why editorial calendars make your content suck
TRANSCRIPT
HelloBen GrossmanVP, Strategy DirectorJack Morton Worldwide
e: [email protected]: 617.752.1171t: @BenGrossmanw: www.ben-grossman.com
Read our blog: jackmorton.com/blogFollow us on twitter: @jackmortonVisit us online: www.jackmorton.com
Content Marketing Landscape
S M T W T F S
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New Content Creation Models
S M T W T F S
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Examining Editorial Calendars
S M T W T F S
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T A B L E O F C ON T E N T S
What is content marketing?
A strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience—and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.
Content Marketing Institute
By 2020,customers will manage 85% of their relationships without talking to a human.
Gartner Prediction
of content marketers admit that they either don’t have a strategy or that plans live in a separate, stand-alone document.
2/3
Smart Insights, 2015
89 %
of content marketers are focused on creating more engaging, higher quality content now or within the next 12 months.
CMI, 2015
Content Marketing Landscape
S M T W T F S
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6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30
New Content Creation Models
S M T W T F S
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Examining Editorial Calendars
S M T W T F S
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T A B L E O F C ON T E N T S
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T H E E D I T O R I A LC A L E N D A R
Often a spreadsheet, calendar, or digital tool ...
... that ensures a constant flow of content is being posted to digital channels.
14 15
T H E E D I T O R I A LC A L E N D A R
Often a spreadsheet, calendar, or digital tool ...
... that ensures a constant flow of content is being posted to digital channels.
Many times they focus on dates, topics, headlines, authors, owners, content status and categories.
Editorial Calendars* can put an undue emphasis on filling in blanks, rather than accomplishing business objectives and resonating with audiences.
Some organizations appropriately, use Editorial Calendars to capture much more than the basics, including objectives, metrics and strategic guidance.
*
Similarly, some brands assume content can do anything (or should do everything).
That’s not so.
Is content in or out?
1. Define business objectives
2. Understand target audience
3. Creative ideation process
4. Assemble communications plan
5. Decide whether content is part of the proper communications plan to meet objectives
Death by obscure holidays
March 15th is: National Buzzards Day Brutus Day True Confessions Day Incredible Kids Day World Consumer Rights Day Ides of March National Peanut Lovers Day Pears Helene Day
Ordering chaos
Submitting for legal approvals
Project management
Gathering input and creating buy-in
Introducing discipline
What Editorial Calendars are good at:
Breaking through
Creating omni-channel ideas
Being agile/opportunistic
Protecting audiences
Motivating creativity
What Editorial Calendars suck at:
C O N T E N TO R G A N I Z A T I O N
V S .
C O N T E N T C R E A T I O N
EDITORIAL CALENDARS ARE GOOD AT:
EDITORIAL CALENDARS SUCK AT:
One other risk:
The practice of optimizing at a granular, surface level (on a per-post basis).—
This leads brands to create shallow, widely appealing content simply to achieve positive engagement rates (lots of likes, comments and shares).
In so doing, they can lose sight of the brand’s larger objectives.
“You need to find guardrails. If we base our spend purely on optimizing engagement, 10% of our content will drive 90% of engagement.
But that may not suit our strategic priorities. Downstream value doesn’t register as quickly.”– Luke KintighGlobal Content and Media Strategist, Intel
• True optimization• Increased response rates• First-mover advantage
Media efficiencyBenefits of thinking beyond the Editorial Calendar:
• True optimization• Increased response rates• First-mover advantage
Media efficiency
• Right time, right audience• Content that builds• Objective-driven calls
to action
Customer lifecycle value
Benefits of thinking beyond the Editorial Calendar:
• Pass-along value • Unique, compelling
point of view• Experience beyond
consumption
Brand Differentiation
• True optimization• Increased response rates• First-mover advantage
Media efficiency
• Right time, right audience• Content that builds• Objective-driven calls
to action
Customer lifecycle value
Benefits of thinking beyond the Editorial Calendar:
Content Marketing Landscape
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30
New Content Creation Models
S M T W T F S
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30 31
Examining Editorial Calendars
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 5 6
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21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30
T A B L E O F C ON T E N T S
12
What does my community care about?
Who are we authentically?
Ask three questions
C O N S U M E R - I N S P I R E D
12 3
What does my community care about?
Who are we authentically?
How can we deliver an extraordinary value proposition?
Ask three questions
C O N S U M E R - I N S P I R E D
• Social issues
• Other brands
• Elements of their lives
• Challenges they face
• Something else
What does my community care about?1
How can we deliver an extraordinary value proposition?3
A magic combination: high perceived value, high potential to achieve results.
“The idea was always to find a way to have the fans lead the conversation about the brand, and the brand to enable it, rather than the top down approach of the brand publishing a message to reach its fans.” – Tessa BarreraRed BullFormer Global Head of Social Media
Red Bull Stratos
• More than 8 MM consecutive live streams (YouTube record)
• 7% of entire internetconversation
• 2 MM unique consumer engagements
• Top 10 Twitter trending topics in 6 countries, 8 global Twitter trending topics
• 400% increase over average consumer engagement
“Red Bull does not focus on what they sell, they focus on who they are: a company that brings excitement to its advocates.
