I’m a big fan of Neomam Studios, a UK-based digital marketing agency.

I first discovered them when I stumbled across their infographic 13 Reasons Why Your Brain Craves Infographics.

This was about four years ago, when it was quickly becoming clear that compliance learning needed to embrace a new, more modern approach — less text, more visuals, and a shorter seat time than we would have ever thought possible in 2003.

Neomam got a lot of attention for their infographic — for good reason. It’s also a great read for people thinking about how to communicate effectively in their compliance programs.

As the infographic explains, visuals have taken over modern communications — increasing 400% in literature, 9900% on the internet (!), and 142% in newspapers in just 10 years.

This is because we are visually wired — primed to process visual information. And in a world of information overload, good information design is easier to absorb.

People understand visual information better than text alone. They find it more persuasive. All of which is useful background when deciding where to focus your compliance training and awareness budget!

But Neomam’s specialty isn’t just creating cool pieces of content — it’s working with clients to design content marketing campaigns that drive meaningful results, whether that’s media coverage, new clients, or another tangible goal.

And that’s why their new ebook Eight Reasons Why Your Awesome Content Gets No Links — free here — is a great read for compliance teams interested in a fresh approach.

Although the ebook is written to teach marketing teams how to get media and public attention for a creative piece of online content, the core lessons are equally applicable to anyone looking to drive audience engagement.

After all, who wants to spend time and money creating a course, Code, communication, or policy that falls flat?

The book is subtitled “A step by step guide to creating content people want to share.”

Some key insights:

  • Start with a clear concept. Too many people create content without a clear idea of who they want to reach, what they want to say, and what they want the audience to do as a result. Neomam’s ebook includes an exercise to start with the details you want to communicate and then step back and look beyond to see the (probably more compelling) bigger picture.
  • Define clear, achievable goals for your content. In Neomam’s world, the goal is typically media coverage or other clear evidence of audience engagement. In compliance, we typically aim for high completion rates and passing test scores (in other words, evidence of training activity) — but it might be worth thinking beyond that to other markers of engagement that can show the audience has absorbed the message.
  • Produce content worth sharing. Ask: Are you bringing anything new with your content? Neomam suggests making sure your material has real depth. Instead of shallow advice with little practical value, do some research and dig deep to provide solid, valuable advice that is easy to apply, since this is more likely to have a real impact. In the compliance realm, this might mean taking the time to translate high-level compliance concepts into concrete, practical guidance that directly relates to employees’ jobs or common work situations.
  • Don’t regurgitate existing content without bringing something new. We’re all skilled information consumers, and quickly screen out material we’ve seen before. Find a fresh approach or a new spin on things to keep people interested.
  • Choose the right format for your content. Neomam suggests you avoid “the curse of shiny things” — avoid producing expensive pieces of content without being sure they will do the job to be done. (They also have some interesting stats about video in this section – they say it’s the future of content marketing and will account for 80% of all internet traffic by 2019.)
  • Test your content before it goes live. Finally, have one or more members of your target audience review the content before you release it. This gives you time to make tweaks or corrections — before you’ve done a big rollout.

There’s more great stuff — including a section about how to write pitch emails that has good lessons for anyone writing emails to introduce compliance training.

Think about the content in your compliance program. Is it visually engaging? Would your audience find it clear and easy to read? Is it worth sharing? If you answered no to any of these questions, we can help. Set up a free consultation with our experts.