Welcome new readers, and hello old friends.
Now that The State of (Dis)Content Report is finally out, I’m picking The Studio Insider back up so we can talk about the specific data points and see what we can do next to continue pushing our industry forward.
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to read between the lines and point out what I think are the root issues of content marketing, and provide suggestions on how to overcome them. I'm calling the series:
The 5 Content Marketing Challenges of 2024 (and How to Overcome Them)
You may agree (I hope you do), you may not (that’s ok), but either way, I hope this’ll start a discussion.
Today we'll be kicking off with the first challenge (and you might not like this one)...
Challenge #1: You might not be coming up with good ideas.
Specifically we'll be digging into...
- What happens when a content marketer doesn’t know how to generate truly creative ideas
- The (harsh) truth about why so many content marketers make this mistake
- How to use the “Find the Gaps Technique” to begin coming up with differentiated and distinctive content ideas
Let’s do this.
The 5 Content Marketing Challenges of 2024 (and How to Overcome Them): Part 1 of 5
What are your top content creation challenges?
Imagine your boss Slacks you on Monday morning and says the 5 words many of us dread:
“We should start a podcast!”
For most of us in B2B, “podcast” = “interviews with industry leaders.”
The logic goes: “That’s what a B2B podcast looks like. It must work. So that’s what we’ll do too.”
No market research to find gaps in other podcasts out there.
No creative development to create a unique premise (which, by the way, will get you 80% of the way there).
No seeding distribution beyond owned channels.
No consideration for how engaging the host’s personality is.
No plan for what happens if the thing becomes successful.
Instead we default to the playbook everyone else is using:
- Find guests that have been on similar podcasts.
- Ask questions as they come to mind.
- Promote on LinkedIn.
- Pray for results.
The downstream effect?
No one can tell your podcast apart from the rest.
How confident are you that people can identify your content on voice and tone alone?
But I'm not judging. I understand.
In The State of (Dis)Content Report, we found that content marketing teams have an average of 0-5 people…
Who are juggling 5-6 content formats.
The unfortunate truth is that something different on a brand new channel takes time and money
For resource-strapped teams, adding another format is a surefire way to produce mediocre, undifferentiated work.
Plus we all have bills to pay. Sometimes we just have to accept our fate, keep our heads down, and do what we’re told.
But also (and this is going to be hard to hear, but I think it needs to be said)…
Many of us default to the mean because of fear and laziness, plain and simple
Most content marketers make do with riding on the proverbial coattails of others, silencing our own creativity, and working in obscurity and mediocrity — if it means we get to keep our job.
(If that’s you, you should unsubscribe right now. This newsletter is not for you.)
A few more reason why this problem happens:
- Pressure from management. It’s so much easier to play it safe and give your boss what they like.
- Skill gap. The work of researching the market, seeing what’s working, and then developing our own skills to create something truly unique is hard. In fact, I’ve met so many content marketers who believe that coming up with creative content ideas is a God-given talent that can’t be trained (spoiler alert: it’s not).
- Fear of success. I actively struggle with this, and until recently, have suppressed my good ideas because I fear not being able to live up to the expectations.
- “Job security.” So many marketers want the short term results of following a proven playbook. They’re satisfied doing one-off content tactics, if it means they can keep management off their black and blame something else if something goes wrong.
Again, we all need to put food on the table, so it is understandable.
But if you aren’t the majority of content marketers and you want to put in the work to come up with differentiated and distinctive ideas (but just don’t know how), then you’re in luck.
Because I’ve got an answer for you.
Use the “Find the Gap Technique” to surface and validate creative content ideas
First off, I’m assuming you’ve done The 8 Layers of Market Research (it’s part of the cohesive system I teach in my Content Theory course).
(If you haven’t yet, pause reading, read the post, then come back.)
Once you have, ask yourself:
How do I identify gaps in the market we can fill, without resorting to copying a competitor’s strategy?
Introducing the “Find the Gap Technique”
This technique helps you pinpoint the space your content can fill in your customer’s life.
Once you have layers 3-7 laid out in front of you, ask yourself 3 key questions about your B2B competitors and adjacent ecosystems:
- What’s everyone doing?
- What’s nobody doing?
- What do we have the time & resources to produce?
“Find the Gap” is about finding tangential media or influences on your customers that are pointedly not a B2B competitor.
Draw inspiration from movies they enjoy, restaurants they frequent, shows they watch, or even music they listen to.
This gives you an insider’s look at how to package your message and develop a premise that will do a lot of the heavy lifting for getting people interested.
Let’s go back to our interview podcast example.
Here are a few examples of the same interview format… But drawing from influences outside of the B2B industry:
- Carpool Karaoke. James Corden carpools with musicians and celebrities, while interviewing them and singing along to their most popular songs.
- Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. Jerry Seinfeld interviews celebrities while they drive their dream car to get coffee.
- Hot Ones. Celebrities getting interviewed on YouTube… While eating (increasingly spicy) chicken wings.
Now I’m not saying you should interview your boss while singing in the carpool lane.
I’m also not saying you should throw away what works.
Instead, I’m saying you should look at what works and what you can do in addition to it to create something truly unique.
That’s it for today!
I hope this newsletter gave you a little burst of inspiration and hope that YES, you can come up with creative ideas (you just haven’t learned how).
If you’d like to learn more about the 8 Layers of Market Research, check out this carousel that provides an overview of all 8 layers, as well as this post that has the questions for each layer.
Next week, I’ll be covering Challenge #2: Not knowing how to execute on good ideas (and how this leads to the struggle to meet content demands and expectations).
Till next week,
Tommy
P.S... The “Find the Gap” Technique is just one of dozens of audience research strategies and tactics I teach in my course, Content Theory.
In it we go in depth on…
- The 8 Layers of Market Research to help you come up with data-backed creative ideas, produce differentiated content at scale, and confidently communicate your strategies and findings to stakeholders.
- The Content Code to help you scale a research-backed standard of quality for your team and upper management.
- 10+ tactics to dissect content that your audience already enjoys consuming and use that as a springboard to build content programs that stand the test of time and technology.
If you’re ready to go from zero creative ideas to becoming known as a creative content partner in your organization, click on this link to get on the waitlist for the course.
