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Are You Overselling the Power of Data? [Rose-Colored Glasses]

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My old boss, the CEO of a former employer, was one of the best salespeople I’ve ever known.

He could work a room, listening and knowing just the right thing to say to keep interest piqued and drive value in the conversation. Just as importantly, he knew exactly (and I mean exactly) when to end the meeting and walk out the door. It’s just like show business, “leave them wanting more.”

Anyone who has experienced a bad salesperson has seen the opposite – the classic moment when the rep doesn’t know how to take “yes” for an answer. The customer has usually implied or even overtly said they are interested in the next step, and the rep continues to oversell features, benefits, discounts, and value-added services – all of which are unnecessary.

Two consequences happen when we oversell something. First, we talk the customer out of their decision to purchase. I once witnessed a rep continue to talk and talk and talk after the customer had expressed interest in purchasing. The rep mentioned something about the future development of the product, and it made the customer suddenly question whether that roadmap matched their needs. It killed the sale.

The second effect is almost as bad. The rep wants so badly to ensure there are “no surprises” that they oversell by continuing to offer more and more benefits until the customer finally says, “Stop.” By then, the sales rep has often set such unrealistic expectations that they’re set up to fail.

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That’s the situation for marketing and content practitioners selling the use of data to business leadership.

#Content marketers often set unrealistic expectations about the value of data, setting up their programs for failure, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Data driven to the wrong destination

“We’re data-driven!” If I had a dollar for every time I heard that when I ask about the measurement strategy to a larger marketing, brand, or demand generation team, I’d be on a beach somewhere sipping a fancy tequila.

Most of the time, once we dive into what’s behind that statement, we find “data-driven” quite literally means the team is driven by data. They have no insight into how (or if) the data is helping.

They are so awash in metrics, analytics, and numbers that they search and find some data that drives every move that they make. Everything they do is driven by data. Every action is supported in retrospect by finding the data.

What these “data-driven” marketers fail to realize is that by doing this, they also build a wall that prevents attempting anything new.

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Whenever purely “data-driven” is the starting place, I know what the next challenge will be when someone wants to innovate and do something new. To do that, a “business case” must be made. Someone – usually the person responsible for making the business case – will inevitably ask, “Well, what does the data say?”

But data doesn’t (and can’t) say anything definitively if the idea is truly innovative. What happens? The business-case maker looks at the data they’ve used to justify all previous decisions. When they can’t find helpful data, they look at external best practices to see if the innovative thing matches up to what other people are doing.

Data doesn’t and can’t say anything definitively if the idea is truly innovative, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Of course, if many best practices that will point to this innovative thing exist, is the thing really all that innovative?

Hmmmm …

Do what the data said, not what I said

For the last 10 years, content and marketing practitioners have been sold the magic of data – a way to increase the efficiency and performance of digital experiences. In turn, many marketing teams desperate to show proof-of-life of anything they do with content oversold the power of data. It now hamstrings them from doing anything that deviates from being incrementally above or below average.

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I recently worked with a B2B technology company that wanted to launch a new digital thought leadership magazine. For them, this was an innovative new approach to delivering education to decision-makers in their industry. They spent time developing a solid set of “big ideas.” They decided on a content strategy of cutting-edge ideas rather than pragmatic how-tos. They planned to position their subject matter experts as people who could pull customers into the future. The team was excited.

The vice president spearheading this initiative made the rounds to get buy-in from the product, brand, public relations, and C-suite teams.

It didn’t go very well.

In each conversation, the vice president got a lot of resistance with questions about what the data said. In an ironic twist, the data referenced by these other teams was what the marketing team had used to demonstrate the success of previous campaigns. The vice president heard:

  • “This sounds like it runs counter to what our SEO data says.”
  • “Data says that the end buyer isn’t senior leadership – shouldn’t we be solely targeting the buyer?”
  • “Where is the data that shows that senior leaders need this information?”
  • “What is your forecast for the number of leads we will get from this?”
  • “Do we have data on whether these topics are popular?”

