While many brands rush to leverage these direct to consumer channels, few have altered their brand narratives and their approach to content creation as they move from paying others to broadcast their brand content to leveraging it themselves for direct consumer engagement.

Despite the existing opportunities, it would seem that few brands — and only a few more of their agencies — have the content, process, and methodologies in place to fully benefit from direct distribution to the audience. The current brand-agency paradigm has been effective in leveraging search and social algorithms for more efficient distribution of “brand” assets, but the efforts stemming from this approach have failed to deliver some critical elements: engagement, efficiency, and scale.

Brands looking to achieve this “holy trinity” of digital effectiveness need to shift their content creation approach even further.

Owned media, redefined

Strategist Jim Cuene recently proposed a state of constant content to help marketers behave as publishers. And the Altimeter Group’s Content: The New Marketing Equation does a great job of illustrating a “path” for brands to follow in rebalancing their marketing efforts, shifting “from push to pull.” In fact, Cuene and Altimeter both reference the need for this shift in their content creation. But what characterizes this shift, and how can CMOs get started when looking to alter the manner in which their organizations influence consumers?

The shift they both reference is to a state of “owned media” — not the narrow, “brand-controlled” definition that seems to be pervasive across many media strategy blogs. Rather, it’s to a state of “media ownership” — a more progressive definition of owned media. By simply flipping the words and adjusting the grammar, we add clarity around the model. Jim Cuene is right. Brands need look no further than many online publishing properties for a model on how to create content using an operational discipline that ultimately leads to better results.

Do you own media?

Does your brand stand to benefit from media ownership? Answer the following questions to assess your brand’s state of media ownership:

• Always-on: Are you publishing content for an audience on a daily basis?
• Editorial: Are you publishing content that an audience needs and shares?
• Independent: Do you own the technology or the platform delivering the content? Do you have the final say in all aspects of the user’s experience?
• Networked: Is the content on your platform optimized for distribution?
• Measured: Are you evaluating how efficiently you are producing media, or the consumption of your content?
• Monetizable: Could your content platform be someone else’s paid media?

If you answered yes to all of the questions above, then congratulations, your content marketing initiative is optimized for better business-building results. If you answered no, then the next step is to assess where your organization is in its journey to operating as a publisher. 

Ownership makes for better content

This assessment of owned media is important because it instills a level of accountability with content creation.

Online publishers operate by exacting principles because they need their audiences to consume, engage, and share the content they produce. Operationally, these publishers need to ensure that their editorial efforts are efficient and yielding high-quality content that resonates with their most important critics — the audience. Their very businesses depend on it. 

Brands want their audience to consume, engage, and share content, as well. By applying the same business acumen in planning and evaluating your audience engagement as any publisher would, brands can effectively achieve the three goals of engagement, efficiency, and scale. Not employing this methodology, in my opinion, is the single biggest reason brands are finding underwhelming results in their current search and social efforts.

Discovering the path

With some brands, asset creation evolves into a content strategy, wherein incremental success can be achieved by delivering the same old brand narrative but doing so with a slightly broader focus on types of content, and through innovative channels such as Facebook and Twitter. But the issues of reach and engagement are not addressed by this approach.

I’ve had brands with significant search and social programs in place confess to me “We’re not getting enough traffic to the website,” and “We have 1 million Facebook fans, but very little engagement.” And, these brands are sustaining the same paid media spend to maintain the necessary share of voice in their respective categories. This is not the kind of efficiency brands are looking for when executing content marketing strategies. 

The good news for brand marketers is that their preliminary efforts in content marketing put them squarely on the path to owned media. It’s within these initial phases of content marketing that brands soon discover how important some level of editorial process is in generating quality content at a faster rate, and at higher volumes. By editorial, I mean the constant process of determining what the audience needs. It’s also at this stage where brands discover how important the investment in a centralized platform is in helping them manage to and optimize content marketing across multiple digital channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

There are several successful, brand-owned media programs that can help guide other brands. Home Made Simple, Nutrition Possible, and The Responsibility Project are all examples of how brands can take an editorial approach to engage the entire audience — not just limited segments of it, which is where most brand marketers seem to focus. This audience-centric approach is paying dividends for these respective brands while amplifying their earned and paid efforts, as well.   This shift to true “always-on” editorial is the biggest challenge most brands will face on the path, but it is critical to creating quality content that audiences prefer, and realizing the full potential of owned media.

Editorial shift

So how do marketers go from content that represents their messages to consumers to content that audiences themselves are looking for? It first requires thinking beyond the brand’s target segments and focusing on understanding the needs of the entire audience in much greater detail. This can be particularly challenging, as marketing operations are almost exclusively geared toward distilling layers of consumer research into one-size-fits-all insights and, consequently, focused messaging. And for good reason — brands don’t have the resources to talk to the entire audience through traditional paid means. But they can accomplish this through the right owned media strategy.

For most brand marketers, becoming more informed editorially simply requires organizing all of the available data around audience behavior to define and understand consumer’s content needs. For example, Man of the House publishes dozens of articles that present unique perspectives on personal grooming — from the best grooming gifts for dad to rationales for getting a manicure. This content might fall outside the focus of brands like Gillette or Art of Shaving, but Man of the House content is informed by extensive consumer research. And by interpolating this existing audience data, Procter & Gamble knows its articles are falling in line with what interests the site’s primary audience (dads), which is likely much larger than the consumer segments Gillette advertises to.

Once this audience editorial analysis is complete, it will continue to guide your brand’s editorial strategy development and help you determine the right level of owned media investment.

Having worked with a multitude of consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketers, I’ve always been somewhat amazed with the sheer depth of consumer knowledge each organization possesses — and equally amazed at how little of this knowledge actually factors into its content creation. When brands take a deeper look at their broader audience, there is always a more detailed set of topical categories to map, and brands should follow this map in creating the content they deliver to this broader audience. The appropriate level of data analysis can help brands chart this map.

Editorial mapping

Beyond existing consumer data, analytics should be used to inform the editorial on an ongoing basis. The resources required to develop and sustain an owned media strategy can usually come from the brand’s existing investment in analytics. But even free resources, such as Google or Compete, can provide a wealth of information — especially if they are used in conjunction with more robust paid tools.

The process for mapping an editorial approach should rely on at least four key data channels:

As the chart illustrates, this process is well informed by analytics and can yield a detailed editorial map of topics that are based on the audience’s preferences. Revisiting our example around Man of the House, these various data sets are advising the editorial focus for the entire grooming channel:

• Google Analytics data is being used to identify the most popular articles, which are then served up at the top of the page to drive further content consumption.
• Google Trends helps to advise on topics that are trending throughout social media,
• Google Adwords is being used to track topic popularity by reviewing search query volume across a host of long-tail keyword phrases related to grooming. 

