Why the entertainment industry needs content strategy

Every day the entertainment industry produces hours of exciting digital content but take a look around the web you’ll find very little discussion around content strategy. Why is that?

Well, it could be because the industry has a great focus on marketing and PR, where it’s all about building up the audience through pre-release campaigns and social amplification of the eventual release. Time is spent attributing a limited amount of exclusive assets to preferred media partners to ensure greatest exposure.

It’s model that has traditionally worked well, the media offers more inventive ways of engaging with their audience in return for time with talent/trailer. No money needs to exchange hands because the formula can be crudely summarized thus:

Cost of producing content minus cost of promoting said content = mutually beneficial partnership

That said, it doesn’t mean that the entertainment industry is immune from difficulties that content strategy can help with. Like any industry, quite often inhouse resources are limited, departments are siloed and technology exacerbates. Agencies are often used to help execute brilliant digital campaigns but content is then locked into specific platforms and not reusable.

On the other hand, the entertainment industry has changed significantly over the last three years. There has been a greater emphasis on ensuring campaigns hit highly targeted audiences, rather than the broadcast or ‘spray and pray’ attitudes from ten years ago.

Innovation within this industry continues to entertain and excite  – but is the industry really prepared for the current changing trends in media consumption?

So, if you work in the entertainment industry, here are some signs that you might need a content strategy (in no particular order):

1. You have limited staff but you tell them they need to be on all social media platforms, all the time, replying to everyone at once

2. You think you don’t have enough resource to produce content inhouse

3. You find yourself having to manually repurpose content (especially for mobile) because your CMS can’t help

4. Your agency hasn’t mentioned content strategy to you yet

5. Your agency presents their ideas as wire frames using lorem ipsum (ok, a little unfair this one!)

6. Your main website looks like a desolate B2B corporate hub – and it looks even worse on mobile

7. Your team are working flat out and don’t have time for a meeting with a content strategist 🙂

If you find yourself agreeing to any these points then let’s talk. I’m not saying that content strategy is applicable in every situation –  but if you’re taking the long view of making content more efficient and less time-consuming – then let’s talk!

Have you any thoughts on the topic above? Please feel free to leave your comments below.

#contentmarketing #tv #movies #entertainment #games