Multimedia Content Marketing | Brafton

Content marketing isn’t a niche idea or a hidden secret. Your competitors are doing it and, chances are, so are you. This raises an interesting challenge: If everyone has content, how can you make sure yours stands out?

Allow me to start my answer by stating that I love the written word — if I didn’t, I wouldn’t bother writing these 1,500 words you’re reading now. With that said, sometimes you need to break up your text-based content with audio-visual materials that can underline your message and add to your brand’s appeal.

This is multimedia content marketing, and it might just be what helps you stand out from the pack. When you’re creating interesting, useful and engaging multimedia materials associated with your brand and your specific campaigns, you can build your visibility and appeal among your audience.

That sounds promising, so let’s dive into the what and how of multimedia content marketing.

What Is Multimedia Content Marketing?

Multimedia content marketing simply means using various types of content. These can include:

• Custom imagery: From infographics to illustrations, photos to graphs, a quick visual is eye-catching — not to mention very shareable as social media content.
• Video: Video content is the essence of multimedia, giving you the potential to use visual content and audio in tandem. A good video can convey almost any kind of message.
• Audio: While audio is more limited than video, it can still make its point. In B2B content marketing, an informative podcast episode is a great way to make information accessible.
• Interactive content: Deliverables that allow user interaction give your audience information that suits their unique needs and encourage direct, prolonged contact with your brand.

These materials don’t replace written content — largely meaning blog posts, white papers, eBooks and landing pages. They also don’t remove the need for social media marketing. Rather, what makes them so special is the way they complement other kinds of content marketing.

The possible combinations are virtually endless. An infographic embedded in a blog post. A LinkedIn post setting up a podcast episode. A landing page containing an interactive quiz. The same video posted across your blog, your YouTube channel and multiple social media platform accounts. All these options and more open up new avenues to reach your audience.

A well-thought-out content marketing strategy is packed with synergy, with various deliverables making each other better. For example, custom images add visual intrigue to your blog posts, while the written paragraphs in between provide in-depth information and context.

This is how you find your edge in a busy marketing landscape: by varying the look and feel of your content and picking the right medium to deliver every message.

Learn more about the best practices of content marketing for modern businesses.

What Are The Benefits of Marketing with Multimedia Content?

It stands to reason that digital marketing via multimedia has advantages over a text-only approach. No one wants to be a one-trick pony, after all. But it takes more than a gut feeling to commit to a content production approach. It’s worth laying out specific ways audio, video, imagery and interactive materials can help.

So, why is multimedia content so great?

• It grabs attention: A viewer who arrives on your website through a link may spend just seconds there unless there’s something to catch their attention. Even the most compelling opening line of a blog post can’t compete with multimedia. Give your readers an eye-catching image or something to click on, and they’ve got a reason to stick around.

• It’s versatile: Creating an image or a video is a lot easier to justify when you consider all the ways you can use your new piece of media. Post it on your blog as part of an SEO-optimized post. Share it on LinkedIn. And Instagram. And X, the artist formerly known as Twitter. Use it as part of an email marketing drip campaign. You went to the trouble of creating it, so now it’s time to show everyone.

• It lets you establish your branding: Will people remember you? This is an existential question for your company, considering how quickly consumers can click through various options for nearly any given product or service. If you have a distinctive visual identity, summed up in a trademark logo and color scheme, you can deck all your multimedia content out in this style and keep reminding people who you are.

Having laid out some specific advantages of using visual and audio content, it’s worth stating an important point: You’ll only reap these benefits if your content is well-made and compelling. Materials that didn’t receive enough polish or attention in production may fail to make an impact.

Your competitors have likely launched multimedia content marketing strategies of their own. This means you can take inspiration from what they’re doing, and then one-up them with even more compelling deliverables. It also means, however, that you can’t settle for anything less than premium quality when making your own deliverables.

Discover the value of reaching your audience through multiple content distribution channels.

What Types of Multimedia Content Can Best Reach Your Audience?

There’s a proper moment for every type of digital marketing content. Your brand, depending on its industry and target audience, may gravitate toward specific types of multimedia, but in many cases, versatility will serve you well.

Here are a few of the most compelling ways to promote your brand through various deliverables:

Images

Custom images and infographics are versatile, eye-catching and engaging. There’s no one right approach to graphic design. The rule of thumb is to craft a look and feel that fits in seamlessly with your brand’s identity, conveying that information immediately to your audience.

Infographics have the added effect of making complex information immediately legible. It’s one thing to tell a reader that, for instance, security incidents rose from 25% to 45% in the third quarter. It’s another to lay that information out on a bar graph so it’s immediately clear.

Audio

Podcasts, webinars and other forms of audio content are a bit more niche than infographics or video. They do, however, have a vital role to play, especially when it comes to B2B content marketing. Audio allows your stakeholders to speak directly to your audience, in their own words, creating a personal connection.

You can use a podcast as a forum to interview interesting people in your industry, showing off your brand’s subject matter expertise. You can also repurpose content from your blog or elsewhere to put it in front of a new audience. If you release audio content on a steady cadence, you can hook loyal repeat listeners.

Video

Video may be even more adaptable than static images, and that’s saying something. A video deliverable can mean anything from an animated explainer clip to an hours-long panel recording from a corporate event. Across YouTube, social media, your website, trade show booths, digital billboards and even TV, you can bring your brand directly to your audience via video.

The flip side of video’s immense potential is the many moving parts that go into its creation. You’ll need to make sure your video production pipeline is staffed with trusted experts at every step to deliver content that will reach your audience’s expectations.

Interactive Content

If you want to make sure your customers are really paying attention to your brand, don’t just give them something to look at — give them something to click on. Adding interactive elements to visual content like infographics can deepen the connection between the user and your brand.

An interactive deliverable lets the viewer choose their own adventure, focusing on the elements that really excite them or entering information to receive a custom experience. By combining compelling information with a smooth, pleasing user experience, you can draw your audience into your brand’s world.

How Do You Run A Successful Multimedia Marketing Campaign?

As with any content marketing strategy, you should go into multimedia creation with a plan. This means drawing up a content calendar and giving your creative team ample time to produce all the deliverables.

This planned-out approach ensures the content doesn’t suffer from compressed timelines and allows you to set up campaigns that will allow each individual release to shine. When you know there’s a great-looking infographic coming in a week, you can queue up an SEO-optimized blog post to showcase it, along with social posts to spread it to a wide audience.

As each of these deliverables emerges, you can (and should) track data around performance and reach. This lets you tune the campaign, re-promoting materials that haven’t met their potential and determining exactly what kinds of multimedia content your audience wants to see more of.

Find Your Own Path to Multimedia Success

If all that sounds daunting — producing multiple types of content, focusing on quality, releasing it on a schedule and tracking performance — don’t worry. You’re not on your own when it comes to content creation.

From determining the ideal content mix for your audience to actually creating and releasing the necessary content, an expert content marketing agency can back you up at every step of the way. When you need access to skilled graphic designers, expert number-crunchers, experienced video crews or any other type of professional, they’re always just a call away.

So be bold and start thinking about what multimedia could mean for your brand. It may just be the edge you need to make a lasting mark in your industry.