Lastly, it’s critical that publishers keep track of the competitive space for topics. This article in particular is a great example of observing what is being talked about and joining in the discussion. This editorial map is the foundation of an iterative process that’s always on, and optimized for producing content that gets consumed, creates engagement, and gets distributed.

And, not or

To be clear, the editorial shift required to create owned media impact is not an “or” that could replace another approach. It’s an “and” that supports a brand’s broader marketing strategy. Advertising and other paid media still work, but technology has now made direct distribution to an audience an affordable strategy (with the proper approach).

Regardless of where a brand might be in its use of owned media, it should consider developing an editorial voice that guides sustained content creation to address the needs of its audience that aren’t being met through that brand’s other marketing efforts. 

Want more content marketing inspiration? Download our ultimate eBook with 100 content marketing examples.

That’s right, when you get right down to it, the process of marketing your content draws heavily from the process of marketing your products.

I treat each piece of content Eloqua publishes like a product. Every new asset has a target audience, a list “price” (gated, ungated, hybrid) and an upgrade road map. Most content we publish is supported by a PR push, a direct marketing element, and a media buy. Content that “sells” (is downloaded, shared, liked, commented on) gets more funding; content that doesn’t is retired. Sound familiar? It should. These are the basics of product marketing.

So what lessons can content marketers derive from our counterparts on the product side of the house? Lots. Here are three of the most essential:

Avoid “content in search of an audience”

The best products fill a real need, and the best product marketers collaborate with product management to dissect every element of that need. This process consists of studying analyst reports, interviewing customers, meeting with sales reps, even talking to people who bought a competing product — all with the aim of reducing the likelihood that the company will release the doomed “product in search of a solution.”

There’s a content marketing parallel, particularly as content becomes a service. Before you create your next supercool presentation, infographic, video or eBook, pause to ask yourself why you are creating it. Are you interested in the subject, or is your audience interested? Is it filling a discernable need, or just making noise? If you aren’t sure, vet the idea with customers, dig into long-tail search queries, and scour Q&A sites like Quora for interesting yet unanswered questions. Float a trial balloon on your blog. Just make sure you aren’t publishing content in search of an audience.  

Shorter, fresher, more visual

We’ve all heard it said: “Better, faster, cheaper . . . pick two.” The maxim, which is as old as tech marketing itself, reduces the universe of product benefits to three essentials and acknowledges that the baseline for success is achieving two of the three. Better, faster, cheaper can be repurposed for content marketing.

“Shorter, fresher, more visual . . . pick two,” should be content marketing’s answer to better, faster, cheaper. If the piece of content you aim to publish isn’t more succinctly written, more intelligently designed, and/ or it doesn’t contain a fresher or more unique perspective than what’s already out there, then it’s unlikely to take root. The social web is a crowded place. Make sure to meet at least two of these three criteria if you expect your content to stand out.

Do you have “permission” to publish?

There is a funny storyline in NBC’s hit series, “30 Rock” in which Alec Baldwin’s character, the revenue-obsessed programming honcho for a Podunk cable network, decides the company should manufacture sofas. He implausibly argues it’s a natural fit for a television network to make furniture because viewers sit on furniture while watching TV. 

Baldwin’s absurdist vision for product marketing not only makes for must-watch television, but it also provides a useful lesson for content marketers. While your content shouldn’t necessarily center on your product, it should focus on subjects reasonably connected to your goods or services. Be sure to ask yourself if you have “permission” to create a particular piece of content. Does your organization have the authority required to publish a definitive guide to a topic? Would your followers look to you to make predictions about how a particular industry will change or evolve? In other words, just because you might want to make sofas, it doesn’t mean buyers will consider you to be a credible manufacturer that they would buy from.

Want more content marketing inspiration? Download our ultimate eBook with 100 content marketing examples.

Image via Bigstock

But companies are now left trying to make sense of which ones they should be paying attention to, what they need to be doing in these channels to gain a competitive advantage, and how it all ties into their overall content marketing strategy. 

On today’s rapidly shifting web, it’s essential that companies start to take a more holistic approach to content marketing and connect more effectively with their various stakeholders across a number of web and social channels. This “pressure to extend” has created a new strategic online content life cycle that is imperative when competing on today’s unpredictable social web — especially in light of recent changes in Google search algorithms and how they might affect established SEO strategies. 

The new content life cycle

In a business climate that’s moving at “web speed,” new technologies, media channels, platforms, and social networks continue to pop up and present new challenges for businesses. These demands require a renewed focus on holistic content models, and strategies that scale and optimize the right content to the right channels while measuring its impact. 

This necessitates a shift from the old, linear “Create, Approve, Publish” model of moving content to just the corporate site. Marketers and content owners now require a model that extends in either direction. 

The new content life cycle is, in fact, a virtuous circle: 

• The process, conceivably, starts with planning, before moving into the management phase of content creation.
• From there, content still needs to be created, approved, and published, of course, but our jobs do not end there.
• Once published, the value of that content needs to be measured and (based on that measurement) further optimized.
• Of course, the strategy will likely need to be adjusted based on the relative success (or failure) of that content against its original goal, before being fed back into the planning process for the next wave of content. 

Once a plan like this is put in place, there is no longer a beginning or an end to the content life cycle. Of course, a particular piece of content has to start somewhere, but the overall content strategy needs to be constantly in motion.

Although the corporate website remains critical for establishing a strong, recognizable brand, as we move forward, the process of creating meaningful and engaging conversations across the social channels where your constituents are interacting has a growing impact on whether or not you will achieve your business goals. 

Content strategy in action

Lancaster Bible College (LBC) is an example of an organization that is thinking about its content strategy in ways that will increase business results. When you consider the staggering number of colleges and universities on the web, recruiting efforts can be challenging for a small, faith-based college in Lancaster, Pa. To remain competitive and ensure that prospective students are attracted to the school, it’s crucial for LBC’s marketing team to have control over the delivery of fresh, timely, and interactive content that they can push through the content life cycle and make accessible across various web channels.

LBC’s old web content system had many limitations that prevented the school from powering content quickly to its site and building a presence in the social channels populated with prospective students. LBC needed to revamp its content life cycle and empower content owners to react nimbly to the rapid changes of the web. By empowering the marketing arm of the organization with new web content management technology that removed the historical content bottlenecks, LBC’s marketing department and administrators can now create new content and publish it instantaneously without IT involvement.

LBC has extended its content ownership to more people at the school, enabling them to stay timely and competitive, while removing its reliance on limited IT specialists and/or outside consulting services to publish and make changes to the site. 

