engaging your core audience. Most YouTube viewers aren’t fans of watching advertisements, so you will have to carefully strategize how to raise your brand awareness when keeping your audience entertained.

 Even though this sounds intimidating, it is doable with the right approach.

By the time you finish this blog, you will have a good grasp of how you can benefit from YouTube marketing.

In short, leveraging YouTube to grow your channel focuses on the following key areas.

Creating and optimizing the YouTube channel for your business.

Analyzing your target market.

Leveraging YouTube ads. 

1) Create a Youtube Channel for Your Business

Before doing anything, the first step is to create a YouTube channel using a brand account. Using a Google account, you can easily start your brand account on YouTube. This gives you access to YouTube analytics, which will give you significant insights into your viewers and the type of content they like the most. After creating the channel, you can customize it by adding links to your channel banner and updating the information.

The next step is to create a good channel layout. This is important as your audience visit your channel, they must understand the types of videos your channel hosts. This means both the color scheme and value proposition must match your business site. Constantly adding new videos to your YouTube channel will keep your feed active and you can establish your YouTube presence and build a loyal audience. You must create at least one video on your channel but can increase the number of content depending on your business goals, the type of content, and your target audience. One simple technique to continue creating new content is to create a short version of long content. Create a theme around a specific topic and post small size videos weekly to keep your viewers coming back to your channel for more.  

2) Learn Your Target Market

With your YouTube channel, you can access the Analytics tab which hosts plenty of statistics related to your channel. You can use this quantitative insight to learn about your view count, audience behavior, average watch time, interaction rate across your videos, and revenue generated. The analytics tab also contains a lot of significant data on your user demographics.

Even if you think you know who your users are, have a look at the demographics tab to move beyond assumptions and make sure you are on the right track reaching the right audience.

Analyze the analytics to answer questions like:

The age of your audience

The device used to view your videos

The gender of your viewers

Beyond quantitative analysis, you can also gain qualitative insights about your viewers by managing your comment section. Reading the comment section is a hectic task but the information you get from here is invaluable for learning about a different aspect of audience interaction.

A pro tip would be to check out the community page of YouTube, it is an underrated space to find out about your target audience. You can interact with your viewers directly through this page to create a poll or questions to gain an in-depth analysis of how your viewers think.

3) Research Your Competition

Researching your competition is crucial if you want to pull ahead of your competitors in your niche on YouTube. Competition analysis also becomes relevant when you are thinking about how to create a website like YouTube. Luckily, a lot of valuable information you need to understand is readily available on the channels of your competitions. Browse the channels of your competitors and analyze which videos get the most and least viewers and why.

If you want to go a step further and watch their videos to know why your audience likes to watch them so that you can adapt it to your own content strategy. Look into the video descriptions of your competitors to study the keywords they are using in their search optimization. If your competitors are serving their ads on your video, try to block them sing Google’s ad manager.

4) Optimize Your Videos for SEO

To get views, your YouTube videos must be search optimized if you want to get the most value out of your efforts. However, don’t worry if your first few videos fail to gain a lot of attention. You can work on perfecting your YouTube optimization over time.

Optimizing your videos for SEO starts with writing great descriptions that include keywords. Additionally, you can also add those keywords and put them in your closed captions. However, make sure you don’t force anything and stuff keywords.

i) Choose the Right Title

When you are picking the title, make sure you add high-ranking keywords and make sure the title is relevant to the video topic. If possible, include the exact keywords matching the commonly searched keywords, it will get you to help more clicks. The ideal title can go up to 70 characters, but it is recommended to keep it to 60 words or less than that.

ii) Make Appealing Thumbnails

When you upload your YouTube videos, make it a practice to make your own custom thumbnail as it will make your content stand out. Choosing your thumbnails is as important as crafting a great title. One effective way to improve your brand awareness is to add your logo on the thumbnail. Therefore, even if you don’t get any clicks on your videos, you will still draw awareness and spread awareness of your brand.

iii) Write Compelling Video Description

Your video description needs to have a short explanation of your video topic along with the links to your site, social media accounts, and relevant hashtags.

Here are some of the important things to consider:

Front-load important keywords.

Link out to different playlists on your channel.

Maximum up to 5000 characters.

Add up to 15 hashtags.

Hashtags are really helpful as it makes your content more searchable on YouTube. Choose a few super- relevant hashtags rather than adding a lot. If you use over 15 hashtags, users won’t notice it at all. Another important thing is the closed caption of videos. Have you ever tried searching a popular dialogue from a TV show on YouTube and found the exact clip? You were able to find it easily because the phrase was added in the title, description, or closed captions.

