A CONVI N CE & C O NV ERT REPO RT

WHAT GREAT BRANDS DO

THAT GOOD BRANDS DON’T
IN CONTENT MARKETING

A G U ID E F O R B R AND S
BY JAY BAER

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If you’ve ever read the book Good
to Great: Why Some Companies Make
the Leap...and Others Don’t by Jim Col-
lins, then you know there are plenty of
good companies, but there are very few
great companies. When it comes down
to it, there are actually only a few key
characteristics that take a company from
good to great, but those characteristics
make all the difference. The exact same
GREAT BRANDS DOCUMENT THEIR
CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
For the last eight years, Content Marketing Institute (CMI)
has published its annual Content Marketing Benchmarks,
Budgets and Trends Report. Every year, the report is
packed full of interesting stats, intriguing facts, and one
unbelievably depressing truth: after all this time, after all
these years, the majority of marketers still don’t have a
documented content marketing strategy.
60% of marketers either don’t have
a strategy, or they have one and it’s
just not documented
BRANDS NEED TO STOP CREATING RANDOM ACTS OF CONTENT
It may seem obvious by now—but, then again, apparently
not since 60% of marketers are creating content on the
fly—but documented strategies are essential for content
marketing to be sustainable for any organization. A well-
documented content marketing strategy can:
➡➡ Align every single member of a team and organization
around a cohesive vision.
➡➡ Reduce churn and burn with content revisions.
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concept rings true in content marketing.
There’s plenty of good content out there
right now, but if you take a closer look,
you’ll discover that there’s very little great
content. Fortunately, the path to get
there is simpler than you think. All you
have to do is look to the five key charac-
teristics that great brands do and good
brands don’t when it comes to content
marketing.
That’s right, more than 60% of marketers are still dropping
the ball on their content marketing strategy because they
either don’t have one at all, or they have a strategy and it’s
just not documented.
Professional sports teams don’t compete without a
playbook. Homebuilders don’t just start slapping down
foundations, and great brands don’t just start randomly
creating content. Without a plan that details how you’re
going to execute on and achieve your vision for content,
you get aimless, underperforming content that wastes
good talent, hard-to-secure budgets and everyone’s time.
➡➡ Make every dollar count toward the right resources
and business objectives.
➡➡ Create more targeted efforts to bring in more quali-
fied audiences.
➡➡ Tie every single piece of content back to a strategic
goal.
While it may seem daunting or overwhelming to create
the perfect content marketing strategy, you really only
need to start by documenting six core components:
1. Goals and objectives: What do you want content to
do for your organization?
2. Target audiences: Who are you targeting, and why?
3. Channels: Where is content going, and what is its
purpose on each channel?
4. Content execution: What does all of this content look
like, and how will it be executed?
GREAT BRANDS INVOLVE CUSTOMERS IN
CONTENT PLANNING AND CREATION
Brands are in a never-ending fight for their audiences’ at-
tention. Unfortunately, that fight for attention isn’t just with
direct competitors. Instead, brands are competing against
social media updates from their customers’ friends and
Audiences don’t want to read
your blog or comment on your
post or watch your video.
RELEVANCE MAGICALLY CREATES TIME AND ATTENTION
Relevance is the only way great brands are going to get
people to stop what they’re doing and pay attention. To
do that, good brands need to first listen to customers and
understand their motivations, wants, needs, and behaviors
through:
➡➡ Social listening campaigns.
➡➡ Questionnaires and surveys.
➡➡ Interviews and conversations.
➡➡ Onsite search data.
➡➡ Organic search data.
➡➡ Existing research from organizations like Forrester and
Pew Internet Research.
The more brands listen to their customers and seek to
understand them, the more relevant content will be, but
listening alone isn’t the only end goal. Great brands take
it one step further and invite customers into the entire
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5. Promotion: What content is amplified, and is there
budget to do so?
6. Metrics: What are we measuring, and how?
Once you have those six elements documented, share
them out with the team and the organization, and hold
content accountable to the strategy going forward. Any
documentation is better than none at all, and these six
pieces at least provide an essential strategy foundation.
family, captivating viral videos, adorable puppy pictures,
and the latest internet trend.
This endless and grueling fight for attention also means
that good brands have to face a hard truth when it comes
to content marketing efforts that fall short: their audiences
just don’t want to engage with the content that’s being
put in front of them. They don’t want to make time to read
your blog or comment on your post or watch your video.
The good news is that there is a way to get them to
make time:
creation process, because they know that customers are
their most trusted ambassadors. This approach gives us
user generated content (UGC).
UGC can take on many forms, and all of it is highly rel-
evant to audiences:
➡➡ Pictures, videos, imagery
➡➡ Testimonials and case studies
➡➡ Ratings and reviews
➡➡ Tweets, posts, and status updates
➡➡ Blog posts
The best part about UGC is that it’s the ultimate form
of social proof, and it’s often completely free, or at least
incredibly inexpensive, for brands. It’s also the kind of
relevant content that audiences seek out. All brands need
to do to engage audiences and gather UGC is:
 ➡➡ Identify brand enthusiasts: Enlist a small group of
superfans to become “official” content creators.
➡➡ Host contests: Asking users to submit content in
order to be entered into a contest is the perfect way
to collect tons of quality UGC.
➡➡ Incorporate product reviews and ratings: Ratings
