Take Me Out to the Content Marketing Ballgame
Photo source: Keith Allison on flickr.
The Los Angeles Dodgers opened the 2014
Major League Baseball season against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the historic
Sydney Cricket Ground. The venue was fully renovated for the occasion. The
stadium has a capacity of 40,000 fans. The
Dodgers won, 3-1.
Baseball means many things to many people.
For some, baseball is a sport and an opportunity to exercise. For others, it’s
an opportunity to relax, watch a good game, and enjoy a frosty beverage. And
for many others, baseball is a game that can be studied: it’s a chess match
where the strategy can be broken down play by play and the numbers can be
analyzed.
Baseball is Like Content Marketing
What does baseball have to do with content marketing?
Well, content marketing is also a game that can be studied, it’s also a chess
match where the strategy can be broken down play by play and the results can be
analyzed for future decisions. Actually, baseball and content marketing have a
number of similarities.
In this blog I’m going to go over
three
similarities between baseball and content marketing. I’m sure you can think of
a few more so don’t be shy and share them in the Comments area.
1) Content Marketing is a numbers game
Baseball statistics. Photo courtesy of Mike Myers on flickr.
In baseball, everything can be measured and
the numbers can be used to predict the likelihood of future events. For
example, the likelihood that the batter will get on base is captured in a
metric called On Base Percentage (OBP).
Similarly, with content marketing,
everything can be tracked. At any time you should be able to know the number of
times a piece of content has been viewed, the bounce rate, the number of times
visitors completed a call to action, the sources, the devices, and more. This information can help you predict the likelihood of events happening in
future pieces of content you publish.
2) Content Marketing is a team sport
You can’t win a baseball game with just one
good player and content marketing is the same. You need a complete team that
includes great content creators, an editor, a creative director or designer,
and a leader. Ann Handley of MarketingProfs published a great post that
highlights a content marketing team (complete with an org chart).
3) Content Marketing requires training
While content marketing is over one hundred
years old, it’s only until we became more connected through the internet that it
is getting widely adopted within organizations. This means that many
organizations are just getting familiar with content marketing, and like
baseball, it takes practice to get good at it. In your first few tries, you may
strike out, but don’t be disappointed, keep practicing and you’ll be hitting
home runs in no time.
Conclusion
Like baseball, there’s a high level of
strategy behind content marketing. It requires a great team to win games, and
your team probably won’t start winning the first time they put on the uniform.
Now it’s your turn.
Use the Comments area
below
to tell us what other similarities you see between baseball and Content
Marketing. Thanks!