Content Marketing: 10 +1 things we strive to do @7awi...

1- Be Credible!

You must establish your brand to be seen! This is not easy and requires extra effort from your side. A fresh and up to date corporate site (don’t use stock imagery) is a must. Make sure your company’s LinkedIn profile and social media pages are up to date. No client will give their business to non-credible partner. We continuously publish our infographics on www.7awi.com portal to show case complete transparency with our clients. Our corporate site gets refreshed every 12 months.

2- Be FIRST!

As in everything in life, it is a first mover advantage. Make sure you are always ahead of the curve in terms of trends, latest technologies, user experiences, content trends, etc. While 7awi is not perfect nor complete, we pride ourselves with staying on top of global trends. From the latest technology and frameworks to the implementation of Continuous Development/Continuous Integration on our custom developed content management system.

3- Know Your Audience

You must know your audience. The beauty and challenge of digital, is that you can quickly identify the personas but the personas are changing rapidly. When we first started, only 20% of our traffic was mobile, we did not know the type of content our audience were most interested in and we did not know if timing and locations made any difference. Gluing our eyes to analytics, we quickly learnt more details about our audience and started optimizing our content to better serve both the consumers and the advertisers.

4-     Content is KING!

It is undisputed. Content is KING! However, content continues to evolve. From long form articles to albums and galleries to videos and short video clips. You have to provide all types and formats. At 7awi we have realized the importance of each type of content based on channels, search, engagement and social. All have their unique content types. This is why we have over 30 million pages views on our network. Just remember, AR and VR are content too!

5- Distribution is KING KONG!

Content is KING but don’t be scared of KING KONG! No matter how great your content is, if you don’t have the means to distribute it, then you are the only one seeing the content. At 7awi, we have struck over a dozen of partnerships to get our content distributed. Some of these partnerships generate revenue (MSN), others are strategic in nature. The MENA region requires further maturity to value content and content syndication. Most multi-national companies value content more than local publishers. This will definitely change with time.

6- Pursue and focus on the Big opportunity

You can get distracted by many emails, phone calls and friends’ great unicorn ideas! You must focus on the “Big Fish”. While we continue to fall for some of these distractions, we are able to do a better job at identifying the bigger opportunities. SnapChat has been a great opportunity for Layalina and has helped us better position ourselves in the region. Stepping up to keep a healthy relationship with big clients is a huge undertaking but should never be compromised. The value of working with big brands goes along way. We love you L’Oréal.

7- Repurpose your content

You don’t need and you should not keep creating more content. Few years back, it was about volume. Today, it is all about timing and quality content. Quality content is more expensive but it also has higher yields. You need to be able to repurpose your content so that it serves search engines (SEO), Social (Facebook/Instagram/Twitter…) and Engagement with video and galleries. 

8-     User Acquisition

Aha! This is where the rubber hits the road. This is where we always question ourselves on how well we are performing. It is one of our soft spots and we continue to think “Growth Hacking” as most of us are not in the position of continuous paid marketing campaigns. We have a great number of assets and we are always challenged on how to leverage user data to further enhance our personalization and advertising options.

9- Find your strength. What is your USP?

No one knows your USP better than the people who work in your company. If they don’t, they must be educated. If you can’t articulate your Unique Selling Proposition, you won’t be able to make your company visible to others. 7awi’s USP is developing Arabic content with ability to target audiences across the MENA region. With multiple verticals covering lifestyle, fashion, celebrities, autos, entertainment, videos, travel, food, classifieds and services with millions of monthly visitors, we are able to target all segments of audiences in the MENA region. This is 7awi’s sweet spot.

10-  Monetization

This is by far the most important point. However, Monetization only comes after most of the points mentioned above have been vetted. You will need to go back to every opportunity and think of how to best monetize your assets. This year, 7awi development and content team are generating a considerable portion of revenue through content syndication, custom solutions, content repurposing and partnerships. We are super excited that we are able to grow and cover a good chunk of our operating expenses. We definitely think there is more of this in 2018 and we are building a rich pipeline of opportunities.

Finally, one must acknowledge that none of the above will happen if you don’t have the passionate team to make it happen. Taking care of your employees, despite the challenging geopolitical and macro-economic situation should be the No.1 priority in any organization. This is something I strive to do everyday at 7awi. 

This article was published on LinkedIn