It’s almost 2024, this sh*t changed. Wake up from the 90s and 00s. You'll win back in the end from what you give away in the beginning.

→ ‘Content has become the heartbeat of digital-first, modern marketing practices. We invest significant time, budget, and energy in creating content, the purpose of which is to connect with our various audiences. And what do many B2B brands still do with these valuable assets?’ Amy Heidersbach in Contently

I get it that that’s B2B marketers’ dream, to collect as many email addresses and data as possible to shitty shine in reaching their KPIs.

These people and brands forget that gating the content also means missing out on claiming your leadership, and your expensive content doesn’t get seen.

Why it matters

If you want your content to be seen, you have to make the access as easy and frictionless as possible. The more people can educate themselves with your content, the more you can claim your leadership in the industry. Win-win.

Maybe you’ll collect a little less data – be honest, were you really going to use and monetize all that data?

Below, I’ll explain all about

• Dark funnel,
• Nobody wants to feel like a lead,
• Consumers want to self-educate,
• SEO, it's a thing,
• How this impacts shortening your sales funnel,
• And what I’m not saying.

Including an example.

Dark funnel

According to ChatGPT, the dark funnel is ‘the hidden, untraceable stages of the online customer journey where potential customers research and engage with a brand without leaving conventional digital footprints for tracking.’ In short, your prospects' activity is invisible.

That means you can’t track it; you can’t collect first-party data and follow up with email marketing.

Compare this to dark social; you share content directly via WhatsApp with your friends. Untraceable for brands, more convenient for you.

F*ck data

Marketers, please don’t get drunk on data and email addresses. Don’t fall for the pitfall to measure everything that can be measured and collect as much data as possible.

Nine out of ten, you’ll do nothing significant with that microdata except for shining in the boardroom where the one-eyed still is king on content. And if you have those email addresses, you have to set up a campaign to follow up and try to convert these super cold leads.

There is nothing wrong with not knowing everything. The so-called dark funnel, where your prospects' activity is invisible to the brand, rules big time.

And be honest, if you have all that microdata. What the f*ck are you going to do with it? If you have hardly enough budget to produce amazing content, I severely doubt that you have the budget to analyze this micro correctly and follow up with new content, funnels, and A/B testing programs.

Publish your knowledge openly, no gates. And share what you know with your audience. This is the way forward to claim your leadership and become the go-to brand in your industry.

No one wants to feel like a lead

The same goes for B2C, where no one wants to be marketed. As soon as you feel you’re going to be chased by the brand with obligatory emails that usually don’t add value to your life or inbox, you’ll pass and click away.

Make accessing your content as easy and frictionless as possible. Any marketer knows that every additional click causes a drop in conversion. In this case, the conversion is getting your content seen by your audience (prospects).

They want to self-educate

The B2B industry is all about education, information, and sharing knowledge. By claiming your leadership, you’ll be ahead of your competitors.

When you’re doing your online research and searching for information, you want to do this by yourself without the hungry, pushy salesperson chasing you down the digital aisle. If you wanted some not-entirely-unbiased advice, you would have hit the ‘contact’ button and reached out.

→ ‘Customers want to self-educate, and we should do everything in our power to make it easy for them by making our content easily accessible.' Asma Steward in Contently 

SEO

Gating your content also means that SEO can't access it. And that's bad for your ranking. 

For sure, there will be hacks and workarounds to give Google's spider access. That probably is advanced SEO work and not something you can DIY. So if you don't have the big boys' budget and have to play smarter, make sure the Google spider can access the content as easily as your audience can. 

Don't gate. 

Shorter sales funnel

I know this sounds quite contrary. Yet it’s true. Giving away your content for free does shorten the sales funnel in the end. 

Compare this with buying a laptop at MediaMarkt; you do your homework at home, yet you do want to touch and see the laptop before making the purchase. In the store, you just close the deal, and no need for the nitty-gritty technical details. 

By educating your prospects on how to solve their problem (first), preferably with your product (second), they’ll come a lot hotter in your sales funnel.

Once you claim your leadership in the industry by showing your care and your passion for what you do, they’ll come back to you for more information.

The chances you’ll get a hot lead via non-gated content are much higher than via boring newsletters. Or via a too-swift call by a sales rep. See above; if your audience wants some advice, they know how to contact you.

Keep your newsletter

Just for clarity, I’m not saying, ‘don’t do email marketing.’ I love email marketing when it's done right with the audience's best interest in mind, not the brand.

 I say, don’t gate your valuable content by asking for their email address and shoving them in the database.

Again, if they want to subscribe to your newsletter, they’ll find it on your .com.

Example Contently

If there’s one platform that gives away all their knowledge and insights, it’s Contently. Great website and an amazing newsletter that was actually the inspiration for this page.

Why they are good

• They know content 
• Great case studies
• Value-adding newsletter 

And yes, they have a sales funnel. And it’s quite pushy. And I get that as they need to drive business to be able to give us content. Quid pro quo.

I do know who I’ll call when I need a content marketing platform.

Summary

Please don’t gate your content. We are in a new content era. Gating your content to get as many leads as possible and push them into your email database is not moving the needle. Even more so, you miss out on reach, and your expensive content doesn’t get seen.

We are not in the 90s or 00s anymore. Make your content as easy and frictionless accessible as possible, claim your leadership, and the leads will follow if you’ve done your content right.

Remember, no one wants to be marketed to, no one wants to feel like a lead, and they do want to self-educate. And once they hit the ‘contact’ button, your sales funnel will be shorter (and cheaper).

Credits

Inspired by, and bits and pieces stolen with pride from Contenly. 

Check out their non-gated whitepaper ‘Mastering the Content Matrix Innovative CMOs Rewrite the Rules of Engagement’

It's number four in the most asked questions about content; please, check the last paragraph for all five questions and the bonus on AI. 

Why it matters

All brands struggle, big and small. No matter your size, the lack of results is deadly. 

First and foremost, for your budget. 

Second, without results, is harder to get the content out of the organization. Vice versa, if you share the results with all employees and departments, you'll notice that content ideation will pop up like crazy. 

 First, let's define ‘results.’ 

These should be measured in business objectives

• Sales numbers and leads 
• A higher ranking on SEO for leadership and traffic

Second, the reasons, presuming you've got great content (are you sure?)

1. Too fast; keep your patience
2. Wrong metrics: vanity over business objectives
3. Lack of budgets: focus
4. You do have crappy content (told you!)

1. Too fast; keep your patience

This is the number one reason for not seeing the results of your content efforts. Content takes time. Much time. More than you think.

Content is not plug-and-play. It's not a ‘Start today; see results tomorrow.’ Or within a few months. 

It takes at least one year; two years is more realistic.

How to fix it

Well, duh, … be patient.

2. Wrong metrics: vanity over business objectives

The second most made mistake in why you’re not seeing results is that you're using the wrong metrics. Usually, the content reporting focuses on campaigns with vanity metrics. Not the overarching business results with the general sales numbers.

Below you find a recap of ‘Accountability of content.’ 

Report on what matters to management, don't bore them with death-by-powerpoint details on likes and engagement. Getting the buy-in from the board and senior management matters to lock in next year’s budget – or prevent loss of budget in the running year.

How to fix it

Choose the metrics for management that reflect the strategy. Your content strategy should be aligned with the business objectives; hence, so should the reporting.

Quarterly or half-yearly

• Content efforts plotted against overall sales 

• SEO performance 


Monthly, if desired by management

• 
High over content planning with campaigns and channels

• Budget reporting: production and media
• Team reporting: FTEs and external help

3. Lack of budgets

The final reason why you’re not seeing results is that you don’t invest enough. And double that budget for media buying to get reach. I know you want more content for less; I'll be the bearer of the bad news, that is not possible. Quality is really expensive. Penny pound foolish.

If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. In your team and agency.

There’s no such thing as getting results while you’re not investing serious money. 

How to fix it

Please don't fall into the trap of wanting cheaper content, which equals more content for less budget. A better option is to focus and scale down in the amount of content you want to produce. And that what you produce, you're f*cking going to nail it top-notch, high quality, re-usable and long lifetime. 

I wish I could give you a ballpark number or percentage for your content. Unfortunately, I can’t. There are just too many variables that define how much you need to invest.

If you want to get a gut feeling, in a 15-minute call, you can chat about your brand and company; I can give you an indication of what you’ll need. Just drop me a DM for my number.

4. Crappy content

Honestly, this is the number one reason for the lack of results. Get your head out of your a** and be upfront. How is the quality of your content? 

Low-quality content is a real issue. The cause varies. It can be the management that's too focused on the brand and not on the customer. It can be the team with a lack of knowledge or focus. And I can think of many other reasons why your content is not what it should be.

