#2: Which Way Is Up?
Playing "Asset Request Hot Potato," how content folks measure success, and how to create a content-first culture at work
Happy mid-June! Today’s edition of Contentious is all about how good intentions don’t always yield ideal outcomes… and what you can do to break the cycle.
💪 Actionable Tip: You Can Say No
You know that new content request of dubious value that’s needed tomorrow? 💣
It’s time to Wilson that thing back over the fence (or net, depending on whether your Wilson of choice is a neighbor or a volleyball on a desert island).
Putting up boundaries used to be really hard for me. I went into content — as you probably did too — because I really like helping and enabling people. You want to feel needed.
And after all, requesters often have good intentions. Content requests are a feature of positive momentum — they mean that people recognize, at least in their own special way, the value that content brings.
But it turns out that good content strategy is as much about knowing what you DON’T want than knowing what you do. And you learn how to separate the two by flexing that muscle over and over again.
Here are some ways to practice saying no:
⏰ Say “not now.” Be very clear about the timeframe for requests before they come in, set boundaries, and then stick to them. Someone else’s lack of planning is not your emergency.
🤨 Ask for more information. Making the requester examine the RICE of their ask (predicted reach, impact, confidence that it will work, and effort required) leads to richer understanding of what the ask was and whether it’s actually thought out.
🤝 Ask for support. When content requests also involve design, promotion, etc. there's often more than just you who is going to be affected. Ask your manager or a colleague to have your back.
🙅♀️ Just say no. If you think it’s a bad idea because it doesn’t fit the target market, doesn’t address a real need, doesn’t deal with a known pain point, doesn’t offer a solution, etc. etc. you can say that too. You are allowed to have an informed opinion about the work you’re being asked to do, and you are allowed to use your voice to share it. If not, time to dust off that resume.
Content marketers, we must protect this house (and our brand and our time). As much as we'd love to help everyone, there isn't time in the day to write all the things that need writing, let alone the things that don't.
Good fences make good neighbors.
🚫 Anti-Pattern: Hand-Wavy Definition of Success
Great question in the Contentious inbox last week:
“I run a one-person content writing business, and I don't know as much as I'd like to about how the marketing managers I work with (and their managers) measure success. I would love to learn more about that!”
The sad truth is that content often struggles to agree on what “success” actually means… which isn’t great for the people who need us to guide them.
Check out this graph from Beam Content’s latest report, “Closing the Content Gap: What We Learned From Talking to 400+ GTM Pros.”
A few of the most popular success metrics are relatively easy to measure, but don’t necessarily indicate success for the business.
It’s concerning, for example, that 42% of content marketers consider conversions the success metric of choice. Conversions do not equal pipeline or purchase intent. My aunt fills out lead gen forms just to read my white papers. Someone converting on gated content doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a good prospect or interested in your product.
This metric alone just doesn’t align with how business leaders view success. What does? A combination of the others:
Pipeline and revenue contribution: Of your current qualified pipeline, how many decision makers have read and/or interacted with a content asset? (This is inclusive of white papers, sure, but also ungated content like blogs or social posts.) This is your short-term North Star metric. While it’s not perfect, it’s a good starting point to show the bare minimum of content’s impact.
Brand awareness: How are we increasing our reach via content over time? Rather than SEO and traffic being separate success metrics, they should roll up into this one (along with social). Are we seeing more branded search traffic? How are TOFU and MOFU blog posts performing over time? Are people staying on page to explore other assets?
Last time I wrote about the irony that the things that are hard to do are probably the most worth doing. This is one of them. Measuring content success the right way is complex, but it’s possible — and it’s powerful when you do it right.
Need to get your content reporting in order? Bending the Spoon gives content managers the tools and skills they need to prove content’s value — including how to build a content pipeline dashboard that shows it in dollars and cents.
💡Aha Moment: Creating a Culture of Content
Once upon a time (which could be now, if your organization is like most), content marketing lived unhappily in a silo:
Content was expected to “fill” demand generation campaigns on demand like sausage casings
It got its news and priorities from whatever came through the marketing grapevine
It suffered from the whiplash of constantly changing marketing priorities, strategies, and tactics
Then, one day, a content marketing manager bonked her head on the ceiling in that tiny silo and had a realization: content has its own rules, and the way to get out of the silo is to create a “content-first” culture within your organization.
Instead of being on the bottom rung of a very tall ladder, a content-first culture makes you a strategic facilitator — you get to work laterally instead of just in a hierarchy.
Here’s what that looks like:
You have mutually beneficial relationships with product team members because they know you’re a key player in showcasing their hard work.
You can tie content efforts to company OKRs, because you know what matters most to the business and how you fit into that equation.
Sales and customer success view you as a partner because they know what content is available to support them and where to find it.
Anyone in the company can submit a content request and knows how to do it. You get them at least semi-regularly because your co-workers understand the impact that content can have and are excited to share their ideas.
You have a seat at the table for important customer-facing initiatives like product launches because everyone knows that the messaging and content is what will sell them.
There’s no one recipe for good content culture, but it looks a lot more like the graphic above. You’re a primary gear in the workings of the organization because content is everywhere and everything is content. Understanding that is half the battle — the rest of it is proving it to everyone else.
Silos are for suckers.
Yours in contention,
Lauren
P.S. Struggling to make a bigger impact with content? Want to know if hi, you’re the problem? Respond to this email and I’ll feature your question in an upcoming issue.