At Quad Digital we take a ‘hook-and-hold’ approach to content marketing. Our goal is to win the attention and gain the trust of our clients’ audiences. Doing this makes it more likely customers will come to our clients when they’re ready to buy. And that’s what we all want.

We can no longer rely on the ‘shock-and-awe’ approach of traditional, interruptive advertising techniques, especially not online. Audiences are too smart and too adept at filtering them out.

You will only really win new and loyal customers by giving them something they want, something that makes them laugh, smile, feel more intelligent or better informed. And you can only do this by gaining their trust.

How do we do this?

Before we get started it’s essential that we find out who your audience is. That’s both the audience you have now and the audience you want. It’s the people who’ll be most interested in your product and those most likely to buy. We’ll do this by scrutinizing your existing customer segments, perceptions of your brand, the sector you operate in and what your competitors are doing. We’ll look at social sentiment too. It’s an incredibly valuable piece of work.

Understanding your audience – who they are, where they go online, how they behave there and how they perceive your brand, products and services­ – is really important. Why? Because without a detailed understanding of your audience it’s very difficult to know how and where we can talk to them to achieve the greatest effect. This is the planning stage of our project and it’s from here that we can agree the brief from which the creative content will spring.

What’s the big idea?

Now we need to settle on the central theme or big idea that informs both the hook and the hold. What shape this takes will really depend on your audience and you. Primarily, it will need to be of real interest or use to them. If it isn’t something your audience can get genuinely emotionally engaged with, it won’t work for either of you. But, naturally, it will also be informed by your business objectives, otherwise we’d be short-changing you.

What’s the hook?

The hook is a ‘Wow!’ It’s a brilliant piece of content – a story, a survey, video or infographic, maybe, fed to third-party websites and spread on social media to catch attention, impress and flatter. Creating and placing hooks is something we’re really skilled at. Effective planning and execution at this part of the campaign ensures we reach as wide an audience as possible for you.

Working like a chat-up line (a good one, not a cheesy one!), the hook engages your audience, making them hungry to know more about you and what you’re talking about. We make that easy, putting your brand at the top of their minds and actively pushing them in your direction.

Now we hold them

What holds your audience’s gaze and gives them reason to trust you is the deeper content we create for you. Living within your own website, in a content hub or microsite, among our priorities is making this as easy as possible for the audience to discover through search engines and social media.

The content there will give the audience plenty to explore and lots of opportunities to get to know and trust your brand and what it represents. And though it might not be directly about your products, it will be directly associated with you. Why? Because you don’t charm someone by just talking about yourself, you charm them by being interested in them.

Sealing the deal

Once you’ve got your audience on your site, and on your side, we can dial up the sales messages, carefully determining volume by assessing where they are in the journey from prospect to customer. The better they know and trust you, the more receptive they’ll become. We’ll help you convert them by placing brilliantly-crafted calls to action within your content. Think of it as gently shepherding your audience down the sales funnel.

But it doesn’t end there. By constantly analysing how your audience responds to and engages with content, we can fine tune it and make it even better targeted. We’ll do this as we learn from the journeys customers take with your brand.

Put simply, we’ll make your audience comfortable with you. And once they’re comfortable with you, they’ll be more willing to buy from you.