If you have a firm belief in content and you invest serious budgets and, still, your content is crap – then you’ve got a whole other problem.

Final words

It s*cks if you’re not seeing the results of your efforts. Aside from annoying, it’s indispensable to get the buy-in from the board and senior management matters to lock in next year’s budget – or prevent loss of budget in the running year.

Need help with all this? I got your back. Drop me a DM, and we can jump on a quick call about how to get started and if I can help you or if you need something or someone else. 

The 5 most asked questions about content

You ask me the same questions over and over again. My clients. During workshops, keynotes, and calls. 

So, why not write them down? Here's my ‘They ask, you answer’ series on content and strategy.  The questions are in the most asked order. 

1. I want more content for less budget; what are the tips? 
2. What do I need to measure? I struggle with accountability.
3. It takes forever; how can I speed up the process and shorten the time to market?
4. I don’t see the results; what can I do? (this blog)
5. We struggle with ownership; where should content be?

• Bonus: How to prepare for AI; We have no idea what’s its true power; 33% cuts in teams are expected

Click on the links to read more (duh…)

The one thing that’s always missing is how content contributes to the business in overall numbers. And that’s the sh*t that really interests the board and seniors.

Why it matters

Getting the buy-in from the board and senior management matters to lock in next year’s budget – or prevent loss of budget in the running year.

Them wanting to know how content pays off for the business is a legit question. With an answer that got stuck in the vanity metrics and daily operational reporting.

Let me explain

• Vanity metrics: steering on reach and engagement. These are in no way a predictor of sales. And in the end, it’s the sales that count. Right?
   
• Daily operational reporting: usually, we report on campaigns. We jump from campaign to campaign with the vanity metrics. No step back to zoom out to discover how content contributes in the long term.

Managerial KPIs

Choose the metrics for management that reflect the strategy. Your content strategy should be aligned with the business objectives; hence, so should the reporting.

Quarterly or half-yearly, the reason for these long intervals is that these KPIs don’t change overnight; it takes time. Lots of time.

• Content efforts plotted against overall sales 

• SEO performance 


Monthly, if desired by management

• 
High over content planning with campaigns and channels

• Budget reporting: production and media
• Team reporting: FTEs and external help

Content efforts plotted against overall sales 


Plot your content efforts against your overall sales data for a minimum of three years. You need the long-term to get insights. Doing this over a 3 or 6-month timespan is useless. 

Vertical ax (left):  the overall sales 

Horizontal ax: all content efforts; e.g., ‘Campaign XYZ, ‘publication help content’, ‘SEO optimalisation content’, ‘...’.  Including an overview of when you added resources to the team, hired a new agency, or budget cuts. 

Are there any specific milestones or events that influence the sales? E.g., the big launch of a new product or a pandemic lockdown, include these as well. 

Vertical ax (right): budgets for production and for media. Mention both, as you need both to create impact. 


SEO performance 


This is an indication of your leadership and digital maturity. The better your content, the better your SEO ranking. 

Without jumping into the SEO details, as this is an expertise by itself, I suggest you aim for a top-five position on the keywords people use to search for your product - not your brand name. 


If you rank outside of the top ten, your content is crappy, and your www technology is outdated. This is signal you have a bigger problem than just your content.


High over content planning with campaigns and channels


This one is more for the monthly reporting. The objective is to keep the management and stakeholders involved. You give an overview of the campaigns you are running and how you are performing against internal and external benchmarks.

Include your lessons learned and how you will implement these in the following campaigns and content production. 

Please. Keep this high level, and don’t fall into the pitfall of vanity metrics. Detials don’t matter to management - they want to know how you are doing and moving forward.

Budget reporting: production and media

Another thing that matters is how you are doing moneywise. What is the allocated budget, and how are you performing? Are you on track, overspending, or understanding? 

This underspending may sound weird. However, I encountered a few brands that were underspending on their media budget due to the suboptimal setup of the campaigns and audience building: too narrow or too conversion-focused. Or your content is so crappy content that the social channels didn’t use all media budget - remember, if the content is crappy, the socials don’t push it as it has no engagement.

Also, include your lessons learned on the budget; it’s the process and how you are going to improve.

Team reporting: FTEs and agencies

The war for talent has started. More often than not, a brand has many vacancies in its content team. Therefore, this is a valid metric to include in the reporting. Do you have the team in place to perform, or are you understaffed, causing suboptimal results?

Next to the team, you can include your agency management. This goes for production and media agencies. With whom are you working, and how are they performing?

No details for management

Why senior management should get a high-level, long-term reporting

• The details are a matter of the team, not of management 

• The details usually are vanity metrics focused on engagement, likes, 
and clicks 

• The details overshadow the bigger picture 

• The details are mostly short-term focused 


Final words

That having said, reporting on what matters to management isn’t easy. It’s bespoke and depends on the organization and its maturity, and the maturity of the management.

I hope I made you think about how to report to get next year’s budget

Quarterly or half-yearly

• Content efforts plotted against overall sales 

• SEO performance 


Monthly, if desired by management

• 
High over content planning with campaigns and channels

• Budget reporting: production and media
• Team reporting: FTEs and external help

Need help with all this? I got your back. Drop me a DM, and we can jump on a quick call about how to get started and if I can help you or if you need something or someone else.

The 5 most asked questions about content

You ask me the same questions over and over again. My clients. During workshops, keynotes, and calls. 

So, why not write them down? Here's my ‘They ask, you answer’ series on content and strategy.  The questions are in the most asked order. 

1. I want more content for less budget; what are the tips? 
2. What do I need to measure? I struggle with accountability. (this blog)
3. It takes forever; how can I speed up the process and shorten the time to market?
4. I don’t see the results; what can I do?
5. We struggle with ownership; where should content be?

• Bonus: How to prepare for AI; We have no idea what’s its true power; 33% cuts in teams are expected

Click on the links to read more (duh…)

Open mindset

This all starts with an open mindset. What I mean is that content is not exclusive to the marketing department. My advice is to involve other departments in your content ideation, production, and evaluation. Content is holistic, about your brand and it travels through all silos and layers. Pretty much a no-brainer, yet in reality content still is silo’ed.

Purpose of your content

Secondly, before you continue to read, you should realize it all starts with the purpose of your content.  Are you a one-way broadcaster or do you want to inspire and interact with your audience to create some kind of relationship?

If you want to engage with your audience, involving webcare can make a huge difference. If done correctly, webcare can be the second engine of your content ideation. The first engine is the brand strategy and marketing calendar — obviously.

Customer-centricity

The third is your customer-centricity.  Do you practice what your preach, do you put your customer in the heart of all your communications?  Do you really listen to their feedback to integrate those insights into your content production? Or are you just broadcasting?

Be honest with yourself. When is the last time you asked for and listened to feedback from your customers? Your webcare agents do this on a daily basis. 

Why webcare

If you really want to create an impact with your content via higher engagement, integrate webcare into the editorial board. The main reason is simple, webcare is the first point of contact with your audience and customers. Webcare knows what makes them tick and what’s going on in their minds.

• Webcare can predict the buzz and the sentiment of the content: if and how are people going to react to this piece of content.
• Based on audience feedback on social posts, webcare can help with content ideation.
• Due to their close contact with the customer, webcare has an overview of your audience’s concerns.

You just need to realize that webcare is not there to pick up the garbage of the marketing and communications department. And they are not only there to fix what others have broken. They are your co-workers and have valuable insights and data. Integrate them in the content team and make them part of the production process.

Webcare and data

As webcare is in close contact with the customer care department, they have an overview of the complaints, concerns, and feedback of your customers. They should have a list of the frequently asked questions and a list of the top 10 complaints about your products and services. Use those insights to produce content to engage with your audience on social.

Next to this, webcare monitors and reacts to social posts, therefore they get direct feedback and suggestions. Use this feedback to create new content. E.g., you sell a natural deodorant, and a mother reacts this product also works amazingly for her teenage son.

Editorial board

This is also pretty easy. Invite the customer care and or webcare department to your editorial board and content meetings. In this meeting, you discuss the content already published, the new content, and the content ideation list.

No editorial board?

If you do not have an editorial board yet, and you just jump from campaign to campaign without any structure, I kindly suggest creating this immediately. If you want to connect to your audience, you need to strategize, plan, and evaluate your content. And this is done in the editorial board, not in a PowerPoint report with some doggy vanity metrics and vague KPIs.

More impact

How this creates more impact? Easy answer. Content that fulfills audience needs, answers their questions, or provides a solution for their problem, by default has higher engagement than broadcasting and boosting your production features and technological advantages. Don't overcomplicate, just create content that adds value and your audience will engage. 

Photocredits: Rachel Claire via Pexels

Data supports creativity

Quite an open door, yet MediaMonks brings this into practice with two hands-on tips on how to get there. They speak from almost 20 yrs experience, working for top class brands and recognized by some impressive 131 Cannes Lions and 250+ FWA awards. You better take their advice and listen to them. 

First: Trust your agency

'If there is no trust, there is no relationship, and that magic will never happen.' As a brand provide your agency with your internal confidential data and those insights. There are used in your benefit. And this facilitates your agency to produce content that is way more relevant, to the point, and contributes to your business objectives. Win-win. 

Sicco explains 'this (strategic) data does in NO way hamper creativity. It is used to create a dynamic framework where flexibility and creativity are fed by data to create “bespoke” expressions -- the content assets.’ ‘This is where (content)marketing and business meet the interests of consumers.’

Second: Continue to use data

'Use this data-driven-way-of-working not only for the strategy but also for your content production. To be effective and efficient, it is important to adopt a performance-driven approach that recognizes the context in which users interact with the brand. With the note that 'it’s vital that the (content)message is designed from the ground up, to best fit its (distribution) platform.'

This performance and best-fit are measured in KPIs and real-time data. This data continuously feeds the dynamic framework to improve content assets. 'Be cheaper, faster, and better by using data to strengthen your content.' 

Not affiliated

Small side note for transparency. I am not affiliated with MediaMonks, I just like the agency. In my humble opinion, they are one of the best agencies out there. I have been working with them since 2008.  Back in those days, they saved my ass by going 24/7 to launch the website for my client within a few days. And in 2020, my clients and I are still going strong with them. Sure they got their flaws like any other agency, yet when they say they deliver, they deliver. 

MediaMonks, the content practice of S4

• How to structure content
• Data for content
• Analyse your competitors content
• Minimum viable content pages
• How to measure your goals and progress

In these blogs, you learn how you can use (free) data for your content strategy. From a reversed research on Google and YouTube to discover your audience need, based on their search queries. To analysing your competitor's content on the H1 and H2 to have a better ranking in SEO.

Including how you can be smarter with your budgets. Produce content and boost media only for those content pages that actually work. 

This data is almost for free, or at a relatively low investment. A search query on Google and YouTube will costs you a ballpark of 10k to 15k. Making a competitor analysis will cost you about 1h per keyword. Creating minimal viable content pages just takes time and effort. 

Get more bang for your buck using data.

Flipping the perspective, start with cheap minimal viable content. Use data. Then expand and scale up with expensive content for what works. It sounds simple and it is simple if you consider a few steps. 

SEO to start

Your biggest friend is data. First, you start with SEO as the main traffic driver. SEO is for 'free', no media budget needed.

Keywords

Get your main keywords in line with your content structure. Read more in 'Data for content' how to get them. 

To start, focus on one keyword or a specific combination of keywords for your pilot project. Then 'Analyse your competitors content' for better SEO ranking. Steal-copy-paste-and-adapt with pride.

Build a bunch of SEO optimized pages around this specific keyword.

Content pages

Create about 5 to 10 different landing pages for that one keyword. Each page with a different setup, different angel, different content. Variation is key. At the same time, you use 'cheap' content. The bare minimum text and visuals to answer the search query by your audience.

Minimal viable content

Meaning, do not produce expensive videos, go overboard in extensive long reads, create whitepapers, set up sales funnels, inspiring infographics, etcetera. Use an excellent copywriter and get great non-stock visuals. And you are good enough to start.

This 'minimal viable content' concept is stolen from the MVP in agile product development. If it works for products, for sure it can work for content. It is the philosophy and mindset that makes you nimble and fast to iteratively learn what works - before investing all of your budgets.

Data

Analyze weekly or monthly which pages are visited the most. Ergo, which page answers the search query and information needs by your audience. Rank the highest number of visitors, and score on the call to action.

This analysis takes time. After about 3 to 6 months you have a trend. Delete what doesn't work. Expand what works.

Now is the time to create that really kick-ass unicorn magic sparkling content. Spend serious time and money to produce this. Now it is worth the investment because you already know what works and what doesn't.

Rinse wash repeat

Do it again for the same keyword. SEO is a continuous process and does not end. Due to changes in your audiences' needs, changes in SEO, and changes in society, you always need to be monitoring and analyzing to learn and improve.

And do it again for your other keywords.

Expand to paid channels

Once you know what works, expand the distribution. From SEO to other channels as social and SEA. Now is the time to invest your media budget for boosting. 

Use your content eco-system for the overview. 

Budget savings

By producing and boosting 'expensive' content for what actually works, you can save yourself a lot of budget and time.  

SEO placeholder strategy

Very nice 'how to' by Klik Proces. Unfortunately only in Dutch available. 

• Why this works
• Requirements
• Cases
• How to implement this yourself

Don't be ancient. Do your homework before you start producing content. Three easy steps:

1. Research: Google data and other data
2. Plot the outcome on your themes
3. Competitor SEO analysis

* Warning: this is a long read *

Research: Google and YT data

A simple, cheap, and excellent check to gain insights into what your audience actually wants. In a nutshell: discover the Google and YouTube search queries related to your industry, brand and products. I promise you, you will be surprised by the outcome.

Having done this research for several clients, time overtime again, the top 3 searches revealed content needs the brand never imagined.

They all have in common that the searches relate to the ‘help’ content, the bare basics of your products. None of them had this specific content in place. The good news is, neither had their competitors…. From the different roasting processes of coffee beans, the how-to booze recipes plus hacks, to the specific details on the local road-taxes and warranty related to electric cars.

More on reverse search and the four main benefits

1. Reveal the top 3 of their concerns: what is your audience searching
2. Discover the unknown topics: you think in features, they look for solutions
3. Use the search intent to give them your solution
4. Know the volume to prevent producing unread content

Use reverse search to create relevant content

This Google and YouTube research will cost you roughly between € 7k for local and € 15k for global. With the condition, you have a crystal-clear and tight briefing for your agency. This can be your media agency or your creative agency. You can also hire a specialized data agency. Keep in mind it takes more time to brief a new agency as they do not know your brand and are not familiar with the organization.

Speaking from experience, my advice: use your creative agency. As the media agency is more inclined to develop an SEO and SEA strategy. That is exactly not what you are looking for. You want to gain insights into the audience's needs to use in your (creative) content strategy.

How to brief your agency

As this type of research is quite new for agencies, a few suggestions for what to include in the brief. Drill down the desired output and make sure they get your objectives and what you are looking for. Your executive brief should fit on 1 A4 in simplicity. If you need a death-by-powerpoint-deck, you have to learn to brief. The better your brief, the better the outcome.

• Objective: insights for content strategy
• Themes: list of topics you want to be found on
• Keywords: industry, brand, and product
• Competitors names: stick to main competitors
• Countries or region: stick to the most important
• Language(s)

Don’t include the details of your audience or personas. Keep it open to discover.

Ask the agency to do broad research. The goal is to find out if there are more keywords or specific combinations used. Can these be grouped, is there a common theme, is there a trend? What are the top 10 searches for your industry, brand, and your competitors?

Research: Google Analytics

Do a scan of your website and deep dive into the GA. What are the most and least visited pages? Include the origin of the traffic in this overview, the internal and external sources. This gives insights into how your www is actually used and what generates traffic.

This research often reveals a dis-balance between your content production and the actual audience behavior. If the majority of your content is on product features and the top 3 pages are ‘sustainability’, ‘marketing campaigns’, and ‘contact’ — then you have some amazing opportunities to stand out and to be distinctive. And you have some work to do.

Research: Google content needs

Research by Google and Kantar (2018) reveals the needs of the audience for the content. In a nutshell, there are six categories: ‘surprise me’, ‘thrill me’, ‘impress me’, ‘educate me’, ‘reassure me’ and ‘help me’. Note these are consumer-focused and not product or feature focused.

Plot your existing content and planned content against these categories. Do they line up or are you way off track and too much inside-out focused? Again, to create an impact with your content, your audience's needs are central. That defines what they actually want to read. It is not about you as the brand and about your products.

As Vogue wanted to increase their online readers base and their reach, they flipped their perspective. Research amongst their readers revealed their content needs. No surprise these align with the Google categories.

With some local differences in the order of importance:

1. Inspire me: the minority of actual content — most wanted
2. Teach me
3. Entertain me
4. Keep me up to date: 38% of actual content — least read content by the audience
5. Make me socially responsible: 2% of actual content — 53% of the audience wants this
6. Connect me

Easy to change category

There is no direct need to produce new content once you know the preferred categories. It is easy to adapt the ‘keep me up to date’ to ‘inspire me’ content. First, write a more inspiring title, and second, showcase different perspectives and points of view in the text itself.

