Leadership Strategies

Licensed versus Customized Content and How to Choose Which is Right for You

The differences and benefits of each content marketing approach
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Developing compelling content, messaging, and campaigns that engage your target audience and move your prospects and customers along the buying cycle is not a simple task. In another IDC blog post, we discuss the challenges of a hyperaware buyer, with a decreased attention span. It’s a time and cost struggle to create the varying content that your buyer is looking for at each stage of their journey.

An effective way of obtaining content for your marketing messaging is by licensing it from a research company. With this method, you obtain digital distribution rights to the research document so you can share it with your target audience in various marketing formats. Licensed content reach can be easily extended if you distribute it across multiple channels, in a variety of media, such as, data graphics, quotes, blogs, animated infographics, short videos and social media posts.

Benefits of Licensed Content

  • Lower cost
  • Short time to market (generally 1-2 days to delivery)
  • Analyst insights

Customized content is a more approachable way to building your content calendar. It involves leveraging expert opinion and adapting research into content that includes customized insight and commentary from an industry analyst that validates your marketing messages. Customized content will often come in the form of a white paper or industry spotlight.

Benefits of Customized Content

  • Developed around your message
  • Created for multiple formats
  • Flexible pricing
  • Leverage the brand equity and trust associated with the research

Marketing programming and operations have undergone a paradigm shift to focus on whole journey marketing, extend into post-sales loyalty, advocacy, and renewal, connect storytelling and content across connected channels, and blend digital into all marketing programming. To serve the digital-first customer, content needs to evolve to meet the needs of a buying cohort and support their full journey, rather than islands of episodic content creation we experience today.

Start with a deep assessment of your end-to-end content marketing practice including evaluating: strategy, talent, organization, governance, business processes, data and enabling technology.  The assessment will inspire a prioritized roadmap to systematically address gaps, challenges and opportunities. Licensed or customized content can fill in the gaps where gaps, such as talent and data, are identified.

To learn more about licensing or customizing IDC’s research content and how to leverage our global analyst insights, contact us today.

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International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,200 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives.