Creek Content

End content chaos. Communicate clearly.

Hear Laura Creekmore on the Enterprise Marketer Podcast

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I taught a workshop at Content Marketing World this year, called Content Strategy 101. About 40 of us spent the afternoon walking through the elements of content strategy, thinking about audience, strategy, operations, governance and analytics. I’ve got some tips from that workshop I’ll share with you soon, but first I wanted to just give you a peek into those ideas. I was a guest on the Enterprise Marketer podcast while I was at CMW, and I think you’ll enjoy this podcast and gain some insights into using content marketing effectively.

 

What We Learned Creating Our New Marketing Piece

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CreekContent-2016-1When you create content and marketing plans for other people, it’s always a challenge to turn your lens on yourself. We’ve needed to update our own marketing information for a long time, and we’ve finally done that this summer. This PDF tells a little bit about content strategy, and a little bit about Creek Content. If you’re wondering whether content strategy services could help your organization, we hope it’s helpful to you.

But the things we learned doing it were good reminders to us — what we’ve been telling our clients for years is still right on target. Here are just a few lessons learned:

  • The audience is key. One of the people who looked at a draft of our piece said, it looks great, but I’m not sure what all these things mean. Good news — he didn’t fit our audience profile. It’s important if our audience understands, and it’s important that we know who our audience is!
  • More eyes are better, up to a point. We’re pretty good editors around here, if we do say so ourselves. But the first two people we asked to look at this piece asked us good questions about word choice and punctuation that we hadn’t considered before. If your publications matter to you, and you want to look professional, you need more than one set of eyes on everything. You need multiple eyes on the really important stuff. We don’t advocate design or copywriting by committee, but we know from experience how much good editors matter.
  • Design content and images to tell the message together. We mostly knew what we were looking for with the imagery on this piece, but we went through some different options on a couple of pages. We had some serious discussions on what the image should achieve, and on whether it did its job or not. Some of these we got right the first time around. That’s our third shot at page 2, though, and we’re finally happy with it.

Now then, if you work in marketing or product development and you need help figuring out how content can help you achieve your goals, we’ve got a piece we designed just for you. And we’d love to talk more when you’re ready.

Lessons From Rio: The Message Matters

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I don’t usually like to wrap a post around current events, because we so often see that done badly. But with NBC’s coverage of the 2016 Olympics getting so much criticism, this lesson has been screaming at me. You may have noticed it, as well.

First, let’s acknowledge the mechanical aspect of the critiques: For any of you who haven’t made the effort to focus your communications on the right-this-minute, NBC is busy demonstrating how you’re going to become irrelevant as a result. Their broadcast TV viewership is down significantly from past Olympics for multiple reasons, and a big one is that more of us are just watching the events live on our computers. Obviously, this is possible in the Western Hemisphere because the time zone works out in our favor this time. I suspect my friends in Australia are depending more on tape delay than those of us here, but it’s a lesson regardless for anyone trying to communicate breaking news. Your audience will know before you tell them.

Now, in fairness, I think NBC actually understands that, and that may be why they have worked so hard to “package” the events on their broadcasts. They want to add to the story, give us a behind-the-scenes look, shape the narrative, since they know that many of us will already know the actual winners and losers before we watch.

And bless their hearts, we’ve been happy to let them know every time they’ve gotten it wrong. Chunked up gymnastics and swimming in weird ways that made us stay up late late to see a result we knew at 4p? We’re not happy about it. Didn’t show Simone Manuel’s gold medal ceremony live, and instead showed tape-delayed coverage of other results we already knew? Ridiculous! Pushed all “minor” sports (the fun of the Olympics for many people) to cable channels fewer people have, in favor of all-swim, all-gym, all-track, all the time on the broadcast flagship—and even worse, made it crazy-hard to sort out when we’d be able to see what on which channel? What the heck?!

In their efforts to deal with the instantaneous nature of breaking news today, NBC has badly garbled the message that their audience wanted to hear. So yes, you have to figure out how to deal with your audience’s significant choices of information sources. You have to assume that they have many ways to get the info. But in your efforts to add value and stay relevant, make sure you really understand the message your audience wants to hear.

More Isn’t Better (so take time to plan your 2016 content strategy now)

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How many of you are in feed-the-beast mode right now? You know what I’m talking about. You’ve got a blog. A YouTube channel. Twitter. Facebook. Snapchat. Instagram. Hell, get someone to figure out Periscope. We need to get on that.

Or perhaps you work in product development or internal communications. And there are new product descriptions and help content and 4 new HR campaigns next month and we haven’t reviewed last year’s posts for currency and.

