Is Anyone Thankful for Your Brand's Content?

For those who haven't experienced it, let me tell you a little about Thanksgiving in America.

It's an absurd holiday where fat, socially inept Americans get together and make themselves fatter (which is not bigoted of me to say because I am one).

Many traditional foods are served no one really likes, including cranberries, yams, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and most of all, turkey, which, despite its succulent appearance, is frequently a dry and bitter meat that's the worst of all birds that we eat.

If it weren't for the gravy that we cover many of our Thanksgiving foods with, the meal itself would be quite unbearable.

After the food is done, the family has two choices: they can talk (and eventually argue), or they can avoid talking by watching American football.

And then everyone goes home, and they'll do it all again next year.

Why do I bring this up?

Because we often treat our content efforts in the same way, especially in B2B.

We serve up a bunch of dry mediocre dishes because they're expected.

Blogs. Whitepapers. E-books. Product videos.

And slather them in media-spend gravy (since that's the only way anyone will consume them).

And the participants (marketing, sales, PR, customer service, HR) either don't communicate or they argue.

Sales creates enablement content with out-of-date product specs. Marketing gets on their case about it while refusing to offer support.

Media relations needs bylines and event-support content.

Marketing is too busy feeding the LinkedIn beast.

And nobody wants to go anywhere near that chatbot script — it's unglamourous (yet totally necessary).

This is how it is at many businesses. We have content but no content marketing.

We stuff the content turkey (to paraphrase the inimitable words of Jacob Sanders) but we don't think about why.

We prepare a labor-intensive meal for our prospects, but they'd be happier if we ordered pizza.

Much happens without much accomplished. And we'll do it all again next year.

But what if we don't do it all again?

What if we put thought into what we're doing instead of just effort?

What if we actually considered the needs of our guests?

What if we asked all the cooks beforehand what dishes they'd like to include, with the host chef overseeing it all to make sure those dishes work together, with no essential courses left out?

What if we tried a little experimentation?

What if we had something original?

What if we included lasagna?

That's right. Lasagna. Something people actually like consuming.

What if content were actually something people like consuming?

What if content marketing were a collaborative process everyone involved liked doing?

What if we made content marketing more like a celebration instead of a ritual?

Wouldn't that be worth doing a little extra prep work beforehand?

What kind of prep work?

Every family is different, but there are three big things I can think of.

1. Content Strategy

Everything starts here. Because without a documented content strategy (less than half of businesses have one), there's nothing to bring stakeholders together.

Even if your content strategist doesn't have authority over all content pipelines, a content strategy where all stakeholders are consulted and contribute provides a vision for everyone share.

But over the course of a long year, it's easy to forget that shared vision, not without help, which is where the next two measures come in.

2. Content Management

Key elements of your content strategy (like brand pillars or stages of the funnel) can be expressed as content tags, with those tags tracked in a content management system (CMS).

And before you ask, in theory you can do this without a CMS. But in practice, shit's gonna get missed if you try to do it all in Excel, especially with ad hoc content. So use a CMS if you can.

3. Content Transparency & Accountability

Create a shared internal calendar where all content assets, whatever the source, are displayed along with their scheduled completion dates.

If the head of marketing, or even the CEO, opens this calendar, they can see everything that's being made, content-wise, and when it's supposed to be ready.

Mind you, this is not a "content calendar," because content calendars are focused on publishing (this one's about asset completion).

But nonetheless, this calendar will create a shared sense of buy-in and accountability among all content sources.

Because nobody wants to be seen as the clown who's sabotaging the strategy.

Do all these things, and you just might serve a yummy content meal that your prospects will truly be thankful for.

For those of you who've follow been following my company's newsletter for a while, yes, this is essentially recycled from last November's issue. It's called content repurposing. Get over it.