LBC is capitalizing on this new strategic approach to marketing on the web by streamlining many of the costly and time consuming phases of the content life cycle, and focusing on what matters most — creating meaningful and relevant content to broaden its online reach, enrich social engagement, and improve business results. 

Four content imperatives for the new content reality

As we awaken to the new realities of content, here are four ways to rethink your content execution, and take advantage of the new content life cycle. 

1. Structure your content marketing strategy as a holistic system that allows you to connect more effectively with various stakeholders across a number of social channels, drive conversation, and influence customers. 

2. Open up content contribution to more users across the organization, providing more opportunities to connect with and engage customers in social channels, and extend your online reach. Be sure to remove any technology or process roadblocks that inhibit the expansion of your contributor pool — the more people who are able to contribute easily, the more content you will have to push across your channels. 

3. Deliver fresh, compelling and timely content that engages users and keeps visitors returning to your site, and then be sure to extend that content into your social channels. It’s no longer required to use your corporate sites as the centralized point of engagement; push your content out to the edge of the network and transform your website so that it serves as another node on that network. 

4. Be sure you are listening to the online conversations of your target audience, and optimize your content and content strategy based on the insights you gather from them. Set goals for expected outcomes with your content, just as you would with a traditional marketing campaign, and track and measure the results fervently. To complete the cycle, constantly test new ideas, and dump what doesn’t work while further optimizing what is working. 

If your organization is still questioning whether you should be doing more on the social web, it’s time to step back and look at your content life cycle through this new strategic lens. As more companies start to adopt a more holistic approach to their content marketing strategies — by ensuring delivery of rich and engaging content on both their site and to social channels — they will drive results, and be better equipped to handle whatever comes next on the web.

Taking even one of these four simple steps outlined above will better position your content and instantly make your content strategy more valuable. But don’t wait to get started! The faster you get rolling, the faster you will start to see results.

Want more content marketing inspiration? Download our ultimate eBook with 100 content marketing examples.

At Technically Media, we’ve helped museums, non-profits, and others develop blog editorial strategies from scratch. To share an idea of our approach, we point to brands and organizations that have implemented the delivery of useful, original content to their customers. These include American Express’s OPEN Forum, which provides small business advice; KISSmetrics, which offers tips on using its product; and OKCupid, which shows off findings from its treasure trove of data.

Your organization can become a content publishing thought leader. But, as we know from experience, an editorial strategy is harder to implement than it appears on the surface.

In the last year, we’ve worked with our friends at the National Constitution Center, a non-partisan museum based in Philadelphia, to develop Constitution Daily, a daily news and analysis publication that is helping the Center establish itself as the leading authority on constitutional issues.

Since then, we’ve identified 10 actionable steps to create a successful blog editorial strategy that goes beyond traditional press releases and company news. A solid editorial strategy can cultivate a captive audience — and help your business convert them into paying customers and donors.

1. Start with executive buy in

Ideally, this occurs before any project is kicked off. A smart executive knows that blog editorial strategy is an investment that often does not produce immediate results. Make sure executives understand the timetable for success and can convey the strategy’s long-term importance to staff. The entire organization should be able to answer the question, “Why should we have a blog?”

2. Define an audience

Much like web designers establish a scope of features for a new website, creating a successful editorial strategy requires a clearly defined audience. Define whether the blog’s audience is already being reached or is aspirational, then create user personas and define what actions constitute a successful conversion for your organization. For some businesses it will be as simple as a newsletter sign-up; others may consider a purchase a successful conversion. Be honest with your audience personas — reaching baby boomers in the Midwest may be more difficult than targeting connected technologists in the Northeast, if measured by the scale of population and its percentage of internet users. Measure success accordingly; all the page views in the world won’t matter much if you’re reaching the wrong audience for your products and services.

3.  Establish an editor-in-chief, who has the authority to publish without oversight

To paraphrase Truman, the buck has to stop somewhere. There needs to be a single editor who can assign blog posts, manage contributor relationships, and market output. In the museum world, exhibit designers often process content through several rounds of edits before it is seen by the public. Online content, however, necessitates a faster turnaround. Make sure content can be posted in a matter of hours and not days. Having a single point of contact simplifies the workflow and lets your staff content experts focus on what they do best: writing.

4. Analyze where content exists already

If you look hard enough, most organizations already have assets that can be made into compelling online content. This was especially true in the case of the National Constitution Center. The Center has a stable of constitutional experts, years of collected exhibit artifacts, and holds special events frequently. We encouraged the organization to incorporate Constitution Daily into its existing, everyday workflow. With some guidance from an editor-in-chief, an organization such as the Constitution Center can quickly transition and reuse exhibit display text. Or, it could use a digital camera to record short, unedited, and off-the-cuff interviews with event participants, which can drive interest with little operational overhead required.

5.  Create post types and templates

Whether with top 10 lists, case studies, or interviews, it’s important to establish a handful of compelling content formats that your organization can create. Working with an editorial strategist who understands online media can help you establish tried-and-true methods for determining what types of content will work best for your business and provide you with examples of successful standards.

6. Write a handful of “evergreen” information resources

Before you launch your publication, you have the benefit of time. Once the ball is rolling, however, it’s easy to get caught up in the weekly cycle of needing enough content. Take the opportunity early on to write several well-researched “evergreen” posts — content that lives on outside of the news cycle and trends — which you can optimize for online searches that you anticipate your audience will conduct. To help you determine the most appropriate keywords to use in an evergreen post, use Google’s AdWords keyword research tool and select a few relevant terms that have a good balance of search volume and competition. If a tidal wave of content has already been written about the Second Amendment, for example, where it’s harder to compete because of sheer volume, maybe there are niche topics unique to your organization where you can provide incredible value. Try to include these search phrases in your headlines.

7.  Develop a content marketing plan

Taking the phrase “content marketing” quite literally, once you write posts, how are you promoting them? Do you have a social media strategy for your blog? Does your company have an existing newsletter you can use to distribute your content? Will your blog posts appear on your site’s homepage? To further this goal, make sure your editor is building relationships with internal stakeholders, as well as external experts in your field, so you have a network of people who can help give your new content some extra audience attention.

8. Court guest contributors

For many businesses, building a “content department” is not an option. Depending on your brand, it’s often easier to court guest contributors than to do all the work in-house.

For Constitution Daily, we reached out to law schools, professors, secondary educators, and guests of the Center to contribute to its blog — often done in conjunction with an author’s promotional tour. Think of your blog as a late night talk show: Offer your guest author an opportunity to contribute a story in exchange for a brief promo at the end of the post. Everybody wins.

