Experiences- the 7th Era of Marketing

by Robert Rose

  The outline of this proposal might look like this:

  1. The Content Experience Mission, with three distinct parts

  • What is the valuable experience, separate from our product or service, that we can deliver? At what stage of the audience’s journey with our brand?

  • Who is this value for? What is the audience persona we are trying to reach?

  • What makes OUR approach to delivering this value unique?

  2. The Business Goals, with three distinct parts

  • What does success of the initiative look like? How will it contribute to the business? Does the initiative have more than one business goal?

  • What are the business goals? How long will it take for each goal to be met?

  • How will the initiative integrate into the overall business strategy (marketing, sales, customer service, PR, etc.)?

  3. The Story Map, a phased rollout over time

  • Narrative outline—How will the elements of the story be introduced over time?

  • Business goal phases—How will we demonstrate progress toward both the success of the initiative and its potential for meeting the business goal(s)?

  • Purpose-driven content—How will the balance of content needs change over time?

  • Channel strategy—How will different channels be used over time? Where will integration into existing content channels be required?

  A FRAMEWORK, NOT A TEMPLATE

  The critical idea to understand is that this is a framework, not a template. Some of these initiatives may be more relevant than others. Or, other content platforms may be introduced during different parts of the story mapping process.

  For example, the business may decide that instead of building an owned media platform (such as a blog or print magazine), it makes more sense to actually buy an existing publication that already has a built-in audience. Or, there may be a merger in which two companies suddenly find themselves managing one or more existing platforms. Or, there may be an existing platform or effort that exists, and the task for the CCM group is to create a “reason” for it to exist.

  In all these cases, many of the ingredients listed above can be an important factor in determining the ongoing viability and/or operating model for the platform. In short, it can be useful to go through all the steps, even though a new platform is not necessarily being created.

  Additionally, if the new project is quite large (as we’ll cover later), there may be a reason to try a “pilot” to test some of the initial assumptions prior to investing in a full-blown project. Conversely, not every project needs to go through such a stringent process. If the effort is small, or is designed to be temporal or seasonal, many of these ingredients can be skipped and/or truncated.

  The benefit of the story mapping process is its ability to communicate and represent an experience before it is actually developed. Its ultimate purpose may be to serve as the business case or “project vision” for a company. A great story map can be an effective way to make sure that every function in the business is represented and that everyone buys into the vision of what the experience will deliver.

  The story mapping process helps to organize content-driven experiences into a clear way to communicate the plan of making them a reality and manage them responsibly as a product vs. a campaign.

  STORY MAPPING – THE PROCESS

  STEP 1: SET THE VISION

  As mentioned, there are three ultimate outputs to our story map: the high-level vision of the value that will be delivered (the why and the who); the actual business goal, integration, and implementation strategy of the idea (the what); and the responsible management over time (the how we will achieve the vision).

  So, if we start with an idea, one of the first things we’ll do is determine whether it’s a good idea, and whether it’s truly valuable to the audience we’re trying to reach at that stage in their journey with the brand. To put it into different terms: What we’re trying to figure out here is the best story, and then determine whether that story is best told as a campfire story, a novel, a television show, a movie, or a series of movies.

  Start with Why

  Why is at the heart of the story we are trying to tell. It can help us uncover a great idea or expose a mediocre one. But how do we transform what might be a good idea into something that is uniquely valuable to our audience?

  One really great method to getting to this overarching story—or core value—is to go through an exercise called the “5 Whys.”

  The 5 Whys is a process developed by Sakichi Toyoda. It was originally used within Toyota Motors during the evolution of its (now) famous Toyota Production System. It has since been borrowed to be part of the Lean Startup and Agile methodologies. The process is simple: you state a problem, and then probe the “why” question five times (or thereabouts) until you get to the “root cause” of the problem. For each “why” asked, basically the answer is repeated as the question. Here’s an example.

  Problem: The living room is dark. We can’t see.

  The 5 Whys:

  1. Why is it dark? Because the light bulbs are not working.

  2. Why are they not working? Because the light bulbs are dead and burned out.

  3. Why are they dead and burned out? Because the light bulbs are old and should have been replaced.

  4. Why have they not been replaced? Because we didn’t know they needed to be replaced.

  5. Why did we not know they needed to be replaced (root cause)? Because we don’t have a way to track how old the light bulbs are.

