Many content marketers are asked to do more without additional resources. With audience attention harder than ever, how can a creative team cope?
Go to raise Cane's and study the menu.
If you don't have time to go or aren't near one of the of a chain of 500 restaurants in 27 states and five countries , I will explain. Restaurants that sell:
- Chicken Fingers
- French fries
- Coleslaw
- Texas Toast
- Mia's sauce
Five things. That's it.
Why such a limited menu? Raise Cane's says this model allows it Deliver exceptional quality food quickly without cutting corners. And this model seems to be suitable for customers – companies surpassed 1.5 billion dollars in annual sales in 2020, with the average unit (i.e. restaurant) earning 25% more than the average McDonald's.
What does this have to do with content marketing? It's a reminder that you don't have to be McDonald's in terms of content marketing. You can make a big profit by carefully aligning your content strategy like raise Cane's does its menu.
You don't have to be the @McDonalds of #ContentMarketing. You can achieve more by limiting your menu items to @RaisingCanes, @AnnGynn via @CMIContent said. Click to Tweet
1. Identify your core content items
The content marketing approach needs to do more than start with defining your content menu. To do this successfully, you need two things:
- Buying from parties involved in your internal content
- Analysis shows which content performs best
Attract stakeholder acquisition
To engage stakeholders, bring together everyone involved in the content – the people who create it, use it, share it, and approve the budget for it. If that's not possible, gather key stakeholders in each of those categories and email a short survey to others so they too can have input. Everyone involved needs to have a say in this process, or it won't work.
Give stakeholders a list of topics you've covered or think might be of value, and include the option to write a letter. Ask them to rate the top three topics – label them 1, 2 or 3 (with one being the most important).
Record their answers on a spreadsheet. Start with two columns – topic and topic rating.
Let me illustrate a simple example for a financial services company. In this scenario, three stakeholders ranked choices from a list of seven topics: commercial real estate, community development, investments, leadership, markets and economics, taxes and wealth planning yes.
Add two more columns to the spreadsheet:
- Rating value, converts answers to a point value to make math easier.
- Total topic value, showing cumulative points for each topic.
In this example, every first place rating is equal to 10 points, second place eight points, and third place rank six points. (In this image, I am showing only those topics that have received a rating.)
Using this approach, internal stakeholders at the financial services company rated these content topics as most important to cover:
- Investment. One stakeholder rated it as most important (10 points), and one ranked second (8 points) for a total subject value of 18.
- Make a plan to get rich. One stakeholder rated it as most important (10 points), and another ranked it second (8 points) with a total subject value of 18.
- Tax . One stakeholder rated it as most important (10 points), and one ranked it third most important (16 points).
TIP: Consider adding a column to track respondent roles. It can be helpful to consider rankings if a role affects Your target more than other. For example, if your goal is tied to sales, you might weigh feedback from a sales team versus a writer's response.
Research object data
Now is the time to see what topics your audience prioritizes by studying data that measures progress towards the goals detailed in content marketing strategy .
Let's simplify it and use three website-relevant metrics for topic-centric pages: total impressions, total conversions, and conversion rate for the financial services example.
Combining both sets of information reveals qualitative (i.e. people) and quantitative (i.e. data-driven) subject priorities for the financial services firm:
- Stakeholder thematic priorities: investment (tie first), wealth planning (tie first), taxes (third)
- Data-driven ranking: investment (first), wealth planning (second), leadership (third)
With these results, wealth and investment planning is sure to be on the content menu. But the third topic requires a deeper look. Leadership doesn't get votes from internal stakeholders, but it delivers the third-highest conversion rates. Tax topics ranked third for internal stakeholders and fourth in terms of conversion rates, losing to leadership by just 0.22%.
My conclusion? Taxes will be the third topic in the content menu.
2. Provide content combinations
Now that you know the themes, you can wrap them up into convenient options to serve your audience.
Review your content menu element (i.e. theme), determine which format works best for your audience based on the same metrics you've used before.
For the financial services example, let's say the team creates content in four formats: blogs, ebooks, podcasts, and videos. How does the format affect the conversion rate?
