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‘Bah, Humbug!’ Why Negative Content Turns In Such Positive Results

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‘Bah, Humbug!’ Why Negative Content Turns In Such Positive Results

People love to hate Steven Singer.

That “hate” is so pervasive that the jewelry retailer’s website is: IHateStevenSinger.com. The company is so committed to celebrating the “hate” that it doesn’t even own the domain StevenSinger.com.

What’s behind all that “hate” pervading Philadelphia radio and satellite airwaves? (The company says it’s the longest-running advertiser on The Howard Stern Show.) It’s the story of customer feedback (possibly apocryphal) that launched a marketing campaign that’s lasted for years.

It’s also a story about the power of contrarian thinking – a helpful reminder for content marketers.

@IHSS (I Hate Steven Singer) shows the power of contrarian thinking, a useful #ContentMarketing lesson, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

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Contrarian strategy stands out in a gift-driven market

The website’s History page recounts the origin story: A Steven Singer customer returned 20 years after buying an engagement ring to buy another diamond ring for their anniversary. About nine months later, the couple returned to the jewelry store to show off their new baby. The wife exclaimed, “I love Steven Singer,” to which the husband responded, “Here we go again. We’re up all night with feedings and diaper changes. I HATE Steven Singer.”

(Here’s the audio explanation used in their commercials.)

1672335004 456 ‘Bah Humbug Why Negative Content Turns In Such Positive Results

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Steven Singer Jewelers turned that funny comment into a brand point of view.

A blog post called Why Hate Steven Singer explains recounts why big retailer jewelers hate Steven Singer:

  • Steven Singer Jewelers says it doesn’t discount because it offers the best price from the beginning and mocks other jewelers’ big discount sales
  • The independent jeweler criticizes the lower-quality diamonds sold by the big stores, referring to them by their industry name, “frozen spit.”
  • Steven Singer lets customers upgrade purchases from the company by giving them a trade-in value equivalent to the price they originally paid.

The contrarian messaging continues throughout the site. The site list the business address as “the other corner of Eighth and Walnut” in Philadelphia. Even the Oops message (shown below) continues the theme, declaring, “Steven hated this page … so he moved it. Try these instead.”

1672335004 346 ‘Bah Humbug Why Negative Content Turns In Such Positive Results

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How to craft a contrarian content marketing approach

A contrarian or negative approach can transform your content marketing strategy.

The goal is to get your audience to say, “Wait, what?!”

Subverting the expectations of audiences dulled to similar messaging gives them pause – and entices them to decipher what you’re talking about.

You can apply elements of opposite or negative thinking to individual assets or make it the “voice” of your content, as Steven Singer does.

A contrarian, negative, or opposite-thinking strategy is bold –some people may not understand what you’re doing. Just make sure your brand’s leadership does. Otherwise, they’ll stop it almost as soon as you publish it.

Here are a few ways to put that strategy into action (once it’s approved).

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A contrarian or negative #ContentStrategy is bold. Not everyone will get it. Just make sure your leadership does, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent Click To Tweet

Write an unexpected lead

Start small by crafting introductions to articles using opposite messaging. This small step can help you test whether your audience is receptive to this approach.

Try this exercise internally to ensure your team understands what you want them to do: Give the writers an article you already published and ask them to rewrite the lead following the contrarian, negative, or opposite-thinking strategy.

Example:

Fast Company published an article with this intro:

After nearly three years of a global pandemic and months, if not years, of working from home, the main thing drawing workers back to their offices is the desire to simply focus on their work. But at the same time, offices in the U.S. have hit a 15-year low when it comes to how effective they are for enabling focused work.

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This troubling mismatch is one of the top takeaways from the 2022 U.S. Workplace Survey from the Gensler Research Institute, the research arm of the global architecture and design firm Gensler.

Contrarian-strategy revision:

U.S. workers don’t know what they’re talking about.

That’s the revelation from the 2022 U.S. Workplace Survey from the Gensler Research Institute.