9. Have an editorial calendar

It’s never fun to scramble to post to the company blog “just to have something.” Avoid last-minute scrambles by planning out your content for several weeks in advance. For Constitution Daily, we often post about civic holidays like Martin Luther King Day or anniversaries like the repeal of the 18th Amendment. This allows us to keep the site active with quality content, and enables our content team to be more flexible when current events need to be covered.

10. Measure and adjust

Once you have a content marketing plan, a stable of guest contributors, and post types set, test and adjust your strategy using tools like Google Analytics or KISSmetrics. Keeping a close eye on the numbers will allow you to make educated decisions and help frame the growth of your blog to executives. Just don’t get too caught up in the data and lose sight of the big picture.

As a good content marketing best practice, we’ve put together the highlights of the presentation below, along with the downloadable SlideShare version. 

Is content marketing required for professional services companies?

“Technology is shifting the power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people who are in control.” –Rupert Murdoch

In the past, there were barriers to entry for any non-media company, let alone paid consultants or professional services companies, to get traction from its content marketing. These were:

1. Death of the intermediary: Although media placement and coverage can still be incredibly effective, it is no longer necessary. We can now communicate directly with our customers and prospects, if we have compelling and relevant information to share with them (can you say opt-in?).
2. Access to talent: In the very recent past, it was challenging for professional services companies to attract the kind of journalistic talent necessary to create and distribute truly remarkable content marketing. That is no longer the case. More and more journalists are making the leap over to the dark side (non-media side) where, frankly put, more resources and opportunities present themselves for great content creators.
3. Viable technology: You, me, and the sign post can all create a blog in five seconds or less. Social media channels abound for publishing purposes. Marketing automation services are available to all. There are no more excuses.

The recognition that we are media companies

Professional services companies need to realize that they are in competition with not only other consultants in your space, but also media companies in your industry, Google, and the billboard down the street. That means we need to develop and distribute content that is as good or better than anything else in our industry to attract and retain customers.

So, we are indeed all publishers today.

There is only one thing that separates the content developed by a media company and content developed by brands like Intel, John Deere, or LEGO: How the money comes in.

For a media company, content is created in order to make money directly off the creation of content through paid content sales (direct purchase of content) or advertising sales (someone sponsors the content that is created, like we see in newspapers and magazines).

For a non-media company, content is created not to profit directly from the content, but, rather, indirectly by attracting and retaining customers.

In all other respects, the content creation activities in both types of companies are generally the same. Both needs to be authentic and credible. This is important to realize, in that non-media brands are competing with traditional media for attention and retention, just like you compete with the other businesses in your field.

The three-legged success stool

In order to be found in search engines, to drive inbound leads for your organization, and to be successful with your social media strategy, you need remarkable storytelling. Simply put, your content marketing strategy must come before your social media strategy. 

You would think since more professional services companies are realizing this, and that the barriers to entry are gone, that content marketing success stories for professional services companies would abound. Unfortunately (or fortunately), most paid consultants and services companies now realize that content marketing is really hard.

Recent Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs research shows us that the biggest content marketing challenge for B2B marketers is developing content that truly engages customers and prospects. 

For this strategy to work, it takes patience, commitment, and excellence at the craft. Professional services companies need to shift their thinking and realize that, in order to be the leading experts in their industry and get online referrals, they need to be creating consistent, valuable, and compelling content.

The Content Marketing Institute story

Although we do offer some paid sponsorship opportunities as part of the Institute and our premier event, Content Marketing World, the majority of our online leads come in for our consulting practice, headed by Robert Rose.

In our session, Jay called this strategy a “Trojan Horse Effect”, where we look and feel like a media company, all to generate interest around the consulting practice. Jay may indeed be right.

Since launching CMI in May of 2010, we now average nearly 100,000 unique visitors a month on our sites. We have over 70 active content contributors to CMI, producing two posts per day around “how-to” content marketing as well as content marketing news. Over the past three months, we’ve received dozens of qualified inbound leads into our consulting division, six of which are Fortune 500 companies. 

Partial Google Analytics Chart with Referrals Showing for Content Marketing Institute

The best part is that these companies come to us ready to buy, and our sales cycle has dropped, in some cases, to just a few days.

6 concerns/myths about consultant’s content marketing

But while our belief is that giving away your knowledge (as much as possible) leads to substantially more opportunities, how far should a professional services company or paid consultant open the Kimono? Let’s discuss.

1. My clients don’t consume online content: We hear this all the time. A paid consultant will say that they target CEOs, who don’t use search engines or social media. Recent Google research tells us that the average consumer engages in over 10 sources of information before making a buying decision. Also, according to research from Doremus and the Financial Times, over 60 percent of senior executives read blogs, watch online video, view webcasts, and use professional networking sites like LinkedIn.
2. We don’t have time to create content: Online content marketing is the ultimate informational annuity. For example, Jay shared his statistics on just one post on social media strategy he created almost three years ago. The post still attracts an average of 300 people per day (to just that one post) and has led to multiple pieces of business for Jay. 
3. We can just do social media, we don’t need content: Jay’s Content Marketing Necessity Scale says it all. If people are already talking about you online in the right places, you don’t need as much original content as those that aren’t yet invited to the party. Frankly, if you want to be shared and talked about in social media, you need some amazing content to make your social media go. As Jay says, “Content is fire. Social media is gasoline.“
4. We can just do a blog: Today, a blog is just a ticket to the ball game. Sixty-five percent of B2B companies have blogs today (according to CMI and MarketingProfs research). In order to be the leading expert for your industry, you need to take story ideas and adapt them to channels, like blowing a dandelion in the wind. For example, with the Content Marketing Playbook, although the eBook was the main content product, we produced a SlideShare version, multiple podcasts, multiple blog posts, a news release, an enewsletter version, snippets in our print magazine, Chief Content Officer, guest blogs, promotions on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and more.
5. We’ll give away all our secret sauce: Contrary to what some people believe, a prospect doesn’t read one blog post and buys on the spot. Through our content, we develop attention, then interest, then action. So you’ve got to work it by solving the pain points of your customers. Yes, you may give away your secrets, but having a grocery list doesn’t make you a chef. Those customers that want to take your advice and do it themselves?… fine. Those are not the kind of customers you want. What you need to do is show your expertise and insight, and have smart executives recognize your talent. 
6. We shouldn’t talk about price in our content: Jay and I call this the Marcus Sheridan effect. Marcus is owner of River Pools and Spas and is now a prominent marketing speaker and consultant. Marcus was able to sell more fiberglass swimming pools than anyone in the country by sharing everything, including specifics on price. Just type in anything around pricing and fiberglass pools into Google… Marcus always comes up and dominates the search rankings. This same philosophy has also worked in his marketing practice. If you can’t talk specific pricing, at least talk about the dynamics that go into pricing. This is your competitive advantage waiting to happen.

