Content Weapons Primer: Active/Passive Content

Advertising in all forms and formats are a basic for message delivery. Regardless of the type, paid, banners etc. One of the main strategies that marketers tend to use nowadays is content marketing. After all, content marketing is able not only to drive traffic to your website as well as it can build your reputation as a leader in your industry or niche.

However, one of the main concerns related to content marketing is related to the kind of content that you should offer your visitors. After all, you want the content that you provide them to be high-quality, but it also needs to be able to convert those visitors into customers. So, when you don’t deliver the right piece of content or you fail to deliver it at the right time, your potential leads may turn into your competition. In order to ensure that this doesn’t happen to you, it is important to create a distinction in your content marketing strategy: active content and passive content.

Active Content

Simply put, active content is the kind of content that requires a certain action from the prospect. Some examples of active content include surveys, quizzes, assessments, and even grader tools. With this kind of content, you will get information from your visitor. It may be in the form of an answer to a survey or a grade. No matter what it is, it is important information for you. Think you knew that already; did you know major film and TV studios are testing out the creation and production of user guided storylines? Movies and TV shows that YOU can control in a limited capacity the direction and plot path. Talk about ridiculously interactive content.

Active content tends to get better results when it isn’t used at the beginning of the buyer journey. If you have an ongoing offering then it is wise to space it out randomly throughout the lifetime of the audience for increased engagement. The truth is that you will get better results when the prospect already has a good opinion about you and about your service and is willing to fill in the information you are requesting.

Passive Content

Most content that you see out there is passive content. From infographics to slide decks, e-books and white papers are all types of passive content. As you can easily see, passive content is the type of content that doesn’t ask for any kind of interaction. Your visitors or prospects will only be able to read them or watch them without any further action. (Just because you add a “Call to Action” the content still remains passive.)

This is the type of content that marketers use to teach or educate their prospects. So, this is the best content that you have to answer some of your prospect’s questions. This also allows the user to be engaged with your business.

Content Weapons like this are further explained in the book #contentweapons by Michael Stattelman

Learn how to lead “Next Practices” initiatives like this in Meta Leadership also by Michael Stattelman

To make sure that you choose the right kind of content that to generate and disseminate, it is important to understand the following:

#1: Prospects Make Their Purchase Decisions Emotionally:

The reality is that the better the experience you provide your users, the more chances you have to capture their attention for more and increasingly extended periods of time. So, you need to ensure that your prospects feel safe and educated enough so they have a level of confidence when it comes to making their buying decision. (More on the psychology behind this in a later section)

#2: Content Is Quantifiable:

One of the mistakes most marketers do is that they don’t take the time to measure the results they are getting in content marketing. However, just like other marketing strategies, content marketing is also quantifiable. The importance of Analytics continues to increase with your efforts.

The best approach that you can take in what concerns content marketing is to establish a goal for each piece of content that you create. It may be conversions on your website, closing sales or simply moving people down into your sales funnel. When you see positive results from a piece of content, you know that you need to promote it as well as you need to replicate this kind of content.