Hey everyone – Molly here for your weekly Content & Coffee. The Brafton team just got back from Content Marketing World in Cleveland, where we had the opportunity to speak with and hear from hundreds of content marketers about best practices, latest trends and common pain points.
The major theme of this year’s conference revolved around making the most of every content effort. Today I’m recapping five ways this was talked about in different presentations:
Place innovation & creativity over ROI
It was borderline shocking to hear Robert Rose suggest we should stop thinking about ROI – but when data analysis comes at the expense of innovation, it makes sense. This was touched on in John Cleese’s keynote as well – the renowned actor spoke about challenging yourself to pause and think creatively. The marketing world moves quickly and we need to balance logical, fast-paced thinking with meditative brainstorms. The latter is where your creative ideas are going to break through.
Creative thinking in the morning, critical thinking in the afternoon – it makes best use of how your brain works – John Cleese #cmworld
— Matt Heinz (@HeinzMarketing) September 9, 2015
Think about humor
With creativity comes humor – which was the main theme of Comedy Writer Tim Washer and Actor Nick Offerman’s presentations. Tim pointed out the harsh reality that B2B by nature is “boring,” but offered some relief in reminding us that “73% of the people who read corporate blogs are in fact people.”
Here’s an important takeaway from Tim: You’re not going to eliminate a two-year decision-making cycle in a 60-second video, but if you can make an analyst laugh or journalist take notice, it can help a message and brand stand out.
“Don’t let a good idea get lost because you can’t predict the ROI.” – Tim Washer
Focus less on “increase”
Focus less on increasing your efforts was advice we heard from Kristina Halvorson, CEO of Brain Traffic. When there are SO many new outlets and channels – sometimes marketers can feel like they’re slipping behind competitors if they don’t tackle every new avenue. This doesn’t make for better content – and in the end, isn’t that the main goal? The moral of this story is: It’s okay to say no if you’re not sure if it will work for your brand. Don’t feel forced to try everything, it will spread your marketing too thin!
Create search content that’s 10x better than competitors
When you’re spreading your marketing efforts too thin, it’ll be impossible to create content that’s 10 times better than your search competitors – and that’s exactly what Moz’s Rand Fishkin is suggesting marketers aspire to.
This proves that while there have been major strides in content quality over the years – most content isn’t gaining any traction.
- We’re talking about this statistic in depth in this article: Why half of web content goes unnoticed (& how to stand out)
Repurpose
Sometimes this is because brands don’t have a repurposing strategy underway – they create an asset, share it once, and then it collects dust. In Amy Higgins‘ presentation on repurposing, 101 Ways to Repurpose Content, she suggested creating a “content galaxy” where the largest asset, or “the sun” acts as the basis of life for the other supporting content types – the moon, stars and planets.
“101 Ways to Repurpose Content” by @amywhiggins of @zendesk – #KeynoteInks for #CMWorld pic.twitter.com/7DthF7w0xc
— Kelly Kingman (@kellykingman) September 10, 2015
Amy’s presentation offers an excellent reminder: With proper planning, you can have the best of both content marketing world’s – quantity AND quality.
What were your top takeaways from Content Marketing World? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter and subscribe below to get a weekly Content & Coffee directly in your inbox.