  In this case, the root cause is NOT that the light bulbs are not working. That’s simply a symptom. The core issue is that we don’t have a method to track the age of the light bulbs. Therefore, we can’t predict when they will go out, or fix the greater problem, which is a dark room. Unless we get to the core, we will have to fix this problem again. So, fix the root cause and you can more effectively avoid the eventual problem in the future.

  There are extensions to the 5 Whys. And, certainly its weaknesses are well documented. But from the perspective of getting to the core aspect of our story from a base idea, asking “why” five (or more) times can be very beneficial.

  For example, here are the ideas that most people come up with when asked to create an idea that will work as a content-driven experience initiative:

  • Launch a blog that informs users on how to use the kind of product we sell.

  • Create a white paper series on the business benefits of the kind of service we provide.

  • Use a blog platform to curate news from our industry to position ourselves as thought leaders.

  • Create a branded content video that shows a funny actor doing silly things with our product.

  All of these might be innovative ideas to create a powerful customer experience. But let’s take one of these, the “curate news” idea, as an example and run it through our “whys” to get to the true purpose of that idea and how (if at all) it fits into our larger story. (Note: this example is purposely generic to make the point. We’re confident that you and your team will be much more creative here.)

  Idea: Use a blog platform to curate news from our industry to position us as thought leaders.

  Target Audience Persona: Our busy CIO customer.

  The 5 Whys:

  1. Why is curating news to position us as thought leaders important to the CIO?

  Because our CIO customer will see that we have our fingers on the pulse of our business and have a point-of-view on the industry.

  2. Why is it important that our CIO customer see that we have our fingers on the pulse and have a point-of-view on the industry?

  Because then our CIO customer will have more trust in what we say.

  3. Why is it important to our CIO customer to have more trust in what we say?

  Because developments in our industry are changing quickly. Our customers need a trusted partner to keep them on top of what’s going on.

  4. Why does our CIO customer n
eed a trusted partner to keep them on top of what’s going on in our industry?

  Because they are busy trying to be successful, and a trusted partner can help them be informed.

  5. Why is it important for our CIO customer’s success to be informed?

  Because if they’re informed about the industry from a trusted source, they will be more competitive—and can then be more successful.

  Interesting. Within five “whys” we go from a blog that’s focused on “positioning us as thought leaders” to a blog platform that “helps our customers be more competitive and successful.” That’s value to THEM. Now, here’s the intriguing part. You can go back and read those “whys” in reverse; with a little massaging and wordsmithing, you’ll have a pretty well-formed vision (or content mission) for your story.

  Now let’s look at our example and run it backward. (Yes, we’ve massaged this a little.)

  Our Mission:

  CIOs are busy, and more than ever they need a trusted advisor that will help them be more competitive and successful in their career. They need to be kept up to date with a fast-changing industry, and the evolving trends in the business. Our new content curation news platform strengthens the trust our customer has in us. Our goal is to help our CIO customer think of OUR BRAND as the knowledgeable advisor that keeps his/her finger on the pulse of the industry.

  See how it started with “why” (our core value) and worked backward to get to our original idea?

  If you wanted to dig deeper, you could continue to ask more questions. For example, “Why is it important that our customers are more competitive?” Each “why” takes a bigger and more important leap toward understanding the larger context of the customer’s world.

  This is an important point. You’ll notice that in the questioning, we immediately put the emphasis on “why” this is important to the audience. Creating value for them is the central point here. It’s not about us creating value for us.

  Now, not every idea is gold. In many instances you’ll find that the “whys” lead to something that’s not terribly interesting, so you can safely abandon the idea. But it’s the process that’s important. Just like with a child, developing the “whys” helps the inquisitive mind learn how to solve problems in a creative way. And, most importantly, it encourages the entrepreneurial idea of the joy of discovery. This becomes central to breeding a culture of innovation.

  Additionally, we can start to take these “core values” and determine if they can be expressed uniquely, or differentiated, for our brand. They become testable product ideas that can be researched.

  As Proust once said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but seeing with new eyes.” Asking “why” can certainly open them wider.

  Okay, so we have the “why” and the “who” for this particular vision, and we can look to see if our new idea is differentiated and aligned with our overall brand promise. Now we need to develop the “what.”

  STEP 2: SET THE OBJECTIVE FOR THE VISION

  As part of the framing of our new experience, we need to provide the reason why this “something” should be executed. So, the next step is to construct a definition of “what” we will create. To begin, we should start asking ourselves some important questions to assess the business value of the idea.