Closed captions are a great way to make content accessible to viewers. You can use automatic captioning where YouTube can use speech recognition technology to automatically create captions for your videos.

5) How to Create Great Youtube Videos?

This is one of the most important parts of YouTube marketing. A significant part of creating great YouTube videos is to create a great opening and sustain viewer attention. It helps to hook the viewers so that they will feel like watching your entire video. Try experimenting with vibrant visuals and a few great opening links to keep your audience entertained. At the end of the videos, you can add CTAs as well to get your users to check out other videos on your channel on your website.

i) Upload and Schedule Your Videos

After creating a few optimized videos, it’s time to update your videos so that is the best way to schedule your videos. Most of your subscribers would like to see regular content for your side. If you promise your viewers they will get a few videos every day at a particular time, you need to commit to staying the schedule.

A tip would be to shoot several episodes beforehand and keep it ready so that your videos will be more consistent in quality and quantity.  If you have a couple of videos ready, you can schedule it whenever you want even if you are not able to create videos at any point in time.

ii) Optimize Your Youtube Channel to Attract Followers

After optimizing your videos, the next thing is to optimize your channel itself. By offering a consistent experience to your audience across your channel, you will be able to bring in more viewers and convert them into regular subscribers. Filling out your YouTube profile is an easy place to start. Fill out as much relevant information on your profile as possible like a keyword-rich bio, appealing banner image, links to your website and social media profiles.

iii) Location and Contact Information

You can also add a list of the featured channels to your YouTube channel. Your list of the featured channel gives your audience easy access to other YouTube resources they might be interested in, adding more value to your channel.

Though this sounds like giving free promotion to your competitor brands, there is a lot of scope for your brand to grow from this. YouTube is a community and networking with different channels will help you build relationships with other creators in the community which offers you opportunities for valuable collaborations or cross channel promotions in the future. When you make quality relationships on YouTube, it is a win-win situation for all.

iv) Organize Your Videos to Playlists

If your videos are well organized to playlists, they will autoplay till the playlist ends keeping your audience on your channel for longer. This helps in increasing that important metric-average watch time on your channel. However, to benefit from playlists, curate them thoughtfully. Ensure there are logical progressions of ideas from one video to others instead of adding random videos to the playlist.

If there is a continuity, viewers will stay till the playlist ends and reduce the likelihood of your viewers going away from your channel. You can either build playlists using your videos alone or by adding videos of other channels as well. Additionally, if you are collaborating with other YouTubers, you can also ask them to add your videos to their playlists. Remember to include relevant keywords in your playlist title to give that extra SEO boost to your playlists.

v) Promote Your Videos

Creating and uploading your videos to YouTube isn’t enough. You need to promote them effectively for those videos to appear in the search of your target audience. YouTube allows you to run ads on your users and other user’s videos as well. If you are planning to make a site like YouTube, you can follow the same business model until you gain a consistent user base.

Besides the revenue generated, running ads help you to increase exposure to your YouTube channel and build brand awareness. Another way to advertise YouTube is remarketing and retargeting. When you remarket to your viewers on YouTube, you run ads only to those users and try to get them back to your services, remind them about their abandoned carts, or even give them a discount. The key to good YouTube marketing is matching your message with your target market. Another effective way to drive advertising is to use Google AdWords account to promote your videos so that you can run campaigns efficiently.

When you know your target market well and create videos that offer exclusive value to that audience, promoting videos with AdWords becomes beneficial to grow your channel. However, building a YouTube channel with the only intention of running ads, it doesn’t work. Whereas if you offer quality content ads running ads that align with your content and target the right audience, advertising can give your channel an extra boost of organic growth.

6) How to Monetize Your Youtube Channel?

The best way to take advantage of YouTube is to generate revenue through sponsorships. Mentions or direct promotion of products are the most common type of sponsorships seen on YouTube as the YouTube business model is based on advertisements.

In your videos, you can introduce the brand you are promoting and engage viewers through demos, how-to tutorials, etc.

Here are some of the other ways to add sponsored products to your YouTube channel:

Introduce new products through engaging conversions.

Incorporate products into a conversation where you demonstrate how it is useful in your daily life.

Show off how to use products.

Hype the product or service directly and build the conversation around the dame.

Mention the product in a pre-roll, mid-roll- or post-roll way.

Shoot product reviews.

7) Tips to Create Highly Viewable Youtube Videos

Before you close, here is a quick rundown of tips you can create videos that keep your viewers coming back for more.

