The science behind producing content that will trigger a future action.

If you’ve heard anyone talk about content marketing and video marketing in a knowledgeable way in the past few years, you’ll know content is not a proper tactic to drive sales directly.

Content is used to build brand equity, trust, connection.

But how can you convince your C-level superior that they should invest in it if it won’t drive sales directly?

This is where the science of content marketing, memorable content, comes in. This is where prospective memory comes in.

Here’s a little test. Answer these three questions as quickly as possible:

1. What continent is Kenya in?
2. What are the two opposing colours in the game of chess?
3. Name any animal.

Did you know that in studies like these, roughly 20% of people answer zebra to the last sentence and about 50% respond with an animal from Africa?

Should you ask that third question without asking the first two, people will answer zebra in about only 1% of cases!

This is how you can approach content production, with the principles of prospective memory in mind. Thinking about that action you want your consumer to do at time B and scripting the content he will watch at time A accordingly.

This is all from a great article published at Branding Strategy Insider. Carmen Simon, PhD, author of “Impossible to Ignore: Creating Memorable Content to Influence Decisions” does an excellent job of giving us the basics on how to produce great, memorable content.

A must read.