and reviews can serve as mini testimonials, plus
become even more powerful when placed in context
with a product or service.
➡➡ Amplify content that’s already been created: Users
and customers are already creating content, whether
brands realize it or not. It’s just a matter of finding it
and sharing it.
...bringing customers and employees
into the content creation and planning
process creates natural audience
engagement that is sought after,
not pushed and paid for all the time.
Although, UGC efforts are fairly well known already,
great brands also have the other “GC” in their content
mix: EGC (employee-generated content). When it comes
to content marketing, great brands know that their
employees are their greatest marketing asset because
employees are:
GREAT BRANDS THINK LIKE
TELEVISION NETWORKS
What’s your favorite television show? It doesn’t matter
if it’s on cable or only available via streaming. Just think
about your favorite show. Notice anything about it from
a content marketing perspective? Regardless of what you
watch or where or what the show is about, the model for
content marketing success lies with some of our favorite
shows. That’s right: in order to be successful, we need to
think like networks and create consistent, formatted shows
audiences can look forward to.
Think about it. “The Walking Dead” is the same format,
length and production value each week, season after sea-
son. Not a fan? That’s ok. Let’s look to “Orange is the New
Black” instead. At the beginning of every summer, Netflix
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➡➡ Genuine advocates for the brand (hopefully, at least).
➡➡ Trusted far more than branded content;
➡➡ Not filtered the same ways as branded content within
social networks.
But before EGC can be properly rolled out, a few critical
pieces have to be in place:
1. Rock-solid culture: Only the best and most trusted
corporate cultures can translate into great EGC.
2. Clear social guidelines: Social media participation
should be outlined for employees. These guidelines
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
to find their internal superfans and get them involved.
In turn, employees also need coaches who can
encourage them to be open and honest and be their
social counsel on a day-to-day basis.
4. Metrics: We’ll dive more into this in just a bit, but
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-
ning process creates natural audience engagement that
is sought after, not pushed and paid for all the time. This
approach also eventually leads to deeper trust and greater
advocacy, which means your customers and employees
will start creating content for you, without you even having
to ask.
releases a full season’s worth of hour-long episodes that
follow the same format and the same cadence. We can do
the same with content “shows.”
Content shows are consistent thematic executions, in the
same modality, targeting the same persona(s), and the
same funnel stage(s), and there are three types of shows
great brands produce:
➡➡ Binge-worthy shows: These are steady content
initiatives that can be executed on a regular and
consistent basis. These are often podcasts, video
series, webinar series, and other major content efforts,
because it is more difficult to be thematically pure
 with a blog, and small content pieces also don’t make
for “must-see TV.” They are also often Youtility-based
and top-of-funnel focused, but not always. As an
example, think of The Content Experience Show
podcast or Social Pros.
➡➡ One-time shows: These, special quarterly shows
attack a major customer pain point or topic. One-time
shows can vary in format and theme, but consistency
can be useful in some instances, especially if it’s an
educational series. The goal with one-time shows is to
become the definitive resource on that topic(s) for
customers and prospects, which is why they often take
the form of white papers, live broadcasts, research
papers, contests, UGC programs, event coverage or
similar. For an example, think of Content Marketing
Institute’s annual report, which we’ve mentioned
previously.
➡➡ Regularly scheduled shows: These are other ongo-
ing efforts that round out your marketing calendar, but
individual executions can vary, especially if you have
multiple creators, like on blog posts, short videos,
social posts, Q&A/FAQ content, etc. As an example,
think of Allstate’s Tools & Resources center, which
GREAT BRANDS MAXIMIZE EVERY
PIECE OF CONTENT
Creating content requires time, money and resources—all
of which are finite for most brands, even the great ones.
So why create a piece of content only to have it sit locked
in place and wither away? Instead, great brands maximize
every single piece of content created with three time-test-
ed and proven approaches.
Eliminate ROT content is so your brand’s
best content foot is always forward
First, they regularly conduct ROT content audits. ROT
stands for redundant, outdated and trivial, and it’s an easy
way to quickly score content that was published long ago:
➡➡ Redundant: Is the content too similar to another
piece of content? Has a topic been written about too
many times already? If yes, the best way to go is to
combine content pieces or remove one version.
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varies in topic and style, but always remains consistent
with cadence and strategy.
Once those shows are created, they have to be plugged
into our calendars in a very specific format:
1. Binge-worthy shows go in first: These form the
anchors within your calendars and give your audiences
consistency.
2. One-time shows: Since these are only done on
occasion, they should be added second, just to make
sure they don’t conflict with anything else or any other
binge-worthy shows.
3. Regularly scheduled shows: These round out your
calendar and fill any remaining gaps.
Not only do these shows make it much easier to plan and
execute content, it gives audiences something to look for-
ward to and anticipate. You’ll also have a much easier time
measuring the success of consistent, scheduled shows,
rather than random bits of content that are inconsistently
executed. Lastly, these shows can also be maximized to
their fullest, which bring us to the next great things brands