There is no one way to predict whether a video is going to be viral but you can still optimize your content to increase your viewership and shares.

i) Follow Youtube Video Specifications

Begin by uploading videos that are optimized according to Youtube’s video specifications. Luckily, YouTube supports a range of video specifications to suit a variety of requirements. Some of the recommended specs are —.MOV, .MPEG4, .MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, or WebM and the maximum length is 12 hours. The size also varies from 240 p to 2160p.

ii) Invest in Recording Equipment

If you are creating original content, make sure you shoot your videos in HD by investing in a good quality camera and microphone. Investing in some good recording set up would help you to keep your content professional.

iii) Grab Attention Early

The first 10 seconds of your videos are crucial for quickly grabbing the attention of your viewers.

Here are some of the best steps to grab attention early.

Pique curiosity by opening your videos with a teaser.

Follow a standard opening theme.

Prompt user engagement by asking questions.

Set expectations by starting the video with a quick summary.

Optimize your videos for mobile devices.

On YouTube, mobile playback constitutes over half of the videos watched on the platform. For the same reason, it is important to record videos that are optimized for mobile devices. A great way would be to shoot short videos that are three minutes or less. As this won’t use as much data, it can be viewed on the go. This doesn’t mean that mobile users don’t enjoy long-form content. The average mobile sessions are over an hour, so filming longer videos work fine. This makes our next point.

iv) Film Long Videos

This is a matter of a straightforward strategy. Because longer video implies more watch time, it is also better for YouTube SEO. You can also integrate more value to longer videos provided that it is well scripted.

v) Schedule Live Streaming Events

Along with creating YouTube videos, live streams are also great to deliver a unique viewing experience to your loyal subscribers. Advertise your live streaming event ahead of time and use YouTube Live to communicate directly with your viewers. You could even use live streaming to get feedback on your regular videos.

Conclusion

If you want to try out a video marketing strategy that works, you must try out YouTube marketing. Using YouTube helps you reach a much broader audience, generate more traffic, engagement, and leads.

A great tip would be to start simple. YouTube marketing for your business is a learning process. As you create more videos, you will get better at shooting refining styles and formats you use, and improve your usage of keywords. Don’t forget to be consistent and create new videos consistently. Over time, you will grow your audience base and YouTube will become an effective advertising media to grow your business.

The post 7 YouTube Marketing Tips and Tricks To Promote Your Business appeared first on CareerMetis.com.

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[anachef]

Independent Financial Sponsor Corlex Capital Launches and Announces First Partnership

Private Equity Firm Will Partner with Celebrity Ramen Chef Ivan Orkin to Create American Urban Casual Concept

Atlanta, GA  (RestaurantNews.com)  Corlex Capital, LLC, an independent financial sponsor focused on control and minority equity investments in the lower middle market, today announced its official launch of operations. Founded by five longtime industry professionals, Corlex Capital has redefined the private equity model by combining intellectual and financial capital to be thoughtful and impactful in every engagement. Corlex Capital will leverage its deep industry expertise and extensive operations experience to create significant value for companies in the franchise, restaurant, retail and service sectors.

Led by private equity and franchise industry veterans Jason Bedasse, Jake LaJoie, Dan Lonergan, Chad Magee and Jeffrey Kolton, Corlex Capital is seeking control and minority equity investment opportunities in North American companies with EBITDA between $5 million and $25 million. The firm will also leverage its extensive investment and credit underwriting experience to provide debt capital raise consulting by developing lender marketing materials and an optimal capital structure to maximize the likelihood of success.

Although Corlex Capital is fundamentally a principal equity investor, its platform is differentiated by its complementary consulting practice, through which the firm has access to intimate knowledge about businesses and their internal operations. By offering this service, the firm gains a comprehensive understanding of its client’s business, which allows it to develop value enhancement plans that are then funded through its principal investing business. This approach delivers improved revenue and profits for business owners, while allowing Corlex to de-risk principal investments and drive higher risk-adjusted returns for all stakeholders. Corlex Capital is open to a range of investment types including growth/acquisition capital, recapitalizations, family-owned business transfers, management/corporate buyouts and corporate divestitures.

“While traditional financial sponsors are solely focused on making principal investments, at Corlex Capital we combine intellectual capital with financial capital to deliver higher risk-adjusted returns for investors,” said Jake LaJoie, Partner at Corlex Capital. “Our team’s decades of experience working together in our target industries, coupled with the information advantage from our consulting practice, highlights Corlex’s unique approach to deliver an unmatched level of service while offering proprietary investment opportunities to investors.”