Please view the talk by Sarah Marshall, head of audience growth by ‘Vogue International’ to get all the insights and details.

Research: Customer care and webcare

This department has the first line of (social media) contact with your audience. They know as nobody else what triggers them, their questions, and frustrations. Use them as a source to define what content is needed.

A few years ago, I was responsible for the setup of the new in-house webcare department for an insurance company. As sitting next to the boys and girls, I was reading and listening in on their conversations. Noticing the majority of the cases were questions by pregnant women on the insurance coverage.

Presuming our clients preferred to be independent and actually not wanting to chat with us, and presuming we do have these insurance conditions and fine print online… we concluded that our www-information was too hidden and scattered on several pages. And when the content was found, it was not clear enough. Hence, we did the content audit and rewrote the existing content. Furthermore, we created a merged overview-page with all pregnancy-related information. Provided with a short url and a targeted social campaign, we decreased the workload on the webcare team by significant numbers.

Plot the outcome on your themes

Pretty much an open door, you should use these insights to (re)define your themes to structure your content.

Imagine, you are a coffee company and the research shows your audience wants to know the difference between arabica and robusta, light roast, and dark roast. This could be your first theme to explain the basics of coffee beans. 

The same goes for when your audience is looking for how-to and recipes for a cappuccino. And they want to know the difference between an iced coffee and a cold brew, or a ristretto and espresso... here you have your second theme.

Read more on 'How to structure content'

Competitor SEO analysis

Once you know what content to produce, check out your competitors, and how they rank on SEO. 

Sneak preview how-to:

• Open an anonymous window in Google,
• type in the keyword and
• make a list of the first 10 content items.
• Check these pages on their H1, H2, and url,
• use these insights to produce your own content accordingly.

Me-marketing

If you want to hit the ground running with content strategy or do data research, don't hesitate to nudge me for help. With over 20 years of experience and helping great inspiring international clients, happy to share my knowledge and experiences. 

• 📱+31 6 245 03 999
• 💌fleurwillemijnvanbeinum@gmail.com
• or check my LinkedIn

Source and credits

All on the Google research with the six audience's needs and the Vogue example is stolen with pride from Cor Hospes in 'De zes contentbehoeften van jouw publiek' hope it Google translates. Next to the Vogue example, Cor also explains how BBC World Services nailed it and an interesting SXSW talk by BuzzFeed. Great read and he is worth a follow.

With mobile first you presume your audience grabs their phone and visits your website. With social first you flip the perspective from your 'end' to their 'beginning', from your website to their timeline. From a rather egocentric 'outside in', to a customer-centric 'inside out' mindset.

Produce content with their 'beginning' in mind, social content on their mobile. That is where your audience is triggered to come to your website. Create your content based on those expectations and preferences. 

Mobile first is still an illusion

We claim we are mobile first, yet the common process is still to focus on the desktop. Mobile more often than not is still derived and the adapted version. Flip this process to become more audience focussed. 

By default, develop your mobile website first, then followed by desktop optimization. On a more operational level, this means that all concepts and sketches for UX and visual design should be in iPhone or Android format.  

Social first content eco-system

Data tells about 60 to 80% of the traffic is on mobile. From a marketing perspective, most of these visitors come from organic and or paid in, uhm, social. Check out the content eco-system for this website and how I publish and distribute the content of my book. In the heart is the iPhone, not the desktop.

As I seduce and drive the traffic on LinkedIn, Twitter and Medium, I know most of the visitors are on mobile. Social is fast and easy. Hence my content also should be fast and easy in line with the rhythm and characteristics of social.

Social drumbeat

Social savvy content on a mobile website means sticking to the social drumbeat. Short reads, easy to scan and digest, fast-paced and pleasant on the eye with clear formatting and bold writing. Short. Simple. To the point. No fuzz.

High-end versus low-cost

These days of the corona crisis learns us that it actually is about the message, the content, you produce. The low-cost content that is pushed out there right now, beats the high-end professional produced posts. It is not about how beautiful you content looks, it is about what you want to tell. And if that is a bit more unpolished, a bit more raw and authentic, it actually adds to your credibility as a brand. 

Long reads

You can have long reads, just stick to the same formatting and writing style as for the short reads. When the content is relevant and adds value, people keep on reading. There is no rule about a specific number of words, the only golden rule is relevance and easy to digest.

Read more on 'Long-form content on the rise'

Visuals

The visuals enhance the message and merge seamlessly with the headlines. Exciting composition, clear and crisp colors and no boring stock. The main message and promise of the content in the headline and subtitle. The important stuff first followed by the fluff.

Read more on 'how to find great visuals'

By the way, having social first content also has benefits for the not-social visitors. The easy to digest and fast-paced requirements for social first content assets also work for visitors coming from Google or newsletters. 

In reality

This all sounds pretty common sense and clear. In reality, more often than not, brands and agencies still develop for desktop first, mobile second. And they do not combine the production of the content with the social drumbeat that delivers the traffic. The fix is easy, start with social and finish with mobile. It is the pace you adopt, not your message.

Explained by example

Let me explain the concept first before going into the theoretical details. With something almost everyone personally can relate to 'how to lose 15 pounds'.

All the credits to the podcast 'Chasing Excellence, '#116 Turning broad goals into concrete action' by Ben Bergeron. Stolen with pride. I have written down a part of his show, edited to improve readability.

Turn a broad goal into concrete actions

'How can you turn a broad goal into what you can do today to achieve it? How to have a system of accountability that allows you to be effective on a regular basis?'

'One of the solutions to make things happen is accountability.' 

First step 'Why'

'You begin with the higher level ideas. the ‘why’ behind it’. For example: ‘I want to get in shape’. Ask yourself 'Why do you want to get in shape?’

‘You have to answer that question first. You can’t leave it at that. Because what happens is that, if your 'why' doesn’t hurt enough, you are not going to do it.'

'You have to figure out, what it is you are trying to solve. How important is that to you? If it is something like ‘I need to get in shape because if I don’t …' or 'I need to change my lifestyle, if I don’t, the doctor said, I am going to die in six months.’ That’s a pretty big why. Most people in that situation change what they are doing.'

'You have to start with a really big thing, with a big why. If the why is not big enough you will not be as successful as you could be.'

'You need a big why to withstand some struggle and adversity along the way. And you are going to be excited to be held accountable along the way.' 

Second step 'get specific'

'From there you need to get specific. From motivational qualitative specific metrics (mission and vision) into specific objectives to narrow it down to one thing. What fires you up and gets you out of bed. From there, break it down into smart, measurable key results.'

'Have between 3 to 5 goals (and key results).'

'Then you break these goals into quarters, as landmarks. You can hold your attention for about three months. And at the end of these 90 days, you have a quarterly check-in and you ask yourself how you did. Schedule this in your google calendar en hold yourself accountable.'

'This is the magic. This is the accountability everyone else is missing when they make New Year's resolutions goals. They start and they are going for ten days and then the end of the year comes up and ‘I don’t really remember what they were…’

'Every single quarter you are going to check in to see if you are tracking to hit your one years’ and you can have different quarterlies along the way.'

Example: 'How to lose 15 pounds' and your why

'For example, you want to lose 15 pounds this year. The first question I ask is ‘why?’, Because what you created there is the metric. I don’t know if that really gets you geared up or not. So ‘why do you want to lose 15 pounds’?'

‘I want to lose 15 pounds because I want to look more confident on the beach.’

‘Why do you want to look more confident on the beach?’

‘Because I am looking for a romantic partner.’

‘Now we are getting to something, this is actually a meaningful thing. You want more confidence. It is not about those 15 pounds. What you want to do, is to have more confidence to find a potential partner. Now we are getting to your real ‘why’. What we do is to spend some time formulating this, that resonates, that’s real. Losing the 15 pounds is one of the things to get to your end goal, finding that romantic partner. Now we have the why behind that.'

We got two things now:

• the big overarching thing that makes it a bit sexier and rememberable: the why is to 'find a romantic partner'
• the specific objective is to ‘lose 15 pounds next year’

Objective and key results [OKR]

'From there what we do is to define ‘what do we believe we need to do in the next 90 days to get there’. Break it down into quarterly objective(s). And put these completely inside your control. 'You can’t just say I need to lose 5 pounds. We need to turn that objective into actionable and controllable things that are going to help you lose those 5 pounds, your key results. 

'The 90-day objective is to ‘lose 5 pounds.’

'The corresponding key results are what you need to make sure you do, to lose those 5 pounds in that quarter.'

 What are the things you must do that are totally in your control?' Your key results can be, like, ‘no desserts’ or ‘no eating out’ and ‘working out consistency’. Now, let’s make these three super-specific and measurable.

