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Bridging commentary on the art & science of content; content marketing, branded content, native advertising and the analytics, attribution and intelligence that powers it.

End of 2021

Edition #350 14 business days left in the year, what the new year holds. One big thing If you take off between Christmas & New Years, there’s only 14 days left in 2021! What sort of things are you thinking about for the new year? If anything, I’m planning ahead on a few breaks, to keep me fresh. Sorting through the stories the last few months, it’s clear Web3 is going to continue to dominate conversations, with regulatory risk… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
December 3, 2021

Why Web3

Edition #349 Why are marketers flocking to Web3? Hint: there are now more of us than before. We have a one, maybe two content advisory slots available for the next quarter. If you’d like some help, do ping me. Next week we’re partnering with the Content Writing Jobs newsletter, a great place to post jobs but also if you’re looking for a new gig. One big thing Why are marketers flocking to Web3? And tokens? It’s what… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
November 23, 2021

Building a Measurement Plan

Adopted by media & enterprise teams, creating a measurement plan upfront helps ensure success but also puts rigor in to the marketing activity. It’s almost like a mini check in. A marketing measurement plan, outlines: Objective of the marketing activity Tangible things that need to be measured Relevant metrics for the objective Tools used Workflow to capture, QA and surface that data so it is actionable. Where plans often go wrong, is if this is created as a final step,… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
November 22, 2021

The Art of Benchmarking

This is a skill marketers should adopt, continuously benchmarking. benchmarking is identifying older performance from competitors or your own, and then comparing current performance against it. This creates a tension around finding areas to improve and helps prioritize the changes to get there. The process to create your own benchmarks is simple. Go in to your analytics platform Select data for the last quarter Write down the average performance Now use this as your benchmark for all new pieces of… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
November 22, 2021

Should you create new content or improve old?

The real question is what role can benchmarks play in measurement? It can provide the decision tree for creating new or improving old content. The art of benchmarking is a valuable skill. Once you know how you are performing contextualize performance in either industry or prior benchmarks. This helps dramatically and answers two simple questions, should I create new content, promote it more or simply improve my existing content? If under benchmarks, focus on improving existing content. If you’re… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
November 16, 2021

How should you invest in distribution? And what is a person anyway?

It’s a cliche to say quality over quantity. But with content, you need to unpack it a bit. First let’s explore quantity, because it really does matter. If you have invested in the content, you need to get it out there. As a guideline, you should invest (time or money equivalent) of 5 to 1. That is for every hour you invest in content production, you should invest 5 hours distributing it. Or simply allocate budgets that way. Measuring reach… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
November 16, 2021

Sharing some of my Company Car Proposals

I’ve long been a submitter of company car proposals to Slack or Twitter. Most companies opt for a rental agreement or a fleet of Audis/Fords etc but why not get something fun? There’s been a few submissions from me over the years (and yet we still have no company car) however here they are. These may not all be as micro-mobility friendly but there are some options there 🙂 Ariel Nomad I mean, these things look epic. Convenient to get in… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
September 7, 2021

Video Measurement API

Brands are creating their studios and in turn streaming services. With the express aim of building direct relationships with their market. For those seeking to understand the success of their streaming efforts. We offer a video measurement API. Enabling technology teams to send events, have them processed and then the results retrieved by API. Examples of reporting: Who is watching and whereMost popular contentRepeat watching of contentPopular times of day and days of weekDrop off rates, average view… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
September 1, 2021

Presenting, an ode to content

Content is the heart and soul of how brands communicate, yet great content doesn’t create itself. We share an ode to content and what it takes to create it. It all starts with an idea. The story is told through real work from the archives. Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
August 13, 2021

Advantages & Disadvantages of Content Marketing

This post explores the advantages and disadvantages of content marketing through the lens of two hypothetical companies.  Content marketing isn’t all gravy, so lets do a little exercise. We want you to imagine two firms, ContentCo and BoringCo. ContentCo embraces content marketing but BoringCo does not. BoringCo misses out on advantages of content marketing but benefits from the disadvantages. So who comes out on top? Let’s find out. Advantages ContentCo gains the benefits outlined: A bank of marketing assets that… Continue reading

Ben Young
Ben Young
July 28, 2021