Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CONTENT MARKETING
SUCCESS GUIDE
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If you’ve ever read the book Good concept rings true in content marketing.
to Great: Why Some Companies Make There’s plenty of good content out there
the Leap...and Others Don’t by Jim Col- right now, but if you take a closer look,
lins, then you know there are plenty of you’ll discover that there’s very little great
good companies, but there are very few content. Fortunately, the path to get
great companies. When it comes down there is simpler than you think. All you
to it, there are actually only a few key have to do is look to the five key charac-
characteristics that take a company from teristics that great brands do and good
good to great, but those characteristics brands don’t when it comes to content
make all the difference. The exact same marketing.
It may seem obvious by now—but, then again, apparently ➡ Make every dollar count toward the right resources
not since the majority of marketers are creating content and business objectives.
on the fly—but documented strategies are essential for ➡ Create more targeted efforts to bring in more quali-
content marketing to be sustainable for any organization. fied audiences.
A well-documented content marketing strategy can: ➡ Tie every single piece of content back to a strategic
goal.
➡ Align every single member of a team and organization
around a cohesive vision. While it may seem daunting or overwhelming to create
➡ Reduce churn and burn with content revisions. the perfect content marketing strategy, you really only
need to start by documenting six core components:
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1. Goals and objectives: What do you want content to Once you have those six elements documented, share
do for your organization? them out with the team and the organization, and hold
2. Target audiences: Who are you targeting, and why? content accountable to the strategy going forward. Any
3. Channels: Where is content going, and what is its documentation is better than none at all, and these six
purpose on each channel? pieces at least provide an essential strategy foundation.
4. Content execution: What does all of this content look
like, and how will it be executed? To get started creating or refreshing your own content
5. Promotion: What content is amplified, and is there marketing strategy, download our handy content market-
budget to do so? ing strategy template.
6. Metrics: What are we measuring and how?
Relevance is the only way great brands are going to get their most trusted ambassadors. This approach gives us
people to stop what they’re doing and pay attention. To user-generated content (UGC).
do that, good brands need to listen to customers and
understand their motivations, wants, needs, and behaviors UGC can take on many forms, all of it is is highly relevant
through: to audiences. UGC incudes:
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➡ Host contests: Asking users to submit content in ➡ Trusted far more than branded content
order to be entered into a contest is the perfect way ➡ Not filtered the same ways as branded content within
to collect tons of quality UGC. social networks.
➡ Incorporate product reviews and ratings: Ratings
But before EGC can be properly rolled out, a few critical
and reviews can serve as mini testimonials, plus
pieces have to be in place:
become even more powerful when placed in context
with a product or service. 1. Rock-solid culture: Only the best and most trusted
➡ Amplify content that’s already been created: Users corporate cultures can translate into great EGC.
and customers are already creating content, whether 2. Clear social guidelines: Social media participation
brands realize it or not. It’s just a matter of finding it should be outlined for employees. These guidelines
and sharing it. don’t need to kill creativity, but a few how-tos to talk
about the brand on social media are necessary.
3. Champions and coaches: Just like UGC, brands need
...bringing customers and employees to find their internal superfans and get them involved.
into the content creation and planning In turn, employees also need coaches who can
encourage them to be open and honest and be their
process creates natural audience
social counsel on a day-to-day basis.
engagement that is sought after, 4. Metrics: We’ll dive more into this in just a bit, but
not pushed and paid for all the time. knowing the metrics to track from EGC efforts are critical.
Although this process can take some time, bringing cus-
tomers and employees into the content creation and plan-
Although UGC efforts are fairly well known already, ning process creates natural audience engagement that
great brands also have the other “GC” in their content is sought after, not pushed and paid for all the time. This
mix: EGC (employee-generated content). When it comes approach also eventually leads to deeper trust and greater
to content marketing, great brands know that their advocacy, which means your customers and employees
employees are their greatest marketing asset because will start creating content for you, without you even having
employees are: to ask.
➡ Genuine advocates for the brand (hopefully, at least)
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and top-of-funnel focused, but not always. As an Once those shows are created, they have to be plugged
example, think of The Content Experience Show into our calendars in a very specific format:
podcast or Social Pros.