Its survey found the most popular reason for workers wanting to return to the office is to focus on their individual work. Yet, it also finds U.S. offices are at a 15-year low in how effective they are for enabling focused work.

The original version focuses on what people say they want. The negative-strategy version exposes the mismatch between what people say they want and the reality of office environments.

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The tone is eye-catchingly negative, and the sentence makes a U.S.-based audience curious to discover why they may be wrong.

Dig deeper for thought leadership content

You’ll attract a bigger audience if your thought leadership isn’t the same old same old. But that doesn’t mean you should take an opposing view if you don’t believe it.

The next time you tackle a thought leadership asset, research what’s already written or said about the topic and how it’s typically expressed. Then, ask if your view on the topic differs from your content competitors’.

If so, brainstorm the possibilities and pick the one most relevant to your audience. If not, you can still create something different by looking for an underdeveloped or unaddressed point or angle on this topic.

When reacting to published research, most people write thought leadership pieces around the first statistic or two. To create something that bucks the mainstream (without taking an opposite view you don’t believe), go deeper into the results. Find different stats relevant to your interest audience and frame your content around that.

You’ll attract more attention if your approach to thought leadership avoids the same-old story, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

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Example:

Let’s use the 2022 U.S. Workplace Survey again. The Fast Company article focused on the workplace effectiveness chart presented on the webpage for the report (as the screenshot below shows).

Screenshot showing a research chart near the top of Gensler site page called How can we design a more compelling office of the future?

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Unexpected alternative:

But you can dig deeper into the research to find a fresh angle.

With most people focused on the first or most obvious chart, look for something less expected buried deeper in the research.

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The chart at the bottom of the report web page (as shown in the screenshot below) looks at the respondents’ “ideal mix” of experiences for a company workplace. The chart shows the percentages for eight categories: clubhouse, coffee shop, library, creative lab, boutique hotel, residential, conference center, and corporate.

Screenshot showing a research chart near the bottom of a website page.

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A content marketer in a relevant industry could craft a thought leadership piece around the office experiences workers want.

Think beyond content creation

While the Steven-Singer strategy makes sense for content creation, it also can work for other components of your content marketing program.

Marketers often want to know the best time and day to send an email, post to social, etc. You do a Google search and find Tuesdays are the best day to send emails. That same report indicates that the best time to send email is between 9 a.m. and noon.

Of course, since so many others will see that same window listed as a best practice, email inboxes get flooded between 9 a.m. on noon on Tuesdays. Why not send your emails later in the day or on a different day of the week?

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Test the alternate send time for a few weeks to see if that opposite-thinking strategy works for your audience. If not, you can always switch back.

Don’t forget about your content formats, either.

CMI’s most recent B2B research found that most marketers (89%) use articles and posts of less than 1,500 words for content marketing. Other commonly used formats include:

  • Videos of any length (75%)
  • Case studies (67%)
  • Virtual events/webinars/online courses (62%)
  • Infographics/charts/data visualization/3D models (61%)
  • Long articles/posts (more than 1,500 words)
  • E-books and white papers (59%)
  • In-person events (49%)

‘Bah Humbug Why Negative Content Turns In Such Positive Results

On the other hand, only 17% of marketers use print magazines and books.

That’s an opposite-strategy opportunity. Could you develop a print magazine for your audience? Given how few marketers do, your content would stand out.

If print isn’t feasible, think about other lesser-used types, such as audio content (used by 33% of marketers), research reports (used by 30%), or livestreaming content (16%).

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TIP: An opposite-thinking strategy for content formats doesn’t require you to abandon the original format. Look for ways to repurpose content planned for popular formats into less-used ones.

You can apply an opposite-thinking content strategy without rejecting common formats, says @AnnGynn via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet

Become the most ‘hated’ content marketing

Your content competitors will only continue to grow in the months, decades, and years to come. The need to stand out and attract attention and interest from your audience never goes away.

With that in mind, adopting a Steven-Singer strategy for your content makes sense. And who knows? It might just be the ticket to results that everybody likes.

Want more content marketing tips, insights, and examples? Subscribe to workday or weekly emails from CMI.

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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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