1. Get in the right content mindset
A Hubspot study showed that 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. However, content marketers usually make the mistake of getting into the wrong mindset, which leads to the wrong type of content, and which can then be detrimental to your company.
As they are often more ‘doers’ than strategists, it’s important for content marketers to take a know the purpose of the content. Scott says marketers often make the mistake of forgetting their content’s purpose,when, in actuality, they should be asking these questions before writing anything.
- Who is reading it?
- What is the purpose of it?
- How is it relevant to what we do?
One way to answer these questions is to create a content brief before actually writing something.
Scott says: “Content should have a brief so marketers can answer ‘what’s the content?’, ‘what’s its purpose’ and ‘what are we measuring here?’ You should write the brief before you write the content. It’s a little like post-purchase rationalisation, where you buy a fashionable pair of shoes and you rationalise that, saying: ‘yes, they make my feet bleed, but they look fantastic.’ Think about the purpose before you go shopping.”
From the brief, you can start to devise the content type. Another common pitfall is assuming that one size fits all when it comes to your customer. You might love infographics, but if someone lives on Instagram and TikTok, then maybe that’s not the right avenue to explore.
Once your content is actually out there, you need to think about KPIs. Scott stresses the importance of content hygiene, which requires marketers to review and tweak low performing content. If it’s not going to work, be sure to figure out how to get rid of it.
He says: “How will you know what is working? What to change? What to keep? It’s what I call the Whitney Houston moment: How will I know? Think Whitney!”
2. Get on the same page throughout the organisation
Getting on the same page is essential, but can be challenging, especially if the organisation is large. Make sure your team is all on the same production plan. If you’re not using an editorial calendar, using Trello or an enterprise content platform can be extremely helpful to making sure content is aligned throughout the organisation.Along with making sure everyone knows what and when content is going out, make sure there is further alignment between team’s KPIs as well.
Scott says: “Particularly relevant in global organisations, make sure you all have the same KPIs. For example, my worldwide team’s KPI relies heavily on making content, while the geography and market teams are measuring if it performs well. When two different teams have different KPIs, they don’t team very well, and this adds an unnecessary amount of tension.”
3. Target, test and track
The more you know what type of audience you want to attract, the better you’ll be able to create something that is going to land with them. That’s why you should be testing before you send.
Scott says: “Instead of it being random acts of content, start with slightly random acts of content, but have a look at how it lands before you choose the big one that you send to the most people.”
Once it’s out there, measure everything: Who is ignoring your content? Who is sharing it? Who is copying it? Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. If someone is looking at your content and doing their own version of it, you’re onto a winner!”
And once you gain these results, use it! Oftentimes, Scott says he sees marketers test and measure endlessly, only to return to their original plan anyway. Why is that? Like most content marketers, they get busy and don’t take a minute to analyse so don’t forget to:
- Target your audience
- Test when you can
- Track the results.
4. Get on the right trends (accordingly)
While content might take up a large portion of your job role, be sure to talk about content and consume regularly.
He says: “I don’t think you can be a good writer if you don’t read, and I don’t think you’re very good at working in a team if you don’t talk to other people. So chat!”
Talking about content regularly will allow you and your team to bring both relevant and timely ideas to the table. This might include timely events, such as holidays, new legislations or awards that might appeal to your B2B audience.
See what’s happening that’s topical and on trend, but make sure it’s relevant to your company and responsive with following up. You can definitely use newsworthiness to cultivate content, but it needs to be a seamless alignment.
Scott says: “I used to work in IBM Watson IoT, and the best article I’ve ever written was based on Pokemon Go, which was a real craze at the time. IBM did a Hackathon and the thing they invented was a way of predicting when Pokemon were going to pop up. Both Pokemon Go and the Hackathon were newsy, so I wrote about two things joined together.”