4 things to know before you dive into content marketing

1. Know your niche: Where can you be the leading expert in the world for your specific buyers? It’s better to go smaller and broaden out once you dominate your niche. Think as if you were a trade magazine. Vertical is in, horizontal is out.
2. Know your audience: Jay’s practice targets the social media practitioner, and has truly focused on this with this Social Pros podcast series. He doesn’t want all people interested in social media, just practitioners. It’s an important distinction. The same goes for OpenView Venture Partners [disclaimer: I am an advisor], who is targeting successful technology entrepreneurs looking for capital to grow, not just any entrepreneur. 
3. Know your budget: Just read this budget and content marketing investment post for agencies from Jay. Enough said. 
4. Know your metrics: Here are the four key metrics for agencies, as well as a content marketing ROI analysis considering the three kinds of measurement indicators for your business.

Thanks again to everyone who came to the presentation. Here are the slides below to pass around at your discretion.

A consistent transmedia content strategy will not only help facilitate stronger and more meaningful connections with your customers, but it can also significantly extend the value of your content and amplify its overall impact.

While the best practices for content strategy are still evolving, there are steps you can take now to implement an effective transmedia content agenda that can be updated as content marketing practices continue to take shape.

Here are a few tips to consider as you get started:

1. Establish content strategy as a practice and discipline in your organization

While companies are starting to hire “content strategists,” the discipline of “content” itself is still evolving, and its practices vary — even the very definition of “content” is still under debate. Content can be audio, video, a logo, words, pictures, a button, meta data, tags, a tweet — anything that conveys meaning to spur action to achieve business goals. Or, said in another way, content is anything that is at the core of what makes and supports meaningful, interactive experiences.

Establishing a content strategy practice begins with a universally understood and accepted definition, so that it can be applied consistently to all your company’s efforts. Content strategy may very well exist in your organization already (even if it’s not defined as such). But establishing a universal company perspective, focus, and definition right from the start will help rally the troops to produce more unified and consistent efforts. Elevating its relative importance as a means to reach overall company brand and marketing goals is critical to gain the required support, buy-in, and participation for your efforts.

After you’ve defined what content means for your brand, your next step is to outline a process and methodology to standardize content development across your company. This will help bring clarity and drive the creation of more effective solutions.

How you go about this will vary depending on the nature of your business and how the organization is currently aligned around content, but it’s imperative that you start with one key concept:

2. Connect your content efforts to existing brand and/or marketing goals

To be consistent, your content strategy must evolve from the core, centralized, and overarching brand and/or marketing priorities that your company has in place. A consistent transmedia content strategy is not just about making sure you have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a website, a mobile strategy, a URL in your TV commercial or print ad, and so forth. It’s a common error that companies can integrate a content program by tacking on platforms or channels, or idly placing links across the web.

Forging a content strategy that flows through and supports your overall brand/marketing strategy will not only facilitate consistency but also helps encourage seamless integration. Furthermore, it will reveal superficial connections and identify wasteful or misguided content executions to help craft more productive solutions moving forward.

To make this actionable when developing your content strategy, ask yourself a few key questions:

• Are your content ideas consistent with your current brand personas and marketing goals?
• How will your content fit into, support, and advance your overall marketing strategy?
• Are your messages on brand?

Also look to develop content guidelines (much like brand guidelines) and style guides to help facilitate, guide, and direct future efforts for all your team members in content and marketing, so that your efforts will all speak to your overall branding and outreach goals.

3. Identify, analyze, and prioritize

Know what assets you have at your disposal, and what additional resources or materials you will need to do the job right. More often than not the work involved in content strategy development and deployment spans an entire organization, so it can require participation from multiple, cross-functional teams — even those that may not always be obvious.

For example, content can come out of IT, PR, marketing, advertising, and other departments or practices within an organization. So it’s important to determine, in advance, who is responsible for developing your mobile strategy, your SEO, your social media communications, your advertising efforts, and your website, and bring them in on your content strategy meetings and brainstorms. Many organizations haven’t yet taken this global view of the materials that already exist or have been planned. Consistent guidelines, processes, and methodology cannot exist in a vacuum, so it’s essential that you identify existing content, analyze its potential effectiveness, evaluate the quality, and map its importance and effectiveness to company objectives before developing new content.

And it all starts by performing an overall audit and analysis of existing content.

An audit of existing content will not only help fuel your content strategy but will also help identify content sourcing resources and opportunities to maximize those resources. Consider how content might be redistributed and/or repurposed in other channels of delivery. Look to identify and mark content life cycles to create a system and processes that govern the development and management of content. Putting these processes and systems in place will help support consistency later on, as you execute on the content strategy you develop. 

4. Make content findable, distributable, and extendable

While consistency in message, form, and voice is borne from connecting to overarching strategies, process, and practice guidelines, it is at the media consumption level where you get to truly savor the impact. So once you have your content, you need to determine where you will distribute it, how you will make it findable by your consumers, and how you will enable those consumers to share it across their networks.

The rapid growth of multi-platform media consumption and the rise in media audience fragmentation underscore the importance of understanding where and how our customers are consuming content. Most media strategies transverse platforms and channels to include both paid and earned media — including user-generated content. Your customers are seeking your content, distributing and sharing it as well as creating their own content that relates to your brand, so a consistent transmedia strategy may require you to modify or create new content so that it can be found, consumed, and shared across platforms. 

Top brands, like in the Black & Decker example above, encourage and enable transmedia participation in their content campaigns. Even coupons, such as the ones offered by Airborne (below), can be re-purposed on platforms such as Facebook to help drive engagement, sharing, and email sign-ups. While some of these considerations lie more in the execution phase of content development, understanding where and how to implement your content strategy — and figuring out how everything will work together — will feed and inform your entire strategic process. 

Did it work?

Even after you have your core content plan laid out, there’s still the very important consideration of measurement. A comprehensive transmedia strategy needs to establish the success metrics that will tie back to your overall goals, ensure effective consistency, and validate the results of your efforts.

Make sure you build in checks and balances, set benchmarks, and be prepared to apply a number of different measurement scenarios and tests to help you gauge how well your content efforts performed. Some common measurement guidelines you can use include:

• conversion rates
• engagement rates
• new customer acquisition rates
• cost per sale calculations
• earned impressions
• changes in the number of “shares” your content generates

To be sure there are a number of different ways to approach developing a consistent, transmedia strategy. Use the tips and approaches outlined here as thought starters and actionable insights that can help you advance and elevate your efforts. If you have additional ideas for maintaining consistency and quality across your multi-platform content efforts, we would love to hear from you in the comments. 