• ‘You are going to CrossFit 4 days a week’
• ‘you are going to eat out only once a week’
• ‘no desserts except for Saturday night’

The secret is the check-in

'Now we have this... Every single week, at the same time, we are going to check-in. With a coach, with a business partner or with yourself. We are going through your key results and track how did we last week. And you are going to hold yourself accountable.'

'It is amazing what checking a box does for people. It is amazing what social pressure can do. This is the secret sauce.'

'You go through the specific results: ‘done’ or ‘not done’. If you have a miss, talk about why you missed that. Now we are doing something, we are solving an issue. Than we are getting to that cause again, zoom out and ask ‘why’ you had a miss.

‘It was really tough.’

‘Why was it tough?’

Pull it back a few dominos and we might find things like obstacles we didn’t even realize; like ‘my schedule is this’, or ‘we are not grocery shopping enough’ or ... we might find so many things. Now we are solving things along the way to clear the obstacles that allow you to achieve your goal. And become accountable on a weekly basis.

If you rinse, wash, repeat that process, 12 times over a quarter, we get to the end of the quarter and we do another check-in. Depending on the result, create the next set of accountabilities for the next quarter.

Find you why, define your goals and the specific actions within your control to get there. Track on a weekly basis. Figure it out the obstacles and solve them. Take ownership yourself. What is causing them and then make the changes.

The power is being accountable

The power is in the peer pressure. Being accountable to some else, to do this in person, look them in the eye and say ‘I didn’t do that’. We, human beings, feel the responsibility towards each other to follow through to our word. It creates a lot of accountability along the way. (Not saying you cannot do it on your own as well.)

This is the secret to get your business to move forward, This is the secret to get your yearly goals and resolutions, to move the needle for you personally. You need to answer on a weekly basis if you are doing these things to achieve quarterly objectives that stack up to your one year.

OKR theory explained

A simple goal setting system and to keep track of your progress is the ‘Objective and Key Results’ [OKR] methodology. It describes your ’what we think is important and why this is important’ plus ‘how do we get there’. In the meanwhile, it smashes those nasty departmental silos. 

In all honesty, the terminology 'OKR' falsely appears to be a buzz word. It is anything but. Continue to read and give it a go, it really works and moves the needle. From business objectives into personal objectives. I tried and tested with a project for the Olympics Tokyo 2020 and writing this book.

This OKR methodology blew my mind. I never heard about it and it feels like the best-kept secret. 

Simple and transparent

I like it because of its simplicity, transparency, openness and no-nonsense approach. It gives a tangible measurable direction with accountability and clarity. As all is written down, openly communicated and available for all employees in the company, everyone knows what everyone else is doing and can help each other.

‘With the eruption of social media, transparency is the default setting for our daily lives. It’s the express lane to operating excellence. Yet at most companies today, goals remain secrets.’ This OKR methodology embraces this transparency to enable the entire company to work towards the same goals. Everybody knows the projects the others are working on, therefor it also becomes easier to say ’no’ to requests that are not in line with your OKRs. It makes objectives objective, written down in black and white.

This is used by brands like AOL, BMW, Disney, Dropbox, Exxon, Google, Intel, LinkedIn, Oracle, Samsung, Slack, Spotify, and Twitter. If it works for them, for sure it can work for me and you. Described into detail by John Doerr in ‘Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs’.

Objective 'what'

You set your objective, ‘what’ is the most important for the next three, six or even twelve months. What will move the company — and you — forward. The attribution to the business value has to be clear, otherwise, there is no need to invest time and effort in the objective.

Ideally, you stick to 3 or a maximum of 5 objectives quarterly to keep your focus. Significant, concrete, action-oriented, and inspirational. And have one owner for the accountability. If your objective doesn’t fit in one line, it is not clear enough. If you wrote it down in 5 minutes they probably are not good, think.

First, you set the company OKR, than for the team followed by the individual OKRs. By being open and transparent on all objectives from top to down, the entire company can truly work as a team. And help each other.

Key Result 'how'

This is the ‘how’ you are going to get to the objective. Very detailed and specific and time-bound, aggressive yet realistic. Most of all, measurable and verifiable. Describe the desired outcome, not the activities. Mostly a maximum of five KR’s is what you need to reach the objective.

Four benefits

The four direct benefits of the OKR methodology is to bring focus and commit to priorities, to align and connect for teamwork, to track for accountability, and to stretch for amazing.

Time path

• 4–6 weeks before quarter: Brainstorm Annual and Q1 OKRs for Company. Senior leaders start brainstorming top-line company OKRs. If you’re setting OKRs for Q1, this is also the time to set your annual plan, which can help guide the direction of the company.
• 2 weeks before quarter: Communicate Company-wide OKRs for Upcoming Year and Q. Finalize company OKRs and communicate them to everyone.
• Start of quarter: Communicate Team Q1 OKRs. Based on the company’s OKRs, teams develop their own OKRs and share them at their meetings.
• 1 week after Start of quarter: Share Employee Q1 OKRs. One week after team OKRs are communicated, contributors share their own OKRs. This may require negotiation between contributors and their managers, typically in one-on-one settings.
• Throughout quarter: Employees Track Progress and Check-in. Throughout the quarter, employees measure and share their progress, checking in regularly with their managers.
• Near end of quarter: Employees Reflect and Score Q1 OKRs. Toward the end of the quarter, contributors score their OKRs, perform a self-assessment, and reflect on what they have accomplished.

An example by Intel

Objective: ‘Demonstrate the 8080’s superior performance as compared to the Motorola 6800’

Key Results:

• Deliver five benchmarks. Develop a demo.
• Develop sales training materials for the field force.
• Call on three customers to prove the material works.’

Another example

Objective ‘Win the Indy 500’

Key Results:

• Increase average lap speed by 2 percent
• Test at wind tunnel ten times
• Reduce average pit stop time by one second
• Reduce pit stop errors by 50 percent
• Practice pit stops one hour per day

Read the book

This is just scratching the surface with the essence described in a nutshell. On my personal recommendation, read this book, try it for yourself and never look back. ‘Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs’ by John Doerr

Finding a publisher is damn difficult. Honestly, getting denied time over time again isn't that bad, feedback improved my writing and made the book to what it is today. Yet, what is content if it doesn't reach the audience. If the knowledge stays on my computer, nobody benefits. Hence, flipping the perspective and practicing what I preach, I decided to publish by myself, online, piece by piece. 

Week by week I publish the individual chapters and paragraphs of my book. Each has its own release, indexed by tags. Use the tags or bounce from release to release. You can bounce from release to release by using the tags, you can search for topics or you can just go with the flow and read what resonates. 

At the end of each chapter, you can download the PDF with the collection of the releases that create the chapter. Below you find the first part of the first chapter. Available in low res (1,5MB) and high res (45MB).

Content of the first chapter

Foreword and outline, Basics and fundamentals for content, It starts with a belief, 3 Key takeaways for content excellence, 4 Elements of how to think like a publisher, How to set up a newsroom, How to find great visuals, To blog or not to blog, Share content from others, 'How to keep your CFO on board for brand-building' by Les Binet, Your why and leadership, The content basics and fundamentals, Cross-silo content, Long term brand building content, Content pledge: contribute to business objectives, Content painpoints, 'Epic content marketing tips' by Joe Pulizzi, Start up to scale up, Sense of content urgency, We hate ads, Be Distinctive, 'Character Gives Respect' by G-Star RAW, 'Content to stand out' by Flinders, 'Stick to Your Brand Voice' by WodBottom, Build a brand before products, Reputation management, Brand safety and content.

Soon to be published in this chapter

Content to contribute to business objectives, Set your KPIs, Reporting Tips, Measure progress with OKR, Fill the top of the funnel, Use a brand persona for content consistency, Sonic identity and content, Podcasts and how to make your own, Social first, The audience first for the best content, Learn them something new, Content follows media spend, Create a threesome: content, media, and production, Common content mistakes, Data and content

More to come within soon, stay tuned on LinkedIn or twitter​

They are taking over the CrossFit world by storm. With a strong and fierce brand, they make that emotional connection. Their base is in the USA and they have a dedicated EU shop. It all started online and expanding to pop-up and bricks and mortar shops. A basic collection with sold-out limited editions, excellent customer service, and strong social content and advertising, they rock big time. 

What is special about their brand, how did they developed it and what we can learn?

Key takeaways 

• It is about a long term view and mindset. 'Make the pie bigger and not make our slice bigger. If we get more people doing this, our slice by definition gets bigger.’
• Build a brand and create content before you have products to sell. ‘Once we had the name NOBULL, it became a filter that guided everything.’
• Recognize that the product specs are not enough to become relevant and to have an emotional connection. ‘It is not about you, it is about them, your customers and their needs. Most of the times a product is created and then sold to people. Start the other way around, first the needs and use those as a filter to develop the product.’