Isn’t that what an energy drink does? Why not focus on it?” – Tessa BarreraRed BullFormer Global Head of Social Media
12
What is my customer’s lifecycle?
What are the appropriate times for content to play a role?
Ask three questions
D A T A - D R I V E N
12 3
What is my customer’s lifecycle?
What are the appropriate times for content to play a role?
How can I use the digital and offline body language of my audience to personalize their content experiences?
Ask three questions
D A T A - D R I V E N
What is my customer’s lifecycle?1
The right place for content varies significantly by category and brand.
What is my customer’s lifecycle?1
The right place for content varies significantly by category and brand.
“We do not need to be slaves to the data. We should use data to inspire us and our teams.
We want to use data as a starting point and a way to validate, but we don’t want to use data to replace decision making.”– Dr. Laura GrankaUX ManagerGoogle
What are the appropriate times for content to play a role?2
Context + ContentIntent
“It’s about combining compelling stories and predictable output and results.
Marketing has increased its contribution to the pipeline by 120%.”– Claudia HoeffnerSr. Director, Demand Generation & Channel StrategyAcquia
How can I use the digital and offline body language of my audience to personalize their content experiences?3
of marketers say they take a sophisticated approach to measuring content performance against customer segments.
Forrester
12%
“We use data and analytics to measure trends and engagement across all of our channels because it keeps us informed as to what works best.”– Lee NadlerMarketing Communications ManagerMINI USA
MINI Lost & Found
• New items every two months
• Partnerships with premium brands
• Quality lead capture from unique sources
• Data-driven follow-up
“We have a number of programs we use to measure this information and that shapes some of our thinking in terms of where we focus our attention, how we want to target our audience, and what we need to consider when building out a strategy.”– Lee NadlerMarketing Communications ManagerMINI USA
1Does my brand have permission to play in this conversation?
C O N V E R S A T I O N - L E D
Ask three questions
12
Does my brand have permission to play in this conversation?
Will the brand’s presence in a conversation add value or noise?
C O N V E R S A T I O N - L E D
Ask three questions
12 3
Does my brand have permission to play in this conversation?
Will the brand’s presence in a conversation add value or noise?
Should I start a new conversation, or join an existing one?
C O N V E R S A T I O N - L E D
Ask three questions
Does my brand have permission to play in this conversation?1
Think less about what to post next and more about what to do next that’s worth posting.
Should I start a new conversation or join an existing one?3
Be on the way, not in the way.
Royal Bank of Scotland placed mortgage calculator tool directly into a popular site for house hunters.
It was the perfect example of a sought-after content utility in a specific context that drove business outcomes. RBS recorded thousands of leads that generated business from the tactic.
Forrester
Because baseball fans in particular love accessing stats, replays and live feeds during games, T-Mobile has worked to deliver the best possible network experience to ballparks across the country. – T-Mobile
Biggest 7th Inning Ever
• 231 MM impressions
• 40 MM trend impressions on Twitter
• 496,000 engagements through influencers
Be on the way, not in the way.
“T-Mobile and Major League Baseball chose ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’ as the theme of the tribute to the game because it is such a quintessential part of every ballpark experience.
[It is] the third most frequently sung song in America behind only ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ and ‘Happy Birthday to You.’”– T-Mobile
Example: Coca-Cola’sOpen Happiness
3 words: Delightfully Surprising Moments
2 sentences: To deliver on Coca-Cola’s promise of happiness, the brand will surprise consumers in delightful ways when they’re least expecting it.
A series of stunts, witnessed by few, but then experienced by many online will constitute share-able content that brings the brand’s positioning to life.
1 paragraph: While Coca-Cola is at the center of culturally iconic moments, some functional brand elements can be mundane: vending machines, delivery trucks and bottle disposal. These moments lend themselves to delightful surprises that literally open moments of happiness at the point of interaction with the brand. As these moments are created, they’ll be captured as digital assets and told in compelling, share-able ways that are native to social platforms. By passing them along, consumers will have the opportunity to share their happiness with their friends.
Talk to us–
Contact Ben GrossmanVP, Strategy [email protected]+1 617.752.1711@BenGrossman
Read our blog at jackmorton.com/blog
Follow us on twitter @jackmorton
Visit us online at jackmorton.com
About Jack Morton
Jack Morton Worldwide is an award-winning global brand experience agency. We believe brands need extraordinary ideas that create emotional connections, fuel conversations and deliver business results. For more than 75 years, we have brought brands to life through event marketing, promotional marketing, sponsorship marketing, digital, social and mobile, and employee engagement. Jack Morton is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. (NYSE: IPG).
More information is available at: jackmorton.com or @jackmorton
© Jack Morton Worldwide 2015