Before we dive in, did you see how KFC apologized for their chicken shortage in the UK? It’s a three-letter piece of (fowl-mouthed?) copywriting that turned
a hangry Twitter flock around. Perhaps even more impressive are their on-brand FAQs covering the fiasco.
This isn’t typically how I’d start a content strategy convo, but it does bring up a few issues a good content strategist has to be prepared for:
Staying on-brand when things go south*
Being empathetic when things go south
The key to great content is empathy. It’s a LOT easier
to get someone to care about what you’re saying if you’re talking about something that’s already on their minds. Bottom line: your content strategy should build empathetic muscle memory for your writers.
* Not in any way a reference to Kentucky
***
How Stash reached a million millennials Stash Invest is a fintech startup that helps low-income millennials start investing today—with a minimum investment of just five dollars.
They racked up a million users in their first three years. 2017 was a heavy content year for Stash, and they’re hiring more content talent, too.
So Overthink Group took a spin through their content to see what any company could learn about Stash’s approach. Check it out here.
Stories are coming to the SERPS Did you catch the announcement of Google’s AMP stories earlier this month?
The search giant is rolling out a visually-rich,
mobile-first means of getting news and info into the search results. At first glance, it looks a LOT like Snapchat for SERPs.
It’s still in the
experimental stages, so … not a lot of action items on this yet. (You can request access here.)
Why is this important? Google has got us accustomed to seeing those fast-answer featured snippets.
That works well when I want to know who invented the bifocals or who founded the Roanoke colony (hint: he was such a stupid get).
But for the nearly 15,000 people who Google "what is the electoral college" every month, there’s just not a quick, text-only answer.
My guess: Google will eventually use AMP stories to answer more nuanced questions—like richer, more engaging featured snippets.
How will they rank AMP stories? Dunno.
Will small and mid-size brands be able to use them? I doubt many brands will find it worth their time to build AMP stories for a while. Unless, or course, Google does most of the work for them. We’ve seen Google create simple cat movies from our photos—who’s to say they won’t be turning existing blog posts into low-key animated stories too?
Want to get more free trials? Here are 10 case studies to drop at your next meeting
Your boss/client: "Hey, we’re not getting enough free trials. Any ideas for how we could get more?"
You: "Yeah, 10 of ‘em."
Overthink’s Ryan Nelson did one of his mighty manual web crawls to find 10 successful trial acquisition case studies. Read his 5,300-word teardown of these documented success stories on the Overthink blog, including:
How DropBox got 4 million users in 15 months
How Groove HQ’s blog provides a steady trial pipeline
How a new homepage video increased trials by 34%
Enjoy!
Enterprise growth + content
In case you missed it, Shopify just published an enormous stack of quotes on enterprise-level growth-hacking from, well, enterprise growth hackers.
A few that you’ll
want to bring to your next content meeting:
Aatif Awan, VP of Growth & International Products at LinkedInadvocates for focusing on product-market fit first, then investing in growth.
He advises making content part of the product itself—letting "existing users bring in new users whether through direct invites or content that draws them in." He cites it as a "far superior growth strategy" than the traditional awareness marketing treadmill.
Rob Alderson, VP of Content and Editor in Chief at WeTransfer weighs in with some content context: "As someone with a content background, I think it’s important to build long-term relationships – slow and steady wins the race. Be more tortoise."
Facebook ad metrics are changing
Facebook is removing 19 ad metrics from their ad management platform—metrics they feel are redundant, outdated, or rarely used. Jon Loomer has the whole story here.
Keep this in mind as you’re planning your long-term content promotions, especially if you’re tracking "People Taking Action," "Social Reach," or any of the other soon-to-be-repealed metrics.
If you love a B2B marketer …
You ought to tell them about this newsletter BEFORE next Monday. Overthink Group is releasing a guide to B2B SEO strategy that will help any marketer understand the particularities of SEO in a B2B context, plus a walkthrough for building your own B2B SEO strategy.
