Back in 1997, Apple gave us something to remember.
Steve Jobs was returning to Apple, and the brand was about to reclaim its position as one of the world’s most powerful marketing machines.
And that’s how the Think Different campaign came to be.
Apple’s Think Different spot didn’t only usher the brand into a new era, it achieved critical success, earning an Emmy Award for Best Commercial.
While the genesis of the campaign is disputed, there’s no question about the impact it had on the brand and marketing in general.
All these years later watching the clip still stirs some kind of emotion. It’s an awesome marketing campaign and part of a long-standing relationship between Apple and the TBWA\Chiat\Day agency.
But as of 2019, this fairytale partnership doesn’t have a happy ending.
In 2017, Apple “restructured” its relationship with TBWA, cutting the volume of work the agency would receive. The exact reasons weren’t clear, but Apple has been bolstering its in-house team of creatives, too.
This is just one high profile case, but companies have been walking away from their marketing partners for a long time. They do it all the time.
New research from Digiday found clients left agencies because they felt campaigns didn’t deliver, blaming ” underperforming or low-quality campaigns”.
Entrepreneur.com suggests this is a common reason clients show agencies the door – they don’t see value in the work. Of course, factors like budget play a role, too.
Now it doesn’t matter if you’re working with an external agency or in-house, sometimes marketing projects can flounder.
It doesn’t even have to be as grand as a multi-channel big budget campaign, you may even be doubting your business blogging strategy or content marketing plan.
I’ve been on both sides of the table: briefing an agency on a creative for a campaign, and working with clients as a freelance digital content writer.
Here’s some of the advice and lessons i have picked up along the way, and how they apply to business blogging, specifically.
Get a Clear Goal
First things first, get clear on the goal of content.
What do you want your readers/customers to do after they’ve read your business blog post?
I’ve seen how people invest money and time into campaigns with no clear goals.
This is a waste of time, how can judge whether your campaign was a success if you have no goals?
According to Co-Schedule’s State of Marketing Report , top marketers set goals.
“Goal-setting marketers are 376% more likely to report success (R = 0.27, n = 2,055, p-value 0.0001). 70% of the most organized marketers achieve their goals Most of the Time, while an elite 10% of organized marketers Always achieve them.”
Co-Schedule’s State of Marketing Report
It’s also not good enough to pick random goals either.
Here’s a quick example: if you’re working in PR, you may have heard of the term, Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE).
If it’s new to you, AVE is the metric PR teams used to measure the coverage in media and what it would cost if they paid for it. It’s the only indicator I ever used during my time in PR. I was proud of my AVE stats, and I even used the really impressive figures on my resume. That is until I met a PR agency owner who shifted my perspective with the facts. I realised we were measuring the wrong things, and we were using AVE because it was easy.
In a piece for Ragan, Katie Delahaye, outlines the problems with measuring the wrong things:
“Now advertisers pay for clicks, “likes,” leads or conversions—not for an essentially unlimited and worthless commodity. AVE defenders essentially say: “Who cares whether you reach your target audience with a key message or generate any action? So long as you are creating column inches, you’re good.”
The digital world makes it so much easier to measure things that count.
How many visitors did your post attract? They may not have converted but perhaps it was at the top of the funnel and you were generating some juicy brand awareness.
Are you A/B testing your CTAs? Which one is peforming better with readers?
This is the beauty of the digital content landscape. You can set goals and short timelines, so you iterate quickly.
Spy and Steal
Picasso said great artists steal, allegedly, at least.
Who are your competitors?
Observe them. Ardently.
I was listening to a Wondery podcast detailing the fight between Blockbuster and Netflix for the future of home entertainment (spoiler alert: Netflix won). The thing that struck me is that at one stage Blockbuster just straight up copied Netflix’s DVD rental site and presented it without an ounce of shame. I’m not saying they copied the concept or overall theme here. They even hired a team of programmers to replicate Netflix’s offering.
No, you’re not going to pull a Blockbloster and plagiarise their content or copy their creative; however, you’ll learn what’s resonating with your industry and target audience.
BuzzSumo is a great to perform this type of competitor analysis.
Listen to Your Data
The fun thing about digital content is you can execute changes quickly. Your likes, comments or lack thereof, are immediate signals that something’s working or not.
Think about that. As content creators working in the 21st century, we get this almost immediate feedback.
If at first you don’t succeed…
You try again. Above all, stay consistent with your efforts. When you see something’s working, double down on it.
Tools like Facebook Audience Insights and Google Analytics will show which pieces of content are garnering the most engagement.
Finding a recipe for a successful business blogging strategy takes some time. Don’t be afraid to experiment and ditch things when they’re not working. The benefit of creating digital content is you can quickly release and edit posts, applying real-time insights to your work.
