Discovering New Content One Opportunity at a Time

Kevin Mullett revealed our Content Opportunity Report to the world to rave reviewsnot too long ago. Simply put, this report offers a way to evaluate opportunities for generating content across one or multiple marketing channels. It is an excellent planning tool that empowers chief marketing officers as well as other marketing and communications professionals to think through how they can achieve their content objectives before actually trying to assemble an editorial calendar.

I’m a big fan of editorial calendars! Anyone who appreciates the importance of content to their online marketing objectives will need a plan for producing that content, especially if they have limited content production resources.An editorial calendar can be a big help in visualizing such a plan.

Now, I have spoken with lots of people about the importance of editorial calendars and I often hear they have a hard time putting one together. There are as many reasons as there are days in a month as to why one doesn’t get done. I can sympathize – the assets at an organization’s disposal and the opportunities to leverage them may seem to be abstract concepts. Additionally, it is challenging for large organizations to effectively “crowdsource” the information about content opportunities that may be available throughout their respective organizations.

The Content Opportunity Report should be of value to organizations that have struggled to put together their own editorial calendar because it helps direct the brainstorming phase of calendar development. Instead of focusing on when content needs to be written, the Content Opportunity Report, or COR, for short, focuses on when things happen that can be written about. Let’s look at the COR one section at a time.

I created a report using a fictitious lawn service company as an example. this lawn service company happens to be run by three young guys and their miserly uncle – any similarities to a popular 80’s cartoon program are completely coincidental! I examinied the first few months of the year and thought through what types of events might be important to this company. some examples are simple things like holidays or important historical dates. I also thought through what types of promotion activities might normally take place during this time of year as well as any “typical” activities that may not track with a particular date. Once I had all this down I just noted how frequently different events occur so I can easily take stock of their future occurrences.

The next step is simple enough: identify what type of content would be used in conjunction with a particular even and what assets are available to help support that content. Once you take this simple step you need to think about the effort it will take to complete the content and estimate the value you think this opportunity will provide to your organization. Both of these factors (effort and value) are gauged on a scale of 1 through 5, with five representing the most effort or the most value. When you have completed the fields for these factors, the COR will color-code the priority field to provide a quick, visual clue indicating the importance of this content opportunity.

The final steps in the process have you identify what you want to talk about in relation to the content opportunity and who you plant to talk to about it. Identifying the person in charge of making that content happen, what channel will be used to distribute it, and how it will be promoted is important, and fields are included in the COR to help guide your thought process about the content opportunity and what you hope it will achieve.

This report allows marketers in organizations where such information might be diffused or spread across many individuals or departments to collect critical details in a methodical manner and present them in one neat “package” to facilitate intelligent decision making. Maybe you have your departments complete only the basic fields while you do the rest. You could have your departments also assess the value of the opportunities themselves. The internal dynamics of how the COR is used will vary from organization to organizations. The key takeaway is that chief marketing officers, or others in charge of managing these content opportunities, now have a clear, concise way to gather information needed to make critical decisions about how to prioritize their time.

Get started discovering content opportunities in your organization.Download our Content Opportunity Report today!