Stolen with pride from the podcast ‘Chasing Excellence’ 'The Origins of NOBULL' by Ben Bergeron, ‘a show dedicated to dissecting what it means to live a life of excellence, both inside the gym & out.’

I have written down a part of the interview, edited bits and pieces to improve readability. 

Entrepreneurial long term mindset

‘Reebok is coming back with an incredible offer.’ Without the slightest hesitation, the response was ‘go with them.’ ‘What they are offering, we cannot match.’

‘And what is better for them, is better for the sport. And if it is better for the sport, it is better for us in the long run.'

'That is such a long term view. Instead of what is better for us this week, this month, this quarter, … , it is about the long term. This is so refreshing because it is about making the pie bigger and not to make our slice bigger.’

'If we get more people doing this (CrossFit), the slice by definition gets bigger.'

‘They get it.'

Why NOBULL had to build a brand before they had a product to sell

[Ben asking] 'You were building the brand before you had the product. Most of the times people have a product and then start to build the brand on top of it. This is flipping it. You have the ethos first, and then find the product that fits. How did NOBULL do this?'

[Markus answering] 'It came from the name. Once we had the name NOBULL, it became a filter that guided everything. And that became the whole mentality about being a brand for people who train hard and have no excuses.'

'It is within the product. We try to keep the product simple and it performs with you the way you need it to - and nothing else. Once we had that then we could start to set that mentality. And that drives the content and everything else.'

Content creation before they had the products

'From the very early stages, even before we had the product, we developed content. You can be very creative in the way you shoot things. You could not see the shoes they were wearing, you can set the tone. You couldn’t necessarily see what the product was, but you can feel it.'

'We did this a lot out of necessity. Because once we started working on it, we had the timeline for launching and we did not have the products. When we realized the product was going to be delayed even more, we were forced to be more creative around the way we talked about the brand and the mentality.'

'The very first piece of content we created was for the factory, a 60’’ spot. Their response was ‘wow this is different and this is exciting’. And from that moment on everything started top-pick up a lot faster.'

Become relevant, recognizing that product spec isn’t enough

'How do we become relevant within the CrossFit space? We were not thinking about how we are going to compete (with other brands). We were always thinking about what we are going to say, and what connects with us.'

'One thing that was very clear for both of us (founders), …, we felt like brands talk about ‘where our products, our shoes can make you run faster, jump higher or make you stronger’. And we didn’t agree with that.'

'The only thing that is going to make you faster, stronger, any of those things, is you to put in the work. That is where the NOBULL mentality 'no excuses' comes from. And that is connected really well in the broader Crossfit community.'

Build an emotional brand connection

'Building an emotional connection to a brand and not relying on the product specs. Therefore you need to build a brand before you have the products. You have to fuse it with emotion to make it work.'

'It is not about you, it is about them, your customers and their needs. Most of the times a product is created and then sold to people. Start the other way around, first the needs and use those as a filter to develop the product.'

'For NOBULL the needs (of the athletes) are about stability, durability and there is no reason it can’t look good. That was the filter for the materials.'

'We went to look for the materials, the upper for our training shoe, the ‘super fabric’. It is a highly durable material, a military-grade material. It makes a lot of sense for everything we are doing in CrossFit with rope climbs and super stable for Olympic lifting we do. It came from a purpose around the need were going to be.'

'Above and beyond you need connection. That the people you are speaking to, feel that you get them. If your message is about you, there is no connection. Nobody is really excited to go out to lunch with somebody who constantly talks about themselves, they want to find about you and if you speak to them and their needs matter. That is where the connecting starts.'

Video and visual credits:  https://www.instagram.com/nobullproject/ , first posts June 2014

Aim to make the best better

’Talk to the customer every day. Selling is not a one-way game’ Pete tells me. ‘We advise our customers and our customers advise us. We learn from each other’. Often claimed, seldom brought in practice as Pete does. ‘We aim to make the best better, and in the meantime put a smile on our customers’ face’, he shines while he explains his passion.

Of course, in the end, it is always about sales and generating revenue. Yet there are big differences in how to close the sale, time over time again. Given the fact Pete’s sports shop is open for over 30 years in a very competitive and sales aggressive-Austrian-by-few-families-owned-market, says enough. 

Online one-way communication

‘In digital, it is one-way communication. Brands do claim they listen to their customers, yet they listen to reply. Not to understand. The key fact for the online sales in technical gear is that there is an 80% miscommunication between what the brands produce and what the customers want.

When the customer needs and the clothes get technical, online will not reach that level of connection and advice the customer needs to get the most out of those technical specs of the jackets or pants.’

Sure, there are online reviews and recommendations by influencers. Yet, ‘this is crazy’ Pete explains. ‘These are all N=1’s. In a store, you can connect, via the staff, to hundred of customers and peers instead of the few reviews online or the paid influencer.’

‘For a lot of brands in retail, the practical knowledge base of the designers is missing.’ ‘The (design) world gets better if the people who create the products, actually wear and use them in all circumstances.’ He adds ‘step down, talk to the people and your customers, involve them. Use that valuable feedback in your design process.’ Pete only sells brands that embrace and live this mindset, therefore you will not find the big commercial brands in his shop.

Customer input

Pete’s advice for premium brands ‘Go out there. Talk to your end-customers and ask them for their needs. Do this personally and locally. Come back, and use that knowledge.’ ‘The costs of the management or designers of a brand going into a retail store and collecting input are low, and the output is priceless.’

‘All you need is some effort and a little budget to spend on traveling. Keep an open view and get input from all the customers, also from other brands. Be openminded, it is about the needs of your customer and not the needs of the brand. Then follow up and continue. Collecting input from the direct source is not a one-off. You should do this once every season.’

Retail versus online

Online is an evolution. With e-commerce, customers are more flexible and have more opportunities. Yet, for retail (like us) everything happens in the building. ‘As a retailer, to run an e-shop, that costs about as much as having the bricks and mortar store’ Pete explains.

‘As a retailer, you will never reach the level you are able to reach as a brand.’ For example, Icebreaker made merino fabric big. Ortovox took a part of that wool story and build their own brand around it. Super smart. ‘We retailers cannot compete with the big brands in manpower, budget nor time. We do not have the margins the brand DTC shops have.’ ‘Hence we compete on a different level. We compete on knowledge, service and, for us, also on the footprint.’

Service and footprint as advertising

‘If you like us, you will come back’ Pete explains. ‘We have service as advertising. Don’t buy a new jacket if you don’t need one. And we also don’t want to cross or up-sell you. There is no need to sell some new ski thermo underwear if the customer can wear his e.g. running thermo gear. Be aware of what you buy and your footprint.’

Next to that, ‘we want to keep garments in the loop. We prefer to repair your gear than to sell you a new jacket. Why throw away something that still can be used? This also goes for items that are not bought in our shop.’ Sounds a bit like Patagonia, doesn’t it? With their footprint awareness behavior, they want to inspire their customers. And besides, it authentically sets them apart from the other shops.

If you buy a high-end technical jacket or pants in the Pete’s store, they give you a voucher for € 50 repair, to be used whenever from wherever. This is a mindset. For the customer to take better care of his product and don’t throw it away. For Pete’s sport shop to drive an honest and low footprint business with a long term strategic thinking of serving the customer in the best way possible.

Customers do return to the shop, even after 10 or 20 years. Amongst them, myself. Why I return to the bricks and mortar and not to buy online? I prefer to spend my money with them than any other shop. Even if I maybe pay full price. Excellent advice, superb service and never ever had the feeling I ‘needed’ to buy something there, like being ‘forced’ by the staff.

Just before our interview, I drop by in the shop. Pete is seated behind his sewing machine, repairing a gore-tex jacket at the side seams. ‘Since recently, people started to carry their skis in a different way. Not on the shoulders anymore, but in the hand, like some grocery bags.’ ‘This causes damage at the seams, the manufacturers were not aware yet of this new behavior. Yet, if we tell them, we hope to get enhanced seams in next years’ collection.’ The ‘them’ in this story are brands like Patagonia, Peak Performance, Arcteryx, State of Elevenate and Hestra to name a few of the wanna have high-end high tech outdoor brands.

What big brands can learn

If you are a big brand or a small local store, the behavior of the customer is always the same. It is about excitement. It is about passion. And if you can add a smile on your customers’ faces, they will return for more.

Go from ‘listen to customer’ to ‘invite your customer’. ‘Invite them to your process.’ Small costs, priceless output, and insights on the desired details that create your distinctiveness. ‘If these details are not done in the right way, you will not close the sale.’ Dare to do listen, to invite and to implement this as a brand.

Visit Pete when you are in St. Anton or go to sportpete.com

WodBottom sells booty shorts for CrossFit. For those who are not familiar with these bootylicious booty shorties, the special thing is the fit and if they stay in place during the workout. Next, a bit controversial, some people are quite opinionated about all shapes and size women wearing these short shorts. By a lack of shorties with excellent fit, high-quality fabric and with some sparkling designs, Emily Ruyle founded WodBottom. ‘WOD’ stands for ‘Work Out of the Day’ the name for the daily training in Crossfit. ‘Bottom’, well, that speaks for itself.

With a profound background in marketing and product development, Emily is very explicit about the brand voice of WodBottom. ‘What makes a person love it and buy again and again, is the emotional pull.’ In two years’ time, she developed the current slightly controversial and authentic brand voice. Sticking to it and standing firmly about it. In times of feedback, WodBottom showed that they were not stepping down due to negative comments from others about all women wearing booty shorts. Customers embraced the brand for being firm where they stood for.

‘Put your money where your mouth is.’ Strive to focus on the brand message and be who you are. ‘Sure you want to be profitable, yet it is not so much about making sales.’ ‘Focus on the long term game to keep customers happy and engaged.’

Brand voice

In Emily her own words ‘Everybody has their unique way to shine.’ ‘I wish I could convey to people they should forget about the word ‘should’. I don’t like it when someone says ‘they should’. Whatever… Who created those rules what people should and should not do? Accepting what other people do, would make the world a better place.’

Key elements to her brand

• Create what people talk about. A lot. Online and offline. This has two elements. Design to show off your personality on the but cheeks. Her first design sold out immediately, unicorns and rainbows. From there on expanding into florals and abstract. Nowadays, at request by the fans, also solid colors. The second is quality. Creating shorties that stay in place, cover your cheeks and are squat proof. No matter the workout.

• ‘Don’t be in the game for the money. Be there to create a relationship that matters.’ Listen to what they want, what they love and are passionate about.

• ‘Trust in the brand is essential. Give them a great product and even better experience. Value the customer more than their wallet.’

• Honest feedback shows her how valuable the customers are. Customers want to be heard and they like sharing their ideas and frustrations. What makes them happy or sad.

• Customers define your brand and give authentic feedback on how you are performing. Plus it is unique feedback on how to grow and expand your brand. Emily listens in several ways to keep up and to improve customer experience: Facebook Groups, email, and text, Ambassadors and Influencers program. 

Content strategy

The brand voice comes to life in the content strategy. The fun and funky designs that show personality with humor and a sarcastic tone of voice define the assets. The visuals are a bit raw and unpolished. Authentic in the typical recognizable very not photogenic CrossFit box settings. Emily has made a deliberate decision not to use the professional-looking polished picture-perfect photos for her products. This doesn’t resonate with who the brand is.

The customer-centricity also resonates in the posts. Honest, open and raw feedback. The reviews, quotes, and pictures taken by the ladies themselves are used on the website, on social and even in Facebook advertising.

Two types of content

The posts are split into two categories. Next to the bootylicious product posts, Emily speaks up via her blog. ‘Supporting women’ to ‘accept the way we are’ in ’all different shapes and sizes’. The blog that most impressed me is about ‘Body Positivity’. This is a common topic amongst female athletic brands such as Nike, Under Armor and many others. The big difference in the brand voice of WodBottom is that she takes it a step further. In the second part of this particular blog, a big shout out for women themselves not to judge the other women ‘What about how we treat others?’. Love this distinctiveness! Read her blog

Customer care the makes you giggle

For the sake of the great fun-loving and slightly different customer experience that makes you giggle, order a pair of booty shorts at WodBottom. Get onboard Emilys’ customer experience journey. Steal with pride that best fits your brand and your brand voice. For a small investment of $42 you get a pair of these shorties and you gain a great example by the book for customer experiences and the feeling there is a real person behind the brand. wodbottom.com/

WARC: One of the things that we've heard out of the WARC Toolkit survey is that (marketers) have a challenge making the case for long-term brand investment to convince the CFO, who is dubious of giving that money for something that they can't see is working straight away. How do they make that case?

Binet: “The first thing is to start talking the language of finance. We don’t help our case when we talk about brand-building in terms of awareness, image and ‘touchy-feely’ terms. Brand building is about selling. It’s about revenues and cash flow, but it’s about durable revenues and cash flow, over longer time periods. We have to help CFOs to understand that some marketing activity gives you an immediate short-term delivery of sales,”

Over-reliant on performance marketing

WARC: We’ve recently seen Adidas and eBay acknowledging that they had become addicted to performance marketing and were looking to make a change. How do you think some of these enormous brands have become over-reliant on performance marketing?

Binet: “The addiction to the short-term is not a new phenomenon, but it has got a lot worse. One of the problems is that (for) short-term activities, you get immediate feedback: responses, clicks, or short-term sales. If you are a marketer who's spending money and nervous about what you're getting for your money, you can immediately see that this stuff pays back. It's become easier and easier to see these short-term effects because we have more granular short-term data that comes through faster and faster. With the arrival of e-commerce in particular and digital metrics in general, all of the business is now afflicted by the same problem. All businesses now have short-term metrics, which can distract them from long-term growth. I think that's the real reason why business is becoming a short-termist. It's not quarterly reporting. It's not the short tenure of marketers. It's the data.”

Key metrics

WARC: Is there any specific metric that a brand should be looking for as an indicator that they should make a change? And if they do make that change, what type of metrics seem to see the most improvement?

Binet: “The most important metrics to look at first are financial and business metrics… If you got a strong brand, you will see it in the financials. If you've got a weak one, you'll see it in the financials. The most important brand metrics are to do with sales, profit, price sensitivity, and hard financial spend.

WARC.com

These and more great insights in the interview by WARC

For those who are unfamiliar with WARC, it is an amazing research platform with the best insights and publications on everything that's happing in the marketing world. As they say themselves 'Let’s save the world from ineffective marketing. At the heart of all great marketing is an insight. At WARC, we have the most trusted insights based on evidence enabling your work to be effective.'

From own experience, not cheap to get a subscription, worth every penny.

This is a non-sponsored nor an affiliated post. Sharing this because these insights and this platform are too significant not to know.

‘The more difficult it is to produce the content, the easier it is to stand out.’ ‘The more difficult it is to obtain content about products or brands, the higher the margin. And the less competition there will be…’ And that is exactly what Flinders does. By stepping up and raising that bar. 

The secret of success is the content Flinders creates. The numbers speak for themselves. In just 8 years from the launch of the website in January 2011 to the amazing flagship store in Zaandam (2000m2), Flinders Cafe Groningen, warehouse (9000m2) in Amsterdam, Design Studio Gent. Geert-Jan adds, all shiny and proud, that Flinders is awarded as the ‘Best Furniture Shop’ of the Netherlands in 2019. With an expected sales volume of € 24 million in the same year. 

In-house content team

They mix the traditional product shots provided by the furniture manufacturers, with their own in-house produced content showing the room setting and giving inspiration. The problem with the traditional shots is that is lacking that information for the customer to make a well-funded decision.

‘Yes, It is very time-consuming to make your own content. Especially the images. One shot of a nice room setting can take up to one day. But then again, that makes it possible to differentiate ourselves from the other furniture webshops.’ ‘The content you create and collect should be high res and flexible in size and form so that it can be used for every channel, platform, and social medium.’

The third source of content is the customers themselves. With the MyFlinders program, they collected 700+ inspirational user-generated pictures. Uploaded by the customers with #myflinders. Starting in 2017 the in-house photographer visits their most inspiring homes to extend this content. Used online and in the magazine. Priceless content to tell the Flinders stories and to help sell the products they love.

The Flinders extensive in-house content team consists off

• 2 Copywriters
• 1 SEO specialist
• 1 Visual designer
• 1 Social Media Marketeer
• 1 Trendwatcher and Photographer
• 1 Photographer

The Customer Care and Advice Department give advice to the content team. From insights on the type of interior and furniture advice, the customers are looking for, what information is missing on the website, to how the website should improve from the customers' perspective.

All these content assets are used in the online and offline formats. From obviously their website, with all the product content, trends and inspiration chapters, advice and room setting modules to their print magazines. They even provide interior advice at home. Including taking care of all the hassle that comes with buying and placing new furniture. Flinders is the data-driven e-commerce platform adding value by giving inspiration and providing 'retail as a service'.

Three tips

Use data to set your product and content strategy.

