Page 25 - The Content Code: Six essential strategies to ignite your content, your marketing, and your business - PDFDrive.com

CHAPTER TWO

Structure, Strategy, and the Content Code

“If it keeps on raining, levee’s gonna break.”
– Bob Dylan

This chapter examines what your content marketing strategy needs to look like
in this Formula One–fast digital world, and I introduce the specific elements of
the Content Code that are unpacked throughout the rest of the book.

But to kick things off, I need to talk about soup.
“Soup?” you say. “I bought this book to learn about soup?”
Trust me. I need to bring out the broth to tell a little tale that illustrates how
marketers must think about content and marketing strategy differently in this era
of information density and hyper-competition.
My friend Robert runs a downtown restaurant that specializes in soup. He had
the very bright idea to partner with a local car dealership to offer potential
customers a free lunch of delicious soup every Thursday (SOUPER
THURSDAY!). The car dealer figured the small cost of some good soup was an
intelligent investment in customer acquisition. And he was right! Every
Thursday his store was flooded with people seeking Robert’s soup. Life was
good.
But then a competing car dealership down the street woke up and realized the
advantage of the free lunch offer. The competitor started offering sandwiches
and salads head-to-head with Robert every Thursday. The competitor even threw
in his wife’s famous home-baked cookies for dessert!
Suddenly, Robert and his dealership partner saw Souper Thursday visits drop
dramatically. Most customers abandoned his modest soup menu for the
competitor’s tastier offering. The dealership owner turned to Robert and said,
“Look what’s happening! The soup isn’t working anymore. We need something
bigger and better! Steaks! Lobster! A dessert buffet! Starting this week, you
need to be making epic gourmet food!”
Now how was Robert going to do that? He had limited resources and a one-