On the heels of its launch, Corlex Capital has signed a letter of intent to invest in the Ivan Ramen brand, created by world-renowned ramen chef Ivan Orkin, to develop an American Urban Casual prototype of his award-winning ramen restaurants. Widely recognized as the international authority on ramen, the chef’s Ivan Ramen portfolio includes restaurants in New York City, a decade of successful operations in Tokyo, an episode of Netflix’s Emmy-nominated Chef’s Table documentary series, a top-selling ramen cookbook, as well as a second book in development.

Corlex Capital intends to finance and assist with the development of the prototype with future plans to franchise and expand the Ivan Ramen brand. Beyond the creation of a global franchise chain of restaurants, Corlex will also assist with the development of Ivan Ramen-branded consumer packaged goods and leverage the celebrity status of chef Ivan Orkin for media opportunities including books, television programs and speaking engagements.

“When I decided I was ready to take my concept to the next level, I invested a great amount of time and energy into finding the right partner that had the ability and experience to scale my brand. After meeting with the partners at Corlex Capital, I was immediately impressed with their innovative approach and knew I’d found the perfect fit,” said Ivan Orkin, celebrity chef and creator of the Ivan Ramen brand. “Partnering with Corlex Capital gave me immediate access to industry experts whose insights have been an invaluable resource. I look forward to partnering with the firm to share my love of ramen worldwide.”

About Corlex Capital

Corlex Capital is an independent financial sponsor that has redefined the private equity model by combining intellectual and financial capital to be thoughtful and impactful in every engagement. While Corlex is fundamentally a principal equity investor, its platform is differentiated by its complementary consulting practice. Through consulting, Corlex is able to gain intimate knowledge about businesses, enabling it to develop value enhancement plans that can be funded through its principal investing business. This approach delivers improved revenue and profits for business owners, while allowing Corlex to de-risk our principal investments and drive higher risk-adjusted returns for all stakeholders. Corlex’s seasoned partners and dedicated network of strategic operating partners and advisors have spent decades in private equity, investment banking, credit, operations and law. This in-depth experience empowers Corlex to deliver insightful and productive solutions to the lower middle market with a focus on the franchise, restaurant, retail and service sectors. For more information, please visit www.corlexcapital.com.

Contact: Julia Block Fish Consulting 954-893-9150 jblock@fish-consulting.com

source http://www.restaurantnews.com/independent-financial-sponsor-corlex-capital-launches-and-announces-first-partnership-103118/

[christinesumpmg]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw

[byronheeutgm]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw

[rodneyevesuarywk]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw

[fairchildlingpo1]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw

[kraussoutene]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw

[conniecogeie]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw

[christinesumpmg1]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw

[mercedessharonwo1]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw

[mariasolemarionqi]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw

[maryhare96]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw

[dainiaolivahm]

How Marketers Can Create Binge-Worthy Content Experiences

Move over, baseball. America’s new national pastime is binge-watching.

Ask your friends what they did over the weekend, and several will probably admit to burning through several seasons of Game of Thrones. Streaming platforms, such as Netflix and Hulu, revolutionized the way people consume TV shows. Society’s changing behavior has caused the likes of HBO to embrace the trend, allowing audiences to binge on Girls, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and True Detective.

When Twin Peaks was reborn on Showtime in May, the premium TV network aired the first two episodes but offered the first four new installments of David Lynch’s venerated series early on its streaming service. Showtime reported its single biggest day of user sign-ups thanks to the buzz surrounding the show, with the reboot drawing 1.7 million viewers across Showtime’s various platforms.

The binge-watching phenomenon has taught cable networks and digital content providers important lessons about customer preferences. The behavioral shift also offers invaluable insights for savvy marketers about messaging, storytelling, and customer delight.

What We Know About Binging

Netflix and Hulu have achieved success in the streaming world by creating truly customer-centric experiences. Whether people are commuting to work or lounging in bed, the services enable them to watch their favorite TV shows for hours at a time. Instead of waiting several months to see how a cliffhanger is resolved, users can immerse themselves in different universes to their hearts’ content. It doesn’t get much more customer-centric than that.

Whether people are conducting research at work or decompressing with entertainment at home, they like to really dig into the task at hand. Binge-watching capitalizes on this desire, offering an efficient way to get a lot done in a single sitting (or spread out over multiple sessions, if that’s a better fit). Marketers can cater to these preferences by creating content experiences that allow audiences to take as deep a dive as they want.

In a B2B situation, this might include a video series, articles, ebooks, case studies, or infographics—essentially a range of valuable materials that give customers a deep understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve, the ways it can be solved, and how you can help them do that. Prospective B2B customers crave as much information as possible before they make a decision. To this end, binge behavior can satisfy even the most persnickety prospect.