Flinders focuses on the data first. Not on the furniture. Do your research on what your audience is looking for to develop your product inventory. And use the brands to create the Google and YouTube search volume and traffic to generate immediate sales volume in your webshop.

Another really valuable often overseen source of immersive data is the Customer Care department. Involve them for the insights on the first contact with the customers. Align these two sources with the Google trends and the international Furniture Fairs — and you are setting up for success. 

Have your PIM in place

The Product Information System is the heart of the brand. Filled with their own and supplier content. By working closely together with their suppliers, the basic content like pack shots and life pictures are provided in a format that can be uploaded/connected right into the PIM (API, XLS, feed).

Every piece of content is tagged with multiple labels and topics. This is a hell of a job, painstaking and a monumental task. This can be partly automated. However, with the devil in the details, the manual check of all the tags is what makes the difference. 

Content needs attention

After a year your content becomes outdated and definitely needs to be updated. Plan this within the daily operation as it takes a lot of work. Do not only focus on the production of new content.

Source: Flinders, MyFlinders program, Flinders tag on IG

Martijn is a smart entrepreneur with balls. With his origin in the beauty industry, he stumbled upon the plant-based formula for an all-natural and effective deodorant. Challenged by his peers ‘this is far too niche and never will be viable, let alone profitable’ he proved them wrong. Very wrong.

Let the sales numbers speak for themselves; Launched in September 2017. And +400% growth from 2018 to 2019. Currently approaching 250.000 tubes sold. The secret of their success is to have your audience in the heart of the brand.

Context first

The first step is to define the context. Use the insights on society and within the industry. What are the big trends, define the ‘gap’ with the current products in the market, and how can your product fulfill these needs.

‘People are looking for products that are harmless to the body and the environment. Going ’natural’ is the trend. The ‘innocent’ products are the answer. Up till the launch of Nuud, there were plenty of all-natural deodorants. But none of them worked in the long term or was always effective for a broad audience. Without jumping into details, if an all-natural deodorant works or not, co-depends on the skin of the user. The Nuud formula is the exception. You only need to apply it every 3 to even 7 days and works for many more people.

Content second

The next step is to develop the content in line with the needs and feedback of the audience. Given the ‘natural’ trend Nuud initially launched with starting to explain what was ‘wrong’ with the existing not-natural deodorants and why they were the better all-natural alternative. And their audience reacted, not always in a positive way.

Lesson learned a positive message works better than a negative one. Five months in, they shifted their communication strategy. It is more effective to confirm that their all-natural product actually works than to give the scientific explanation ‘why people should switch’ to all-natural. Stepping away from the ‘make the switch’ into the ‘it works’ as the basis of the content strategy.

The cherry on the cake to kickstart this new direction was their shout-out for real customer reviews. Overwhelmed with the response, they selected 30 users to produce the ‘happy movies’. Real people, with real stories, without incentives, to share their experiences with the product.

They incorporated social feedback to further develop the content strategy. Using the feedback loop with comments such as ‘works perfectly for my smelly teenager’ Nuud expanded their campaigns. With thanks to the agile in-house team, the time to market from ‘user comment’ to a new campaign is a maximum of two weeks.

Reviews third

Why I started to use Nuud myself, is due to the raving reviews by other users. No need to explain that reviews by others are more convincing that the marketing by the brand itself. Besides, a review doubles as valuable inspiration for new content and campaigns.

Currently, Nuud has about 500 reviews on nuudcare.com, 600 on Google, and some 800 recommendations on Facebook. All between 4,5 out of 5 stars. If that many people are happy with the product, it for sure has to work. Keeping in mind that they do got balls, as the reviews and recommendations on Facebook cannot be edited by the brand. Once a Facebook review is given, it is there to stay including all ugly or beautiful truth.

Smart usage algorithms

Last not least, Nuud is doing social marketing by the book. Integrating the ads and the media-buying based on the same set of KPIs and objectives. With over 4.000 ads running simultaneously they have all variations with the differences in the details. As there is no accounting for taste, they let Facebook and Instagram data work the magic. The social algorithm selects the best ad for the specific audience based on their split-second behavior.

Specific to their media buying audience Nuud has an open approach. The product doesn't dictate the audience. Helped by Facebook, they continuously test, learn and develop new and broad target audiences. From vegans to sports, teenagers, travelers, and all-hairy-let-it-grow-super-naturals.

Nuud tunes and tweaks their social advertising on a daily basis with an agile team of a content producer / visual designer, social media buyer and webcare agent.

Local to Global

‘There is no real differentiation between countries’ Martijn admits. The Google van Youtube Search Query data shows more or less the same pattern for the second keyword: ‘review’, ’buy’ and ‘discount’ or ‘coupon’.

For the advertising, again, they let the FB and IG algorithm work for them. Without going into too many business-sensitive details, the algorithm selects the target audiences based on the objectives and doesn’t differentiate between countries or regions. The key is to offer the right content at the right moment in the funnel. Hence the 4.000 ads.

Wear out of content

One of the current lessons by Nuud is the wear-out effect of campaigns on social. Compared to traditional TVC the lifetime of a campaign on social is shorter. Integrate the development of new campaigns in your daily business. Allocate enough time and resources for that daily optimization of the current campaigns, and at the same time develop the new ones.

In-house team

All this is done with their in-house team. On the webcare and customer care team Martijn is specific. ‘We value them’. ‘Not only financially, but we also give them freedom and mandate to reach excellence and customer satisfaction’. ‘It is a matter of trust and respect and that exponentially gives back to the brand’. Please, note not all roles are fulltime employees.

“Four Founders, among them a Marketer and two Creative Content Producers. In addition to that an Online Media Specialist, a PR and influencer marketing specialist, a senior marketeer, a creative producer and three Webcare and Customer Care Agents. They all work seamless together as a cohesive team and are conquering the world. 

Sounds a bit like a no brainer. Yet in reality, as soon as the content assets are delivered to the media agency, most marketers wrap up and move on to the next campaign. Speaking from experience, even the evaluation afterward is quite superficial and scuffled away in a folder on the company drive. A missed opportunity to learn and improve your content efforts based on insights and data. 

How to and what you need

How to use data and set up an iterative learning campaign after campaign. Create, test, measure, and repeat. Continue the learning cycle. 

What you need:

• KPIs: what do you want to reach producing and distributing content. By preference, you align your KPIs with your business objectives. Content should always contribute to the business and you need to step away from vanity metrics such as followers and engagement. 
• Testing plan: know what hypothesis, audience behavior, you want to test within and between campaigns.
• Threesome between brand - media buying - content creation. These three must work seamlessly together to get insights. Just shifting the procuration and assets list back and forward will not do the job. 
• Real-time data: keep track of success.
• Content assets: a lot, and even a bit more. Variation is key. And use the social algorithm to your advantage and let it decide what content assets are best for your campaign KPI.
• Focus: make the testing and reporting a dedicated task to ensure it gets done.

'Focus on long term learning instead of short term ROI optimization'. Joseph Harper, E-commerce Marketing Manager - Western Europe at Kellogg Company, is a firm believer and shares his three tips for long-term testing of content assets. 

Frequency kills

Yes, you build a brand and imprint your message by repeating your message. Yet, 'most of the time the adds are 1:1 repeated without any variation, let alone testing. For me personally, as for many others, seeing the same ads over and over again, cause irritation. Make sure you have different variations and assets to test. Learn what works, and take from there.'

Channel shapes the content

By lack of budget or time, or maybe even knowledge, you see a lot of ads in the wrong format for the (social) channel. 'The most obvious example is an (edited) TVC shown in social. Allow the channel to shape your content, and not your content to shape the channel'. The social channel has a different heartbeat and asks for a different storyboard, adjusted script, and vertical or square.

Sounds like a no-brainer, in reality, more often than not the same assets are used for different (social) channels. To get the most out of your content production budget, media buying budget, you need to invest in content assets that actually work and do contribute to your objectives. The only way to discover what works is to test and adjust based on data. 

No best practice

'There is no kind of best practice for content.' 'Look at your consumer and your brand what fits and whatnot.' Joseph continues 'It is bespoke. There is not wright of wrong. Just know your audience and use data for long term learning what works for your brand.'

'Things change continuously. Nobody knows what the future will look like. So stay true to what you believe in, who you are, and stay authentic.'

Joseph Harper 

Read the interview with Joseph Harper by the Drum, including photocredits. Copy-paste 'Joseph Harper has developed and executed social and digital strategy, brand side, for the past six years. He spent almost three of these as Bet365’s social media editor, where projects included launching new digital channels and initiatives. At Kellogg's, he works on the digital transformation as social media manager for UK & Ireland across brands like Pringles, Crunchy Nut and Special K.'