To explore this, I created a new spreadsheet that breaks down the content center into individual assets, determining the format, total impressions, conversions, and conversion rate.
With this data, I can see the top formats for our three topics are: ebooks (~56% conversion rate), videos (~8% conversion rate), and blogs (~ 5%). Podcasts (
The team can now develop a mix of content based on three themes (taxes, investing, and wealth planning) and three formats (eBooks, videos, and blogs).
3. Make your limited menu an element of your content mission
Advanced Cane's incorporated its limited product offerings into its brand story. This is how the company explain my menu concept :
Our idea is simple and unique… we have only ONE LOVE – a quality chicken toe meal! At raise Cane's you will receive an outstanding high quality product served quickly and conveniently. We are able to do this because we offer a limited menu. The specialized systems developed by raise Cane's allow us to maintain a level of quality unmatched in the industry. Our commitment to this concept will not allow us to downgrade, cut corners, or clutter our menu with new products that don't align with our core menu offering.
While your curated content menu may not make it into your brand story, it should be part of your content mission statement.
As Jodi Harris explains: “A content mission statement is a central principle of your branded content, and it can govern the strategic and creative decision-making of your content team. ”
The #content mission statement is a central principle of your branded content, and it can govern the strategic and creative decision-making of your content team, @joderama via @AnnGynn says @CMIContent. Click to Tweet Most mission statements focus on three components: who you want to help with your content, the type of information you provide, and how that information has a positive outcome or benefit for your audience. friend.
Consider including a fourth component – why a limited content menu better serves your audience and brand. Example: “At ABC Financial, we believe in providing our audience with only the highest quality, most timely, most relevant content. To do that, we don't create content about everything in every format on every platform. We focus on investing, wealth management and taxes in video, ebook and blog formats because that's what our audience likes. ”
4. No special orders that require new ingredients
When you implement a restricted model for your content operations, expect special ordering requirements, especially initially.
These requests (which sound like requests) can take one of two forms:
- A new combination. This type of request only requires repacking. If you have the resources to do it, do so.
- Request off the menu. In the financial services example, a menu request might be a blog post about commercial real estate. Explain that you can't order a burger at raise Cane's – in other words, the content team isn't set up to fulfill special orders. When declining a request, reiterate why your brand decided to restrict content. (You can even share my content mission statement if you think it would be helpful for the conversation.)
Do not delete special order requests that you cannot fulfill. Add them to a research and development spreadsheet, noting the “what and who” of the requirement along with the expected outcome. Review the R&D tracker quarterly to see if any of these ideas deserve a test project.
If an off-menu request does well, consider whether it deserves to be included in your content menu.
Do not delete special order #Content requests that you cannot fulfill. Check them out when possible. The results will tell if they deserve a spot on your limited content menu, @AnnGynn via @CMIContent said. Click to Tweet
5. Check the 'sales' content regularly
Even the best researched menu can have items that don't sell well. After implementing this limited content model, regularly review the relevant metrics to see what "sells" better (i.e. helps you reach your goals).
But don't let that frequent follow-up keep you from changing knees. If a content mix isn't performing well, consider boosting your ad to make sure your target audience knows it exists. If it still doesn't work well, you can consider changing it . Similarly, if you notice a particularly hot-selling combo, repackage it to see if you can amplify that success.
Review your metrics to see # Which content sells better, but don't make hasty decisions. @AnnGynn says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent, try package or promotion tweaks before changing menus. Click to Tweet Hold a content “sales” meeting every six months or a year (depending on your content cycle). Review the menu from a quantitative (e.g., metrics) and qualitative (selection of stakeholders) perspective. Then decide if you need to change your content menu items.
Enjoy this cool content model
Raise Cane's approach to content can serve your brand well. When you consciously curate a limited set of content products and services, the productivity of your content marketing team increases. Content creators won't have to jump between multiple themes and formats. Instead, they can hone and perfect quality content for your brand that your audience will appreciate.
Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski / Content Marketing Institute
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