1. Binge-worthy shows go in first: These form the
➡ One-time shows: These special quarterly shows
anchors within your calendars and give your audience
attack a major customer pain point or topic. One-time
consistency.
shows can vary in format and theme, but consistency
2. One-time shows: Since these are only done on
can be useful in some instances, especially if it’s an
occasion, they should be added second, just to make
educational series. The goal with one-time shows is to
sure they don’t conflict with anything else or any other
become the definitive resource on that topic(s) for
binge-worthy shows.
customers and prospects, which is why they often take
3. Regularly scheduled shows: These round out your
the form of white papers, live broadcasts, research
calendar and fill any remaining gaps.
papers, contests, UGC programs, event coverage or
similar. For example, think of Content Marketing Not only do these shows make it much easier to plan and
Institute’s annual report, which we’ve mentioned execute content, they give audiences something to look
previously. forward to and anticipate. You’ll also have a much easier
➡ Regularly scheduled shows: These are other ongo- time measuring the success of consistent, scheduled shows,
ing efforts that round out your marketing calendar, but rather than random bits of content that are inconsistently
individual executions can vary, especially if you have executed. Lastly, these shows can also be maximized to their
multiple creators, like on blog posts, short videos, fullest, which brings us to the next great things brands do…
social posts, Q&A/FAQ content, etc. As an example,
think of Allstate’s Tools & Resources center, which
varies in topic and style, but always remains consistent
with cadence and strategy.
➡ Redundant: Is the content too similar to another In the end, the whole point of finding and eliminating ROT
piece of content? Has a topic been written about too content is so that a brand’s best content foot is always
many times already? If yes, the best way to go is to forward, and audiences are engaging with content that’s
combine content pieces or remove one version. not good, but great.
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Second, as brands go through the ROT audit, they often 3. Announcement blog post on convinceandconvert.com
find forgotten pieces of content that are still very relevant, 4. Instagram carousel post that breaks down the
useful and usable. Maybe it was a blog post that just infographic from #2
didn’t get the love it deserved, or it was an infographic 5. Facebook Live announcement and Q&A session
that got lost in the promotional shuffle. Either way, ev- 6. Paid social ad with a call to action to download
ergreen content is a gift that keeps on giving. Without a 7. Dedicated podcast episode on Social Pros
definitive expiration date, brands can promote evergreen 8. Case study of a brand that went from good to great
content again and again, adding minor tweaks and up- by using this guide
dates along the way to make it fresh for audiences again.
Using atomization to create more from less gives a mas-
It’s especially helpful when rounding out content calendars
sive ideation boost for brands, but it’s also just a best
and filling gaps with high-quality, well produced content.
practice because atomized content is:
Finally, there’s content atomization. Content atomization ➡ More searchable: Because there’s more content from
is the process of taking one very big content piece and one brand covering the same topic, the chances for
breaking it up into several smaller pieces of content. It’s ranking becomes easier.
literally a process of creating more with less. ➡ More consumable: What’s easier to lure people in
with: a quick video recap that links to a whitepaper, or
When it comes to atomizing content, it’s best to follow dropping a 50-page whitepaper on someone like a
the 1:8 rule, which means that for every one large piece ton of bricks?
of content, you should be able to spin off eight smaller ➡ More shareable: Atomized content has the ability to
pieces of content. travel further and faster since it’s usually located on
social networks and broken up into smaller pieces.
For example, this e-book is a large piece of content. So
To leverage any one of these three approaches, add them
that’s our 1 in our 1:8 rule. If we were to atomize this e-
to the planning and governance phases of the content
book into 8 smaller pieces, it might look a little something
lifecycle. That way, content is being created with maximiz-
like this:
ing in mind, and governance can catch anything that may
1. 1:30 social video recap of e-book highlights have fallen through the cracks during planning.
2. Infographic of key points to communicate
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Great brands use the digital dandelion model because 80% of our time is spend on about 15 sites or less, and
in order to succeed, both on-site and off-site content are that number is shrinking every day.
required. This is especially true considering that about
Where does content come from in an organization? into the universe, and each piece forms a touchpoint in a
Is it: brand’s content experience.
Going from good to great in content marketing is a journey, not a sprint. Take the time
to implement all five key principles properly and make them habits that are practiced
and integrated daily. The bad news is that executing the five characteristics once won’t
make a brand go from good to great. But consistently implementing them will.
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ABOUT CONVINCE & CONVERT CONSULTING
Convince & Convert is an experienced, highly focused analysis and advisory firm that creates
effective, best-in-class digital marketing and customer experience strategies for the world’s most
iconic organizations.
We aren’t one of those “digital agencies” looking to do all your marketing, soup to nuts
including branding, tactics, and execution.
We’re a strategic planning and operational roadmap consultancy that uses extensive experience
and deep research to give you a customized strategy and accompanying playbooks to guide
your marketing and CX improvements over a ~ 18-month time horizon.
We know you’re smart. You don’t need us to DO your marketing for you. You just need to make
sure you’re headed in the right direction, with the right plan, the right resources, the right
measurement schema, and beyond. We can help.
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info@ConvinceAndConvert.com