In the end, the magazine project was put on hold.

The lesson isn’t that the company didn’t get to launch a new digital magazine. The lesson is why they didn’t get to launch it.

The team had oversold their use of data to justify every single thing that they did. They had established that they were “data-driven.” Their colleagues simply responded based on what they had been sold: “Why did the data drive you to this conclusion?”

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Data should ride shotgun, not drive

Measuring content and experience is difficult. It always has been and always will be. As I’ve written, our objectives matter more than the accuracy of the data. Ask what is the most important insight to get – that the blog post or white paper was found, it was read, or it changed a behavior? Often, we want insight from the latter, but we use data and make decisions based on the former.

One of my favorite books about data and measurement is The Haystack Syndrome: Sifting Information Out of the Data Ocean by Eliyahu Goldratt. I always reflect on this quote:

Tell me how you will measure me, and I will tell you how I will behave. If you measure me in an illogical way, don’t complain about illogical behavior.

In our selling of data’s capabilities, we must acknowledge occasions will arise when we’ll need to go against the data or proceed without it. Otherwise, we’ll be data-driven to mediocrity.

Data informs the answer to questions. We should drive the car. Data should ride shotgun.

Content marketers should drive the car. Data should ride shotgun, says @Robert_Rose via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

To have the flexibility to try innovative things, we must reframe how we sell data as a value to our content and marketing strategy. These two ideas can help:

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  • Stop treating data as proof of life: You should cease using and selling the value of data to justify decisions already made. Data-driven value determined retrospectively, as in “Did this campaign work?” is helpful. But if you let data drive your entire strategy, you will put future content marketing ideas into a box – every decision becomes about “beating” the last decision. You’ll never try anything that isn’t trying to “fix” the last decision.
  • Content and marketing strategy is not Jeopardy: Get beyond scanning mountains of data to come up with an answer in the form of a question, which shapes your strategy. First, form a purpose, an objective to reach, and then assemble a list of key business questions to help form a plan to reach that objective.Remember, in business, it’s much better to know what you don’t know than to not know what you don’t know. When faced with the latter, the tendency is to dive into the data and find an answer that matches a question you could have.

If you start with an objective, develop the key questions to meet it. Then design what data is needed to answer those key questions. Only then are you using data to inform a decision, not to justify one. Indeed, a key question might be, “Should we do this?” But then, if it’s a new thing, you can acknowledge that answer may not be known before the project begins.

Learning to succeed

Sometimes it’s better to learn than succeed.

Here is an experiment that you can run with your teams. On your next Zoom call (or in your office as the new normal may be), ask everyone three questions. The first is “Should companies like ours be innovative?” I’d bet a fancy cocktail that 90% will nod their heads.

Then, immediately ask the next question: “Is our company (or team) innovative?” This query will almost assuredly result in questions: “Do you mean, like, ever?” or “ Do you mean, now? Are we innovative now?”

Clarify as necessary: “Yes. Ever. Have we ever been innovative?”

Depending on the type, age, and size of your company, your mileage will vary. But for those yes responses, I would bet another fancy cocktail on the answer to the third and final question: “When was that?”

With, I dare say, with few exceptions, everyone will cite something that ended up successful.

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You see. Everybody LOVES and remembers innovation, just so long as it worked.

In a business only driven by data, nobody wants to be the dope who said yes to the new strategy that had no data to support the decision and failed.

In a “data-driven” business, you can become incapacitated by the feeling that data should always be the driving force. You’re unable or unwilling to embark on any activity that you can’t ensure will nudge your stats in the right direction.

If you reframe the use of data and measurement, get agreement on the objective, then ask better questions to enable you and your team to make more things that might succeed spectacularly or fail with a thud. As Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr once said, “An expert is someone who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.”

So, let’s go use data to empower the decisions that free us up to make some of the best mistakes.

Get Robert’s take on content marketing industry news in just three minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videoseries

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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