WORKWEEK

I haven’t posted much on LinkedIn, or social media at all really, in a while, but I do stalk the sites –– and there is just so much great content on LinkedIn. This one really resonated. 

At a lot of organizations, content is rightfully being brought into the folds of integrated marketing for this exact reason: making content more impactful. 

But it isn’t as easy as just turning a switch, and building more alignment with internal teams and stakeholders. No, content still has laurels on which it needs to rest: managing your library and updating content to address new company features or narratives, and publishing news pieces (that often require wildly fast turnaround) or customer stories (that can be very delayed by a ghosted approval), for example. 

Wrapping content into the integrated marketing fold takes some change management, including a lot of content education for other teams on what works, what doesn’t and why. It also requires patience: for more cooks in the kitchen on content themes, angles and headlines, for larger marketing team alignment on a campaign theme and the supporting assets, etc. 

One of the thing that is helping our team is creating a bill of materials for all content types. This helps to ensure that every piece that goes live can have more impact, because it touches more channels, and the assets are all properly prepared, thought through, and aligned. 

Here’s what that looks like for two types of assets:

• Case study:
  • Approved case study content 
  • Signed customer consent 
  • Social extension assets across primary social channels 
  • Article extensions for the blog
  • Sales enablement slide 
  • Enablement sequence addition 
  • Internal comms enablement 
  • Web alignment & interlinking strategy 
• Gated guide / research:
  • Content download landing page 
  • Content download thank you page 
  • Dedicated email 
  • Nurture stream 
  • Program sales enablement deck
  • Program overview
    • Audience & pain points
    • Distribution channels 
    • Timelines
    • Access to enablement materials
  • Enablement sequence addition 
  • One-page infographic for demand gen 
  • Content syndication program timeline 
  • Social extension assets across primary social channels 
  • Article extensions for the blog
  • Partner marketing alignment and launch announcement 
  • Internal comms enablement 
  • Web alignment & interlinking strategy 

Whew – it’s a lot! For even one thing to go live. But, you are putting a lot of effort into the ideation, reasearch, writing and designing of these assets––so why wouldn’t you make sure that you and your team do everything possible to drive results? 

Now, I know that this isn’t always possible. Even leaders with the best of intentions know that this is the way––that these details matter, more, often, than the publishing of the thing itself. And yet, it doesn’t happen. 

Why?

• Lack of resources––headcount or budget 
• A demand for quantity over quality 
• Often, both of the above

If the issues above are part of your content story, and causing you to not create the maximum amount of impact possible––take a step back. Think through what a bill of materials would look like for each asset that you create to have its most impact. And then advocate for that. 

This is what people mean when they say less is more.