This blog introduces the concept of the digital ocean and the need to locate and market to both fishers (those actively researching products/services) and swimmers (those who are just “hanging out” online, rather than actively seeking out your information).

Most likely, we are all beyond the trial-and-error phase of digital and have realized that an intelligent, synchronized, and aligned plan is needed to maximize our digital investment. We know that every content plan needs to start with a prime objective. For example, in the B2C world, it may be to collect marketable contacts (via a coupon or offer); for B2B, it may be to generate leads with a primary call-to-action of a signup for an online trial.

So the next challenge is how to stay on course with your targeted audience. This is where the analogy of the “digital ocean” can be helpful.

Think of the ocean as representing all the possible online channels and locations (e.g., search, websites, blogs, social communities, ads, articles, email, text, etc.) where your audience can be reached. Now, consider whether you are trying to reach targets who are actively looking for a product, service, or offer like yours (fishers), or those who aren’t actively looking but may respond to a discussion, or an ad, or a blog if it’s related to their interests (swimmers), or both.

Drop your anchor, and choose your bait

Take a look at the graphic below:  

The digital ocean — a B2B example.

If your audience is ready to go fishing, your job is to know where to go to catch them, and how to lure them toward you.

Ask yourself what digital mechanisms and places they would rely on to identify, research, and evaluate their choices. What is the likely journey they would take on the way to selecting your product, service, or offering?

Then, you need to create the appropriate fishing bait — comprising content, search results, and outbound campaigns — to attain consideration. The content and tactics you use here should focus on drawing attention and demonstrating your expertise, such as case studies, white papers, and product demos (you can see some additional content suggestions in the graphic).

However, the tactics used to attract swimmers can be very different — they need to be more educational and less promotional. Social media plays a bigger role here, as that is where your target audience “hangs out” and engages with people and content on their interests. With swimmers, creating or engaging in conversations is a natural fit as a content tactic, as it lets you add value and insight without being overly promotional. Advertising on social and industry sites using pinpoint profiling and targeting is usually possible and worthwhile.

Search keywords can also differ depending on whether your audience is fishing or swimming. Fishers tend to connect with more action- and competition-oriented search terms that are aimed at a product or service type (e.g., the cheapest airline ticket to London, the best performing mutual fund, etc.), where swimmers are usually more interested in education and discovering information that is related to their topic of interest (e.g., mortgage industry best practices, groups that discuss diabetes).

The digital ocean — a B2B example.

To work on this concept yourself, try printing and filling in the worksheet above to help you identify locations and search terms based on the intent of your target audience. (While this worksheet was designed for B2B, the concepts still apply to B2C content marketing.)

Research for your worksheet

You may already have conducted research on the digital locations and behavior of your target markets, which should make this task easier. You could regard this task as creating a persona with split personalities, one when seeking products/services and the other when interacting online without a purchase intention. If you do not have any data from prior research, there are a number of ways to approach this depending on your budget and timeframe. I have worked with companies who have brought in an agency to conduct a complete target market analysis, where other companies have leveraged a social listening service. You could survey your existing customers, or send this worksheet out to a selection of your own employees who spend time interacting in your digital ocean.

Once you have completed the worksheet, make sure that your content marketing efforts are focused on the search keywords and tactics that are most likely to drive engagement and response. Make sure your SEO practices mirror the intention of the audience, so that your content matches their requirements and desires. If you are marketing towards both swimmers and fishers, ensure your content, keywords, and tags include both names of and uses for your products/services. For example, a manufacturer who sells chemicals or plastics needs to include keywords for product names/categories such as “dibenzylamino ethyl acetate” or “performance polymers,” as well as more solution/fishing oriented keywords such as “top performing wiper blades” or “liquid polymer case studies.” Put yourself in the shoes of the potential customer to determine both the journey you would take toward a business relationship, and the keywords/content of value along the way.

I often see excellent content fail to reach its goals because it doesn’t align with the audience’s timing and intentions. So at the very least, the digital ocean worksheet activity can help you conduct a gut check on your digital- and content marketing-mapping efforts.

Image courtesy of Rosemary McCartney

In the past few months, we’ve conducted numerous interviews with marketers in order to understand their vision of content marketing. We also studied the expectations of consumers to get their points of view. Based on what we found, we wanted to share some of our ideas for making better content planning a more understandable and achievable goal.

Content marketing’s objectives

To get started, focus on your content strategy’s objectives. We’ve found four main objectives for using a content strategy to create value for your company:

• Make yourself known as an expert in your sector. Relevant and strong content reinforces your company’s positioning. Show that you follow the trends, read interesting articles, and launch innovative campaigns. Content marketing is not just about content creation but also well-executed curation. By sharing useful articles on topics that are relevant to your industry, you show the world that you are up to speed on the latest insight, and by commenting on blogs of other experts, you can further extend the reach of your own expertise. Get your name out there, and others will begin to view you as an expert. As a result, your company’s general renown will increase.
• Maintain a positive relationship with your customers. Sharing your content regularly will keep your clients and consumers in continuous touch with your brand. It’s best not to bother them with offers or discounts, but rather to offer them something that will add value. For example, if you work in the research business, offer your audience research results they can use in their business plans instead of promoting your newest methodology. Once you are known for the value you provide, you can launch more promotion-driven efforts once in awhile without turning your audience off. (We recommend a 95 percent/5 percent split, as discussed in Matthijs van den Broek’s blog post on the content curation sweet spot.) 
• Get new customers. If the content you share with existing customers and fans is strong enough, they will share it with their friends and business contacts. In turn, this helps your company get in touch with new leads. The relevant content you provide can generate interest and encourage them to get to know your company better.
• Increase your reach on social media platforms. Just as in the point above, good content will also help you extend your reach across social media sites. A wider reach makes it easier for you to realize the other three objectives, as well.

How do you get started?

The world is swamped with information, so it is extremely important to make the content you offer relevant to your intended audience. Furthermore, the choice of the topics you focus on can largely determine how successful your content will be. In order to make good decisions, you will need to conduct an internal analysis of your company’s strengths (what is your company good at, and what makes it different than other companies), as well as an external analysis to determine what subjects interest your audience.

To start, think about what topics your company can offer unique content in. This content needs to be in line with the company culture and vision, obviously. It is sensible to think about your top areas of expertise and where you are unique in your market.

For example, Coca-Cola claimed happiness as a theme. Without content marketing behind it, it feels a little strange that a soft drink can provide happiness. In the last few years, Coca-Cola began executing acts — like The Happiness Machine — to make happiness tangible. By creating content about what happiness means, Coca-Cola claimed the theme, and made it relevant to its target market.