And managing all that stuff becomes exhausting. It’s all you do. At best, you’re keeping the balls in the air. You no longer have time to even ask, “Should I be juggling all 14 of these balls anyway? What if I need 3 balls and one bowling pin?”

Well. That metaphor might be getting a little thin. But you know what I’m talking about.

It’s hard to make time for strategy when you can’t find time to go to the bathroom or eat lunch.

Consider this your reminder to plan a day now to think about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, who you’re reaching, and whether all that ties back to your business goals. We’re nearly to the 4th quarter. Some organizations are well into planning for 2016, and others of you are just getting started. Wherever you are, use these questions to think about your content, whether you’re treating your content like an asset, and how you can help your audience better in 2016.

Plan now for your 2016 content strategy.

Who is my audience? Many of us have more than one. You may need to please the c-suite, as well as the customer, as well as the end user, and perhaps sales. We could go on. Often, an organization will target different kinds of content to different audiences. This is a real opportunity for content strategists: Help your organization effectively reach each audience with appropriate content.

What does my audience want to do? Most likely, they’d like to solve a problem. You may or may not be part of their initial thinking. Instead, they’re thinking, my printer is crap. I need a new one, like today. (And so perhaps your well-organized, clear product page and your easy-to-understand comparison tool will play into their solution.) Or, I’m late for the meeting and I need that address right now. (And so the fact that you stopped a visual designer from putting the office address in a fancy font in an image on the home page makes it easy for them to copy your address and link right over to Google Maps on their phone. At a red light. Shh, we won’t tell.) Understand their problem before you make them any content.

What are my organization’s goals, and how can I help the organization align with the needs of my audience? Here’s the big question. Many times, well-meaning organizations forget the first two questions and start here. This is a great question, but only when you ask it in context of the audience.

How can I use the tools I have to make that content happen? Or (hey, it’s budget time!), do I need new tools or staff to even come close? You know it’s always better if you can work with what you have. At least, your boss likes it better that way, and the CFO definitely does. But—content people are THE WORST about taking care of ourselves, because we are THE BEST at just making it work. You have shoestrings and baling wire? Then we have a CMS! These kinds of MacGyver solutions may win you applause for saving money or making the impossible possible, but they are often not sustainable in the long run. Do not apologize for needing the right tool to do the job. Sometimes spending the money on the front end, or allocating enough money to support operations long-term, really is the best fiscal choice. It’s your job to make the case.

Who will do this tomorrow? What about when I go on vacation? Have an operational plan for ongoing work. Just because you worked 18-hour days to get the app launched doesn’t mean your body or your brain can sustain that pace indefinitely. And whether you’re a one-person shop or the content evangelist on a large team, make sure you’re not alone in your thinking or your skills. If you’re in a small organization, you may need to crosstrain several other people about parts of your job. If you’re in a big organization, make sure people up the ladder appreciate the value content brings to the organization.

Who will make the decisions? All too often, we get the other details down but we don’t think about how we’ll manage those big-picture questions going forward. Creating new content all the time means regular opportunities for sticky questions to arise. Decide now what perspectives need to be at the table when you’re asking the content questions. Build your buy-in on the front end so you don’t have to apologize on the back end.

Solid Content Marketing Advice: Own Your Channel

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I spend a fair amount of time every week learning more about my craft. When we pitch our expertise to prospective clients, we’re betting on the fact that Creek Content understands its game better than anyone else.

So we’re always learning. I’ve always loved the phrase “lifelong learner,” perhaps because it so aptly describes what I’m aspiring to be. And it might not surprise you to hear that after 20 years in my career, I read a lot of junk.

Eek! I said that out loud. Yes, a lot of the advice you’ll get about dealing with your content — through content strategy, or for a specific purpose like content marketing — is crap. There it is. This is a pretty new field, but it’s hot, and I highly recommend you evaluate the source carefully before you run off to do whatever it is you just read about.

But today, with great delight, I read such a wonderful piece from Joe Pulizzi [who’s been around a long time too, and knows whereof he speaks], that I wanted to share it with you right away. If you’re contemplating [or doing] content marketing, take a quick read through Joe’s post today and think about how that impacts your own work.

If you don’t own your channel, you’d better know why.

It’s perfectly legit to use channels owned by others. You might be crazy if you’re NOT using social media. [I’m loathe to name any absolutes, even for a statement like that. My clients already know my favorite answer is, “It depends.”] But I’m definitely concerned for you if everything you create resides on someone else’s platform. Read Joe’s post on owning your channel to learn why.