Part of our job at IC is to keep our clients up to date with latest marketing thinking – and every year we invest in a big ticket speaker to teach us something new. This year we really pushed the boat out – inviting Jason Miller, one of the world’s top content marketing experts, to speak at our annual client event in January.
Former Head of Content and Social Marketing for LinkedIn and now at Microsoft, Jason gave an inspirational presentation packed full of useful advice. So what did we learn?
Less is more
My biggest personal take-out was Jason’s consistent message that less is more in marketing, and especially digital marketing.
The sheer volume of content that is being pushed at us on a daily basis can tempt us to think that we need to do more and faster to get our audience’s attention. In fact, the reverse is true – slowing down and thinking strategically about what you want to achieve with your marketing will deliver far stronger results.
Jason gave some compelling examples of how, in his role at LinkedIn, he took a step back to review and refocus his team’s efforts.
Producing fewer pieces of content, with a clear strategic goal, and working them harder delivered impressive results.
Big rock content
Less is more doesn’t mean producing shorter pieces of content. Jason made a compelling argument for the importance of long-form content versus instantly forgettable ‘snackable’ content.
Clickbait style headlines and listicles are far less effective at generating social engagement than they were, he said. Instead, we should focus on creating longer-form, authoritative research and reference content that will deliver engagement over time because it answers the audience’s question or need.
Jason’s shorthand for this was ‘big rock content’; create an in-depth piece of content around an issue that you want to own and make this the centrepiece of your campaign. By promoting different elements of the big rock in different ways, you can work it hard over a quarter or even a year.
A strategic approach
Jason’s philosophy resonates strongly with how we already work at IC – as a strategic comms agency we pride ourselves on bringing a big picture approach.
The appointment of our new Head of Insight will add further strength and depth to our existing capability, and we are developing new services to offer to our clients.
We’ve distilled Jason’s advice into an easy to read infographic summarising the key points: the 6 secrets of intelligent content marketing. Click here to download it.
