When we think about hero content, we generally think about a key asset that comprehensively addresses a theme. Your themes will usually cascade from your business challenges, as they will represent the areas you must address in order to make the needle move.
For instance, you might decide that you need to answer one major question that your prospects are grappling with. Perhaps you answer their question in the form of an in-depth ebook. Once you have that ebook built, you can then pick and pull content from it to create shorter blog posts, Slideshare decks, podcasts, and more!
Having one comprehensive source at your disposal gives you a library of material to pull from that you can use to build any number of assets to support your initiative. You can dive deeper into sub-topics as you break up the content. And you give your audience the choice to select their preferred format for engaging with your information.
While it’s often easier to begin with one large piece of hero content and then draw from that to create other deliverables, you can work in the opposite direction as well. For instance, after selecting a theme, you could record a series of podcasts and then combine the transcripts to create an ebook. The key is that you are staying on message while making the most of the content you create.
Establishing your hero content up front will help you do several things:
- You will document your themes and stick to them.
- You can avoid trying to do too much with one piece of hero content as you are focusing on a single theme.
- You can achieve scale around a theme by breaking up hero content and delivering it piecemeal in other formats over time.
These points are important for any content marketing program, but they are especially important if you are a small or mid-size business. You must establish discipline to keep from drifting away from your core themes. And you have to squeeze as much content as you can from every core asset or you will constantly be struggling to keep up with content creation demands. Nailing down your hero content can help you do both of these things.
There is no right or wrong format for building your hero content. Ebooks are often a great asset to start with because they force you to thoroughly develop your thoughts around a given topic and deliver them in a well-written, polished format. They are also a great lead magnet that prospects can download.
However, your hero content could be built out into a massive slide deck or it could start with an article. Whatever you choose, make sure that your hero content is large enough to support the creation of smaller deliverables and is the go-to source for the topic you are exploring.
This post is adapted from an excerpt of The Content Driven Product Launch