Secondly, investigate the market’s needs. Find out what topics your target group is looking for more information on. There are different ways to do this. For example, you can monitor online conversations and see what people are talking about. You can also organize research to measure all current conversations and see what information is missing to determine potential opportunities. Finally, Google offers tools that help you see which search terms score high for your industry. By making these analyses, you can get a clearer view of what the market desires.

Once you have combined the internal (level of uniqueness) and external (what people are looking for) dimensions for your content efforts, you will find that most of your ideas fall into four categories:

• Focus topics: These are topics on which the market is looking for information, but competitors are not offering satisfactory solutions for or sufficient information on. Content in this area will work best to help your company make a difference. Sixty percent of your content should be dedicated to coverage in this category.
• Competitive topics: Once in awhile, it is necessary to create content that the market is asking for, but that is not unique to your company’s experience. Take into account that competitors will also write about these topics, so limit your efforts in these areas to 25 percent of your total content.
• Niche topics: These are topics that may interest fewer people, but that your company has a unique perspective on. Even if some of your content is only relevant to a smaller group of customers, if you have a unique story to tell it’s worthwhile to cover these topics to help foster trust and build more loyal interest from an often-overlooked part of your clientele. For example, for a company in food service, there might be a small part of the audience that is interested in the origins of the foods they sell. Content on the production process or on the geographic location where the food originated would be considered a niche topic in this market. Invest 15 percent of your content efforts toward addressing information in this category.
• Topics to avoid: Don’t waste time and money creating content on topics that your company doesn’t have a unique perspective on or that aren’t likely to generate much interest in your business. Naturally, none of your content should fall into this category.

Planning your content around the three content levels

After determining your topics, the next step is to effectively plan the specific types of content you will create. When doing this, your ideas can be divided into three levels: content updates, content projects, and content campaigns.

• Updates: Updates are short messages sent on a regularly scheduled basis. For updates, it’s best to use a combination of formal content (company data, news, hiring information, etc.) and informal content (company culture information, employee updates, etc.). These are small “pinpricks” of content that will keep employees informed about what’s happening at your company.

Updates are shared mainly via social media, and work well to keep your company at the top of your customers’ minds. For example, an update can consist of a daily blog post, a Facebook update, or several messages on Twitter. Frequent updates are more likely to drive up your audience numbers, so make sure the schedule you set for updating your content is manageable on a long-term basis.

• Project outreach: Projects involve activities that will provide value over a longer period of time and are usually created around a given theme. An example of a project could be Christmas-themed outreach (if that time of year is relevant for your company), the ongoing activities of a new department you’ve launched, data from an important survey you’ve conducted, or details on a major customer event.

Typically, a project outreach cycle will last for a few weeks and will speak to one specific company objective (the type of content you choose to create will be determined by this objective). For example, white papers, webinars, or PowerPoint presentations are projects you can build content on.

Here, information is mainly shared via online channels and can be supported by other media. For example, during the project weeks, a company can publish a series of posts on its own blog, or distribute them through related industry blogs. Then, these posts can be further highlighted by posting brief daily updates (created, as well as curated) on your social media platforms.

• Campaigns: Campaigns are similar to projects but are shorter in duration and more intense. Campaign content creates an awareness of the company or is used to spread information around important company news,, such as a product launch. A good campaign will also trigger conversations about the brand.

Campaigns are often supported by offline media, which can be used to drive a short-term result (usually renown and sales). But above and beyond your choice of media, it is important to make sure that the content you share through offline channels is also conversation worthy. Through your campaign content, you should see a strong growth in short-term reach. Remember, campaigns are the most labor-intensive of the three content levels, and are, therefore, the most expensive — use them meticulously, and at the right moment of your sales cycle!

This approach and the three levels we’ve defined as content streams don’t constitute an exact science — they are only guidelines. But they can be used as the foundation of your own content planning, depending on your objectives. Dividing your content creation efforts into these three content sections will help to ensure a gradual increase in reach and engagement.

If you are interested in learning more about the content marketing insight that we distilled from our studies, you can download the full paper through the SlideShare link below.

SLIDESHARE
http://www.slideshare.net/stevenvanbelleghem/a-six-step-content-marketing-model

Outreach is an important part of any content marketing campaign, but even a robust outreach strategy can have lackluster results if it is simply tacked on at the end of a campaign. Instead, you need to embed outreach into your marketing strategy every step of the way.

Here, we’ll take you through some best practices for integrating outreach considerations right from the start of your content marketing strategy. We’re using an infographic as our content example, but keep in mind that this process can be applied to most forms of content creation — from articles to apps and more.

Traditional content marketing campaigns

A typical marketing campaign for an infographic consists of (roughly) the following phases:

1. The content brainstorm: You and your team start coming up with ideas for an infographic.
2. Content research: Data is gathered, and your team’s concept is finalized.
3. Content creation: The idea and content are handed over to the designer.
4. Content outreach: You launch your work and reach out to third parties to help you promote the content.
5. Content tracking: You follow up on your launch efforts and measure how successfully your content performed.

If you only start thinking about your audience at Step 4 of your creation process (as in the phases above), you’ve already missed some key opportunities to connect your content with your audience.

How to embed outreach into every step of your strategy

1. The content brainstorm

Why outreach planning makes sense here: If your primary purpose for developing an infographic is to attract a lot of visitors and/or gain a lot of links, it makes sense to have a clear picture of your target audience before you even start brainstorming.

What you should be doing: Make sure there’s someone on your team who understands the internet and knows what messages spread easily. Think about who is most likely to be engaged, and build a profile of them — where do they spend time online, what are their interests, and what do they value (humor, transparency, freshness, etc.)? If you do not have someone on your team experienced in outreach, consider using market research to get to know your audience better.

As you brainstorm, check your ideas off against these user profiles, and either eliminate or tweak any that wouldn’t be appealing. Be tough — it can be hard to ditch an idea you love, even if it doesn’t fit your audience.

You can also estimate how far your infographic will spread based on your user profiles. For example, if you are working with a niche topic, either confirm that your client/boss will be happy with a small but focused reach, or come up with ideas that can broaden the scope of your subject matter.

A tip from the pros: Anything that is cause-based usually does well (e.g., the environment, poverty, and animal welfare subject matter). The reason? People want to spread the word in order to affect change.

2. Content research

Why outreach planning makes sense here: With an idea in place and a profile of your audience developed, gathering data that speaks to your outreach targets is essential in ensuring your project is a success. If you gather data that alienates readers, your efforts will have been for naught.

What you should be doing: Consider what you know about your audience: What do they tend to write about? Are resources and credibility important to them? Do they prefer information that is funny or information that is to the point?. Apply these questions to the data and only use the information which results in positive responses.