Bingeable content experiences also cater to how B2B decision-makers operate. A single 800-word article isn’t going to cut it for someone researching new software solutions, but you can make it easier on them by providing plenty of content to digest.

Content consumption patterns can also help you track prospects as they move toward a purchase. If you notice a flurry of activity from one potential customer, it likely indicates that he or she is nearing the next stage in the buying journey. Spotting this behavior pattern and being able to react to it can help you help a prospect become your ideal customer.

This is where content personalization can play a big role. By triggering the next appropriate content experience, you can help facilitate and feed the urge to binge.

Spinning a Yarn

If you want people to binge your content, you need to tell a compelling story. Each chapter should build on the previous installment, inspiring people to further their own hero’s journey. Here are a few ways to bring binge-watching’s benefits to your organization.

1. Establish themes that speak to your customers’ needs.

Great stories begin with a mission, and content strategy is no different. What need are you trying to fulfill for your audience? What experiences are you trying to create?

Showtime’s decision to release several Twin Peaks episodes early to subscribers was a brilliant move because it capitalized on the buzz surrounding the series and addressed the audience’s penchant for binge-watching. Giving subscribers the chance to go deeper into the series at their leisure addressed audience desires for viewing flexibility. Identify your audience’s core needs, and craft your strategy around those needs rather than your own service or brand.

2. Respond to your audience’s content preferences.

When Netflix opted to release entire seasons of House of Cards at once rather than in weekly installments, the company showed a keen understanding of how to keep people engaged. Instead of insisting people return to the service to watch a new episode each week, the company empowered users to keep going while they were already in a content-consumption mindset. This approach allows people to watch at their own pace and caters to the binge-watching crowd.

Pay attention to your own audience’s preferences. You might release content on a schedule that works for your team, but consider how people might consume your articles and videos if it were up to them. A recent DemandGen report found that 88 percent of respondents are overwhelmed by the amount of available content, and 71 percent said they want content that’s easier to access. You can eliminate friction in content consumption and draw prospects further into your brand experience by personalizing content that appeals to their particular interests (more on that later).

3. Create storylines that lead to the next step.

It goes without saying that your content must be valuable, but it should also have a purpose. In the same way a strong narrative guides viewers toward an ultimate resolution, your content should naturally steer potential customers toward your desired action. Don’t hit people over the head with calls to action, but make sure each piece you publish corresponds to a subsequent step and overarching goal.

When crafting your content, focus on quality over quantity. More doesn’t always mean better—even when you’re creating binge-worthy materials. Consider BBC’s Sherlock, which offers three 90-minute episodes each season but has become a darling of the binge-watching world. Don’t constrain yourself with external factors such as time and format. Decide what format will best serve your audience, and use that as your guide.

4. Personalize your content.

Personalization is a huge driver in the rise of binge-watching. Viewers can curate lists of their favorite TV shows and movies, using rating systems to teach their preferences to content providers. They can also rewatch past seasons to satiate their appetites while they await new episodes. That’s how Netflix kept people engaged when it began to offer hit shows like Mad Men and The Walking Dead. Easy access to the entire run of each series was essential to the user experience.

The ideal content experience is one that adapts as customers become more mature in their understanding of the problem they’re looking to solve. If someone lands on your site while researching a specific topic, you might suggest they check out a beginner’s guide or an interesting tutorial series to provide them with some background. Once you’ve created a solid foundation, you can start to build on that personalized content experience.

Focus on content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create your ideal customer. Click To Tweet 5. Leave them wanting more.

Providing bingeable content is a great way to enhance your brand experience and your relationship with audience members. That said, you don’t want to simply release a great series or ebook and then rely on the original content to carry engagement. Plan follow-up content so you can draw people back to your site in the weeks after that big launch.

You could also offer a few installments upfront and then spread out future releases to sustain interest. Hulu employed this strategy with The Handmaid’s Tale by offering the first several episodes at launch before it transitioned to a weekly release schedule. This approach gives people a chance to consider how the story develops each week, building anticipation for the next chapter.

Binge-watching has drastically changed the way the entertainment industry operates. Companies that want to take advantage of our propensity to binge must deliver innovative, high-quality content on a regular basis. These lessons hold true for marketers, who can use content-driven experiences and content personalization to facilitate binge consumption and create their ideal customer. In the words of the Content Marketing Institute’s Robert Rose, deliver “the right value, to the right audience, in their time.”

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

http://ift.tt/2v3Nqrw