SAVE in Content Marketing [4 Tips to follow]

 

If you are reading this then you are definitely well familiar with 4Ps of marketing mix. Traditional 4Ps of Marketing were developed by Jerome McCarthy of Notre Dame in 1960. Which are product, promotion, price and place. Although this traditional marketing mix model, a.k.a. the producer-oriented model, is still widely used even today, there are several variations and evolution of the model, including the 7P’s, the 4C’s and 7C’s. You might also know about S.A.V.E framework which stands for

·        S for solutions,

·        A for access,

·        V for value and

·        E for educations. 

SAVE framework is a shift from the traditional 4 Ps of marketing model or marketing mix. This framework was developed in HBR Studies by Richard Ettenson, Eduardo Conrado and Jonathan Knowles back in 2013.

SAVE framework in Content Marketing

Brands today can not only react to customers as they make purchasing decisions but also actively shape and customize their decision journeys. And content marketing plays a big role alongside technologies. Companies that do this well can radically compress the consideration and evaluation phases and in some cases even eliminate them during the purchase process and catapult a consumer right to the loyalty phase of the relationship. The journey itself is becoming the defining source of competitive advantage.

If we analyze customer decision journey we get various aspects of attributes and touch points which are starting from awareness, consideration and eventual decision stages. If we even further slice and try to understand consumer decision journey we analyze mental model of marketing where we see from stimulus to zero moment of truth (ZMOT) to first (FMOT) to final second moment of truth (SMOT). For all these touch points we have to provide and develop contents. Incorporating SAVE model while developing contents will make the content categorizing process easy and effective for the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey. 

I want to write about my views with below 4 points on how incorporating SAVE framework in content marketing can really help to give a better understanding of creating content for influencing consumer decision journey or in other words fueling up inbound marketing. 

1. Contents that provides a “solutions”: Consumers are being triggered as soon as they discover their problem and then their considerations sets comes in places. They start their active evaluation process and trying to figure out what will solve their problems which is zero moment of truth according to the mental model of marketing. Contents plays the most important role here in attracting/ awareness stage. The solutions that can solve the consumer’s problem will lead them towards the bottom of the funnel and eventually help them to use brand’s products. 

"Customers don't care about product features or usability if a product fails to solve their problem," says Ruben Gamez, founder of Bidsketch.

Customers do not care much about products, all they care about is their problem and solutions to their problem. The find solutions from problem solving contents. Contents that identifying their problems and letting them aware about solutions and how brand’s product are there to solve their problems. 

2. Access (360 -Contents visibility): Give access to people online. Catching them where they are is the best proven method. People want to get access to everything they are associated with these days. During this ongoing Corona Pandemic people are quarantined and they want to discover new things online as well as expects brand’s activities and loves to interact with them. Companies with great contents available at the places where their customers or target group helps convert them to customers and increase their brand affinity. With strong and strategic online presence it ensures the access of brands. Contents that are designed and customized based on different platforms are likely to work more efficiently. Which includes visibility of the contents to different social media or any other channels of brand-customers relationship. 

"In an age where many businesses operate around always-on Internet access, "place" is becoming irrelevant," says Jay Baer, author of Hug Your Haters. 

Maybe launching co-creational designing or other campaigns in social media can create a good buzz as well as people will have access to design or participate in such interactive sessions. Which will give them access to create user generated contents and ensures strong co-creational benefits for the brand as well as ensures brand-customer relationships. 

3. Value (More Value, More Price): While in the stage of active evaluation and finding solutions consumers are likely to go with the product that has strong authority and authenticity in the market with their products. Once the contents they get to see at this stage of ZMOT really add value not only to their solutions of the problems, but also provide them with other valuable additional assets/service or additional offerings consumers are likely to go even further towards the purchasing funnel.

Customers concern is always about price, but when they are well aware of the value of the content they are provided with, they trust the brand and product. Contents should be sharing the same beliefs and values of the audience and customers. Once the value is there, customers are ready to purchase products and take necessary actions. So as soon as we established contents that, what problems the product solves, it’s easy to highlight the values in our contents. Letting them understand the value of the contents which they can easily differentiate with competitors can allow companies to even charge higher than competitors. While creating contents value proposition is definitely the key. 

4. Education (Educate, Educate and Educate!): This is one of the most proven aspect of content marketing strategies. Contents that provide valuable knowledge, provide consumer with useful techniques, DIY tips, FREE education create a stronger bonds with audience/customers. That helps to attract new consumers as well as who are already in the loyalty loops stages. These type of contents build authority. These contents are often mixture of 4 strategic types of contents which includes – attractions, authority, affinity and action contents. 

"One of the old truths of marketing is the law of 7. Someone needs to see or interact with your brand for 7 times until they eventually sign up or buy what you have to offer," writes Leo Widrich, COO of Buffer. "

Thus, promotion can be replaced with education! Its common customer often hates promotional message and advertisements. But when they are learning about new things and acquiring the knowledge they had no idea about, they love it. Brand affinity shifts upward. Trust and bond becomes stronger. Providing prospects the information they want to know and have interests is the ultimate key to drive towards lead then MQL to SQL to opportunities and finally becomes customer. Educate the audience/customers with the contents that shares their interest is a proven powerful and successful method of content marketing.

Having in mind and embrace these 4 aspects while developing contents can really help to build great strategies and can make the content creation framework specific. It will allow brands to level up their presence in awareness stage of customer’s decision journey with specific categories of contents and plays a big roles in ZMOT and helps to move towards the bottom of the funnel.

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SHEIKH SHAFI MAHMUD (SSM) 
A Digital Marketer, Social Media, Content and Advertising with a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from Notre Dame. Previously worked as Brand & Marketing Manager at Linkus (A China-Bangladesh Venture). Also the Co-Founder, Music Composer & Producer at Apeiruss (an Electronic Music Project & Creative Production House).