A tip from the pros: Have a third party review your data to get honest feedback. Have them pick apart the data and ask tough questions, no matter how minute their concerns may be. Thinking about your content from all angles and covering your bases ahead of time will effectively help pave the way for the outreach phase and prepare you for any curveball thrown your way.

You may also want to test your outreach plans on the people who were sources for your data. This is a form of egobait, in which you build relationships with the people who helped build the infographic in hopes of getting coverage for your piece on their sites.

3. Content creation

Why outreach planning makes sense here: There are many approaches you can take to present information in an infographic, from fun to no-nonsense. A businessperson is not going to share something that looks unprofessional with peers, no matter how engaging the content, so you’ll want to keep your audience in mind as you develop the look and feel of your content — including your design, tone, and voice.

What you should be doing: Use your audience profiles to create a brief style guide for your infographic. Consider reaching out to a few people that fit within your audience and use their feedback to help you edit and perfect your project. This phase can also create a bit of buzz.

A tip from the pros: Determine whether you’re presenting this content in the right way. For example, infographics are fun but expensive and they work best for presenting data-heavy information that is more digestible in a visual format. If your source material doesn’t fit that description (i.e., you find your infographic is essentially blocks of text telling a story), you’ll get a better ROI if you go with something simpler, like a data-rich article.

4. Content outreach

Why outreach planning makes sense here: This one’s obvious! You need to conduct outreach so that people know about your project. You want to acquire new traffic or linkbacks. So if you only post your content on your own website, only your current audience will see it.

What you should be doing: Use as many different tools and methods as you can to source prospective contacts. For example, use advanced queries to find bloggers who are discussing your project topic. You should also use social media platforms to find people who are talking about your infographic. For example, maybe people are tweeting about your content, but aren’t hosting it on their sites. Reach out to them and ask them to host it. Remember, using your infographic’s organic social success will help you find new leads and develop creative ideas for getting more coverage.

A tip from the pros: Make your audience’s lives as easy as possible — it will greatly increase your conversions. For example, you can give contacts an embed code so they can easily post your infographic on their websites and social profiles, and even suggest some intro copy, if appropriate.

5. Content tracking

Why outreach planning makes sense here: There is no point in just watching from the sidelines as your infographic gets going online. If you know your audience well (which you should by now), you’ll be well positioned to get involved and push it a bit harder in the right places.

What you should be doing: Keep an up-to-date record of who you’ve reached out to during your launch, and make sure to follow up with anyone who hasn’t responded. Use language that’s appropriate to your profiles and, if the situation is right, consider picking up the phone instead of emailing.

A tip from the pros: If after all your attempts you still do not succeed in getting coverage from a specific contact, ask them for constructive feedback on why they aren’t interested. This will help you better understand your audience and hopefully create more successful projects down the road! 

What’s fascinating about Coca-Cola’s foray into content marketing isn’t just that a beverage producer has recognized the value of using content to engage its audience. Coca-Cola has actually produced two videos (see videos below) that outline the reason for this new initiative and how it plans to execute its plan. And B2B marketers can learn three important lessons from this.

Lesson 1: Define a content strategy aligned with corporate objectives

Coca-Cola didn’t just jump on the content marketing bandwagon for the heck of it. First, it defined a strategic corporate goal of doubling the size of its business. Then it studied its target audience, the marketplace, and the latest marketing trends, and identified an opportunity in the mix.

Coca-Cola had seen three shifts in the marketplace and marketing:

• Consumer behaviors are changing online
• Companies can’t separate their messages from “technology” and social networks, such as Twitter
• Companies can develop deeper emotional connections with audiences through storytelling

When all was said and done, Coca-Cola recognized that content marketing could help it grow business by provoking conversations about its brand in this new environment. The idea it came up with: Create stories that are so compelling, they take on a life of their own and fuel conversations and brand engagement.

Key take-away: Develop your content strategy based on corporate goals and research.

Lesson 2: Outline content goals with the audience in mind

Coca-Cola has zeroed in on the fact that storytelling has evolved from one-way to dynamic conversations in today’s hyper-connected world. With this in mind, it plans to create stories that add value and significance to people’s lives, and that get expressed through every possible connection.

To achieve this goal, Coca-Cola will develop multiple bits and types of content — all interrelated stories — and distribute them across numerous channels. But rather than create this content in a vacuum, Coca-Cola plans to develop content tied to the umbrella theme of “live positively,” which is top-of-mind for consumers. Coca-Cola refers to these two types of content as tent-pole and tent-peg content. In other words, the umbrella theme is the main support for the content strategy (tent-pole), while the interrelated stories (tent-peg) make it all come together to create a unified, coordinated brand experience.

Underpinning all of this is Coca-Cola’s own definition of content excellence: the creation of ideas through brand stories so contagious they can’t be controlled (i.e., they’re liquid) and innately relevant to business objectives, brand, and consumer interests (i.e., they’re linked).

Key take-away: Create a content strategy that is based on themes that matter to your audience — but that intersect with what you offer — and detail the goals at the highest and lowest levels.

Lesson 3: Develop a road map and plan

Coca-Cola has taken the time to outline how it will create content that helps it reach its goals. To take advantage of the wealth of data at its fingertips, the company aims to establish itself as a leader by sharing thought-provoking ideas. These ideas will be captured in strategic briefs, which serve as the launching pad for the creative briefs that will guide content development.

At the same time, Coca-Cola realizes it needs to be creative and adaptive in its approach to developing content — and that many people will need to be involved in the process. In addition to working with its agency and internal talent, it will turn to what it terms “industry collaborators.” While the various parties will call upon different processes to develop content, they’ll all be guided by the same principles:

1. Inspire participation among the best
2. Connect creative minds
3. Share the results of efforts
4. Continue development
5. Measure success

Though some person(s) will govern the flow of all this content, Coca-Cola wants to encourage creativity and bravery. It knows that some ideas may fall flat, but only by taking risks can it come up with truly inspiring ideas and stories. In fact, it’s developed a formula for developing its “liquid content”:

• 70 percent will be low-risk, bread-and-butter content that supports the overarching theme but can be developed fairly quickly
• 20 percent will be an expansion of the bread-and-butter content that works
• 10 percent will revolve around completely new ideas

At the same time, the company is well aware of the deluge of content, and will aim for ruthless editing so it doesn’t just add to all the noise out there. In other words, Coca-Cola recognizes that it needs to continually reimagine, not just replicate, its content.

Key take-away: Lay out a plan that specifies how you will execute your content marketing strategy.

B2B marketers who are embarking on a content marketing initiative should take advantage of this opportunity to learn from a global leader. Check out the videos below  covering Coca-Cola’s content strategy for inspiration. Then let us know what lessons you plan to apply.