In this episode of Direct with Corrina and Taylor, the hosts engage in a thoughtful conversation with Dallion Duran-Ballen, a seasoned brand and content strategist and co-owner of ADventurist. Dallion shares her unique perspective on the importance of valuable information over highly produced content. She emphasizes the need for understanding the time and effort that goes into creative projects, shedding light on the often overlooked aspects of content creation.
The discussion further delves into Dallion’s transformative project, where she turned a commercial flooring manufacturer’s buried technical information into engaging digital content. This project boosted market awareness and sparked her journey into content marketing. Dallion’s approach to content creation, involving direct interaction with customers and internal teams, underscores the importance of building relationships and understanding customer needs.
Toward the end, guest and hosts Corrina and Taylor discuss ADventurist’s future endeavors in helping organizations understand and implement effective content strategies. Dallion provides insightful tips for businesses looking to kick-start their content strategy, emphasizing the importance of identifying internal subject matter experts and maximizing their contributions.
Featured Guest
Name: Dallion Duran-Ballen
What she does: Partner & Co-Owner
Company: ADventurist / LinkedIn
Noteworthy: Brand and content strategist turned content marketer, Co-Owner of ADventurist.
Key Insights
The Power of Valuable Information
Dallion emphasizes the importance of valuable information over highly produced content. She believes that if the information is good and people want to hear it, the level of production doesn’t matter. This insight challenges the common notion that content needs to be highly polished to be effective, suggesting that the value of the information is the key factor in its success.
Unearthing Buried Content
Dallion shares her transformative project, where she turned a commercial flooring manufacturer’s buried technical information into engaging digital content. The company had a lot of educational content hidden in non-exciting white paper-style PDFs. The task was to bring this information into the digital realm, making it accessible and engaging for the audience. This insight highlights the importance of making valuable information easily accessible and engaging for the audience.
The Importance of Understanding Creative Projects
Dallion wishes for a magic wand to give everyone an understanding of how long creative projects take and what goes into them. She believes this understanding would level the playing field and help people understand timelines. This insight underscores the importance of understanding the time and effort that goes into creative projects, which is often overlooked.
Episode Highlights
The Birth of a Content Marketer
In the early part of the conversation, Dallion shares the genesis of her journey into content marketing. She discusses a project where she was tasked with managing a blog for a commercial flooring manufacturer. This project, she says, was the turning point in her career, transforming her into a content marketer. She also touches on the challenge of unearthing valuable technical information buried in mundane white paper-style PDFs and bringing it into the digital realm.
“It’s really the project that turned me into a content marketer and set my career on a new path.”
The Magic Wand Wish
Dallion expresses her wish for everyone to understand the time and effort that goes into creative projects. She believes this understanding would level the playing field and help people understand timelines, thus making her job easier. This part of the conversation sets the stage for the discussion about the challenges and intricacies of content creation.
“I think I would give everyone an understanding of how long creative projects actually take and what goes into it.”
The Art of Content Creation
Dallion discusses the process of content creation for the blog. She talks about the initial challenges, such as sourcing topics and questions that would resonate with customers and salespeople. She also shares how they used SEO and other tools like SEMrush and Google Search Console to monitor what was working.
“And then, we were able to start, as we were building the blog, really start measuring like, oh, okay, which of these articles is resonating?”
The Value of Authenticity
Dallion shares her hot take on the production value of content. She believes that if the information is valuable, how highly produced doesn’t matter. She encourages marketers not to let the lack of a video team or budget stop them from creating content. She also discusses the advantage of approaching content creation from a third-party perspective, like a journalist.
“I think that if the information is valuable, if the information’s good and people want to hear it, then it really doesn’t matter how highly produced it is.”