do…
➡➡ Outdated: Does content talk about how Google
Glass is going to be the next big thing? Is it a white-
paper on how we’re all going to have flying cars by
the year 2000? If the piece of content feels more like a
digital time capsule, the best course of action is to see
if it can easily be updated with just a few minor edits.
If not, it’s best to just scrap it altogether.
➡➡ Trivial: Is this content topic something that makes
sense for the brand to publish? Is this relevant to our
audiences and also helping us achieve our business
goals? If no, the easiest approach is to see if slight
adjustments can make it relevant again. If it’s really out
there, like a home insurance company writing about
how to create homemade make doilies (true story, this
actually was a thing), it’s best to get rid of it.
In the end, the whole point of finding and eliminating ROT
content is so that a brand’s best content foot is always
forward, and audiences are engaging with content that’s
not good, but great.
Second, as brands go through the ROT audit, they often
find forgotten pieces of content that are still very relevant,
useful and usable. Maybe it was a blog post that just
didn’t get the love it deserved, or it was an infographic
that got lost in the promotional shuffle. Either way, ev-
ergreen content is a gift that keeps on giving. Without a
definitive expiration date, brands can promote evergreen
content again and again, adding minor tweaks and up-
dates along the way to make it fresh for audiences again.
It’s especially helpful when rounding out content calendars
and filling gaps with high-quality, well produced content.
Finally, there’s content atomization. Content atomization
is the process of taking one very big content piece and
breaking it up into several smaller pieces of content. It’s
literally a process of creating more with less.
When it comes to atomizing content, it’s best to follow
the 1:8 rule, which means that for every one large piece
of content, you should be able to spin off eight smaller
pieces of content.
For example, this e-book is a large piece of content. So
that’s our 1 in our 1:8 rule. If we were to atomize this e-
book into 8 smaller pieces, it might look a little something
like this:
1. 1:30 social video recap of e-book highlights
2. Infographic of key points to communicate
GREAT BRANDS CREATE A COMPLETE
CONTENT EXPERIENCE
Quick question: What does your brand’s content experi-
ence look like? Is it easy, quick, and simple? Or maybe
informative and straightforward? What steps does your
audience take to get to you? What parts of their journey
make them excited about interacting with you, and what
parts stress them out?
By sharing out different versions of
website content to places where
audiences are already spending time
a brand’s reach can go further
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3. Announcement blog post on convinceandconvert.com
4. Instagram carousel post that breaks down the
infographic from #2
5. Facebook Live announcement and Q&A session
6. Paid social ad with a call to action to download
7. Dedicated podcast episode on The Content
Experience Show
8. Case study of a brand that went from good to great
by using this guide
Using atomization to create more from less gives a mas-
sive ideation boost for brands, but it’s also just a best
practice, because atomized content is:
➡➡ More searchable: Because there’s more content from
one brand covering the same topic, the chances for
ranking becomes easier.
➡➡ More consumable: What’s easier to lure people in
with: a quick video recap that links to a whitepaper, or
dropping a 50-page whitepaper on someone like a
ton of bricks?
➡➡ More shareable: Atomized content has the ability to
travel further and faster, since it’s usually located on
social networks and broken up into smaller pieces.
To leverage any one of these three approaches, it’s best to
add them into the planning and governance phases of the
content lifecycle. That way, content is being created with
maximizing in mind, and governance can catch anything
that may have fallen through the cracks during planning.
Great brands have no problem answering this question,
because they’re carefully crafting that experience to be
the best it could possibly be for customers, across every
channel in which they could interact. In short, they’re be-
coming digital dandelions, whereby their website content
is like the stalk and different versions of atomized content
become the seeds that get spread far and wide:
➡➡ The website is the stalk: This is where content is
planted and grows. It forms a brand’s foundation and
their entire content marketing base. It’s a hub and a
home for content.
➡➡ Different content versions are like seeds: By
sharing out different versions of website content to
places where audiences are already spending time,
 like on social networks and other websites, its reach
can go further, just like the seeds of a dandelion.
Great brands use the digital dandelion model, because
in order to succeed both onsite and office content are re-
quired. This is especially true considering that about 80%
of our time is spend on about 15 sites or less, and that
number is shrinking every day.

NOW FOR A POP QUIZ

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.

a. The content creation team?

b. The content marketing team?
c. SEO team?
d. Social media team?
Trick question. Content actually comes from the entire
organization. Every person and every department cre-
ates content every single day. They are all putting content
Great brands already know this, so they get their depart-
ments together to work on a comprehensive experience
not just in every channel they’re responsible for, but across
the entire customer journey. While different channels
require different approaches, they’re focused on creating
some level of consistency and connectivity throughout.
They’re creating a content experience.

Going from good to great in content marketing is a journey, not a sprint. Take the
time to implement all five key characteristics properly and make them habits that are
practiced and integrated daily. The bad news is that doing 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

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