This Friday is Friday the 13th! You know what happens that day, right?
It’s the day of our first ever digital marketing conference, the Yearly Carnage! If ya haven’t snagged a ticket yet, well…what are you waiting for? We literally only have a handful remaining.
Seriously, Mark is holding all the remaining tickets in one hand right now, just to make sure that we used the word “literally” correctly.
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5 Steps to Strategically Reboot Your Brand’s Content Marketing
Mondays. They’re good for complaining and coffee. Lots of coffee. They’re also good for rebooting, revamping, and reviving. A fresh, new week lies ahead of you! What kind of things do you want to update within your marketing strategy?
For content marketers, rebooting and rebuilding your brand’s foundations and experiential elements happens more than once in a blue moon. Especially when you need to demonstrate relevance to bring your brand closer to customers.
So we’re serving up a little formula via Content Marketing Institute that will help to strategically evolve your brand communication.
Let’s take a look:
- Rearticulate your brand story. Your brand story is the emotional narrative that expresses the vision and purpose of your organization. Perfect for your About Us page, your brand story helps to shape the understanding of your missions and value proposition.
- Define your verbal strategy. It’s not enough to just have a visual strategy. Also define and build key verbal components, too, such as messaging themes, brand voice, naming/nomenclature, etc. (More on this in today’s Read.)
- Engage through signature content opportunities. Certain content experiences can have a much larger impact on key brand messaging. Three of the most effective? Signature Stories, Thought Leadership, and Brand Acts (More on each of these in today’s Read.)
- Build relationships on other channels. Break out of the silo channel mentality and map the ecosystem of your audience’s digital and physical channels, identifying how they connect. Then purposely build the right links and incentives into the ecosystem.
- Operationalize for the digital age. We love tools as much as the next marketer, but this is more about up-skilling people and rethinking processes.
More deets inside!
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Should You Actually Write Shorter Content?
We’re always preaching about the importance of long-form content. There’s plenty of evidence out there that shows that longer content performs better. But, does it actually? Maybe not…
In the spirit of being unbiased, we’re serving up a counterpoint to the long-form content argument today.
Digital Marketing Strategist, Ronell Smith, says to forget about always trying to write a 1,700-word blog post. Rather, “The length of your online content should initially be determined by the needs of the audience members you expect to consume the information.” Sage advice right there.
He also developed a framework to help his content succeed, called the 3 I’s of Content Success. Notice that none of them have anything to do with length…
- Immediacy: Offer three takeaways readers can put to immediate use.
- Inspiration: Motivate readers to improve their careers or personal lives.
- Indispensability: Create content that readers would regret skipping.
If you can pull off all three of those in a 500-word blog post, do it.
The reason we all think longer content performs better is because the data is skewed by crappy short-form posts. The Head of BuzzSumo explains it like this:
“The average shares for long-form content are only higher because there is so much poor quality short-form content, and this drags the average for short-form content down,”
Still not convinced? IFLScience is a brand who absolutely dominates social and organic with short-form content. For example, this post is only 259 words long but it has over 49,000 shares. Their content follows a simple script that you can copy to try out for yourself:
- Imminently shareable (e.g., novel, counter-intuitive, entertaining, educational, informative, newsy, etc.)
- Focused on a single topic
- Contains an amazing graphic/visual
- Features an enticing headline
Basically, we all need to stop asking, “How long should my content be?” Instead, we should be asking, “What will a reader learn from this, and how can I exceed their expectations?”
We’ll leave you with a quote from Stone Temple Consulting’s Mark Traphagen:
“Content should be long enough to be helpful, meet marketing goals, and provide a unique take…and no longer.” [Tweet This]
Get the whole picture on short-form content →
Watch
I See London, I See France
I see you adjusting your underpants. And so begins the plot of today’s Watch. Oh, yeah—we’re talking about underwear today, so if you’re squeamish, avert your eyes!
Wedgies and weird bunching… Think it’s safe to say we’ve all been there. That’s where the brand Tommy John comes in. The brand is marketing their product, which boasts bunch-free designs that don’t roll or ride up, by comically portraying “little adjustments” provoked by uncomfortable underwear.
Directed by Elizabeth Banks, we see women in an array of scenarios where they just… can’t get comfortable. Ya can’t help but laugh or facepalm at the familiar feeling of it all.
These situations aren’t only uncomfortable where the sun don’t shine, but awkward for wedgy-pickers and passersby alike.
If you’re going to sell a comfy pair of underpants, this is how you do it.
“Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.”
Lao Tzu