  • What business goal can we meet by creating this value? What are we trying to accomplish with this? Don’t confuse this with the success of the platform. The goal should be stated as a measurable business achievement (as outlined in Chapter 10). For example, drive X% more leads in X time. Or, create X% uplift in brand awareness. Or, create X% more value to the shopping cart.

  • What does success look like? When we launch a new product, we don’t expect it to hit sales goals two days after launch. Why do we expect the same of our content experiences? True success is almost never measured by when we launch an initiative, or even after we’ve had it “live” for some time. Success is achieved when we reach and sustain a minimally acceptable goal (or are highly confident that we will). Platform success may ultimately support more than one business goal—but only AFTER the platform has become successful.

  So, “minimally” is an important concept there. Too often, we set business goals based on what we “hope” the platform can achieve, or without knowing that even a big success will be woefully inefficient to affect the business. So, we start the map by projecting the minimally acceptable goal for success of the platform itself and THEN draw a picture of what success looks like when we meet this goal.

  • How good are we at delivering this value? In many cases, we are just building onto a brand promise that we are already making through other channels. So, in this case, it’s just about executing in a more focused and compelling way. However, it could also be that we are trying to remediate some brand damage (e.g., think of a PR crisis management situation). Or, our brand doesn’t have the “permission” to be extended to that value. For example, with all due respect, The Olive Garden restaurant is unlikely to be trusted as a tastemaker for fine Italian wines no matter what new content they put out. But could they use content to position themselves as a teacher of Italian wines more broadly? Well, maybe they can but it would fundamentally shift the purpose of content they would launch with. If we were the content marketers at The Olive Garden, we’d most likely need to change a lot of beliefs FIRST.

  We need to honestly assess our ability to deliver the value of the core story in order to estimate how long it’s going to take us to get there—or whether it can ever get us there. This will primarily affect the balance of our purpose-driven content mix.

  • How can we differentiate and deliver a different experience? This is really where the channel discussion should happen. Just because there already is a blog on the topic we want to cover doesn’t mean that we can’t launch a new topical blog. But, how will our approach be different? What can, or should, we add? Can we also differentiate on HOW we deliver the story?

  • How can this story become cross-channel and cross-functional? In other words, ask yourself how this idea will not only work across a blog or the sales function, but also across brand, public relations, social media, and other functions of the business. The best ideas are the ones that span the entire organization.

  One of our favorite tips for this came from a conversation with Jonathan Mildenhall, former VP of worldwide creative and advertising for Coca-Cola. Mildenhall had a mandate that any team pitching to him must first consider how the idea would be cross-functional. As a result, many teams obtained buy-in from the cross-functional team leads early on, and already had input on where the ideas could—or should—be executed. This is a great example of “inspiring the revolution” that we discussed in Chapter 6.

  Of course, you may think of additional questions that will help you draw a crisp and powerful argument for the business reasons behind an initiative. But, theoretically, you now have the insight to fill out the first two pieces of the story map.

  Our next step is to look at “how” the map will be planned and executed.

  STEP 3: SET THE MAP TO REALIZE THE VISION

  Once the initiative has a vision and a business reason to exist, we must then make it real. As we’ve discussed, there are important differences in the way that marketing groups construct plans for campaigns vs. a content marketing approach.

  In a traditional marketing or advertising campaign, we want to understand the campaign goals and tracking, the target audience, the key campaign messages, the offers, the media strategies, and the schedule and campaign integration. Many of these are similar to the construction of a content marketing approach.

  But there is one critical—and often overlooked—difference. This experience really has no end. It’s not a campaign. It’s a content product.

  In this regard, the mapping, building, and ultimate management of the content-driven experience looks much more like product development than it does a traditional marketing campaign.

  We’ve
examined in the previous step how to frame this initiative for addition to the business’s portfolio. We’ve defined an idea, created a core proposed value for the audience, and created a business goal and a timeframe to reach both. These will now form the basis for creating the map for how to execute the initiative.

  The mapping step is vital in executing an effectively managed content marketing initiative. It should be managed differently than a traditional marketing campaign, because we will need to create measurement strategies that enable us to launch it, modify it, manage it, and then sustain or decommission through the lens of permanence. The first operational difference is to change the order in which the planning will take place. Normally, when creating a marketing campaign or project, the first thing we do is discuss the milestones in the following order: