Summary5 min read

The Digital Marketing Podcast

Episode: The Science of Content Marketing
Hosts: Daniel Rowles & Ciaran Rogers
Date: August 6, 2017

Overview: Main Theme & Purpose

This episode focuses on introducing a structured, scientific approach to content marketing—treating it as a product launch rather than a scattergun publishing exercise. Daniel Rowles and Ciaran Rogers explore why content overload is diluting impact and how marketers can dramatically improve results by slowing down, optimizing, and maximizing every stage of the content lifecycle.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Content Marketing Noise Problem

The digital landscape is flooded with content, making it harder for brands to stand out.
Daniel Rowles: "There's at least 50 years of content uploaded to YouTube every day now. So there's just this huge amount of content. Doesn't mean anyone's actually watching it." (01:06)
Solution: Quality over quantity. Invest in fewer, better pieces of content.

2. Treat Content Like a Product

Content IS the product, and should be launched and marketed with similar rigour.
Ciaran Rogers: "Publishers have known...since the invention of the printing press, that actually content is the product. So why wouldn't you apply products, launch and marketing skills to content?" (02:28)
Apply product launch thinking:
- Pre-launch
- Launch
- Ongoing (post-launch)

3. The Science of Pre-Launch: Ask the Right Questions

Before publishing, marketers must answer:
1. Who is the audience? What personas are being targeted?
2. Where does the content fit in the user journey?
3. What action is desired after engagement?
4. How will the audience find the content?
5. Why would they share it? What value does it provide them?
If clear answers aren’t available, revisit the content plan. (01:32)

4. Research & Insights: Data-Driven Topic Selection

Don't rely on intuition—leverage tools to find trends and validate topics:
- answerthepublic.com: Uncovers the questions people actually ask.
- Google Keyword Planner & Trends: Identifies keyword demand & search patterns.
- buzzsumo.com: Reveals most-shared competitor content.
- Social monitoring tools.
"Go get some insights...You might use Google Trends, you might use social monitoring tools to work out what people are talking about." (03:27)

5. Planning Outreach & Promotion

Prepare outreach lists for advocates and influencers before launch.
Consider giving exclusives/early access to influential advocates.
Outreach in three stages:
1. Pre-launch: Prepare your advocates & influencers.
2. Launch: Execute social, paid, and email campaigns.
3. Post-launch: Ongoing follow-up and promotion.

6. Launch Best Practices

Multi-angle, multi-format social media posts; vary timing for maximum exposure.
- Tool tip: tweriod.com for optimal tweet timing.
Use paid social to expand reach, single-topic emails for big announcements.
Promote across your digital "real estate": website, apps, and cross-linking content.
Seek guest-posting opportunities to drive traffic.
Include influencer quotes/comments to increase sharing likelihood. (06:50)

7. Ongoing Content Optimization

Don't "publish and forget." Use analytics to:
1. See what content performs.
2. Iterate and do more of what works.
3. Revamp/refresh historical content rather than always building new.
4. Repurpose successful content for different verticals/audiences.
Example: Updating a popular SEO tools comparison twice a year yields ongoing traffic and link-building benefits.
Daniel Rowles: “We don’t just rewrite it, we just update it twice a year. And actually, that means it’s built more links over the long term.” (09:15)
Build and maintain a content leaderboard to track top-performing pieces and emulate success (10:30).

8. Tools, Processes, and Metrics

Use a content calendar to schedule both publication and revisiting/updating old content.
Standardize image creation with tools like Canva for cross-platform social sharing.
Set up clear metrics in analytics: measure not just traffic, but conversion and role in customer journey.
Leverage attribution modeling to understand content’s impact on the broader marketing funnel.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“If I can’t answer those questions effectively, I need to go back to the drawing board a little bit.”
— Daniel Rowles (01:57)
“The perceived value of content has potentially gone down...more and more terrible content. For a long time, if you wanted to write a book, you had to go to a publisher...Now, suddenly, because you can self-publish, there's no filters.”
— Daniel Rowles (03:03)
“We started writing news stories that answer questions very specifically...400-word blog post that explained what [the new social feature] was. They're driving thousands and thousands of visits to our website every month because we're very specifically matching what people are searching for to a blog post, but we're doing it before the traffic even existed.”
— Daniel Rowles (08:19)

Timestamps for Key Segments

00:19 — Episode theme introduced: The science of content marketing.
01:06 — Challenge of content overload.
01:32 — Essential pre-launch questions to answer.
02:28 — Content as a product: parallels with publishing.
03:27 — Tools and research for content planning.
04:58 — Planning outreach and leveraging advocates/influencers.
06:50 — Launch strategy and multi-channel promotion.
08:19 — Example: Ultra-specific, fast-turnaround content for SEO wins.
09:15 — Updating/refreshing evergreen content.
10:30 — Building a content leaderboard.
11:27 — Tools & process tips (Canva, calendars, analytics).
11:52 — Closing recommendations: Treat content as a product, slow down, and maximize value.

Tone and Language

Friendly, practical, and conversational. Daniel and Ciaran speak directly to digital marketers, using a mixture of examples, tool recommendations, and actionable steps.

Summary Table: Core Takeaways

| Stage | Key Actions | Tools/Techniques | |-----------------------|-----------------------------------|---------------------------------| | Pre-Launch | Ask critical questions, research | answerthepublic, BuzzSumo, etc. | | Launch | Multi-channel promo, outreach | Social, Email, Paid, tweriod | | Ongoing Optimization | Analyze, iterate, refresh, repurpose | Analytics, Content leaderboard, Canva |

For more details, references, and downloadable resources, visit targetinternet.com/podcast.

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Transcript7 lines

[00:00]
A
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by targetinternet.com hello, and welcome back to the Digital Marketing Podcast. My name is Kieran Rogers.
[00:19]
B
And I'm Daniel Rolls.
[00:20]
A
And today, Daniel, we're talking about the science of content marketing.
[00:24]
B
We are. So where this comes from is I've been running a course with a few of my clients which we're calling the Science of Content Marketing. And one of the things that came out was that we'd been talking about content marketing forever. And if you ever see me speaking at a conference or anything like that, the first thing I'll just say is the level of noise has got ridiculous. And essentially what's happened is that content marketing is great. The idea you create content to engage with your audience and demonstrate value and so on. But everyone's doing content marketing, which means there is a phenomenal amount of content. The example I always give is that there is at least 50 years of content uploaded to YouTube every day now. So there's just this huge amount of content. Doesn't mean anyone's actually watching it, doesn't mean that anyone's engaging with it necessarily, but there's this huge volumes of stuff. So what I would suggest, and I've said this before as well, is that I would suggest you do less, but do it better. So really focus on the quality of your content. But if that's the case, you really want to maximize the impact that your content's having. So what we suggest is that you treat the launch of your content like a kind of product launch. So therefore what you have is a prior stage before you launch, a launch, and then ongoing kind of post launch. And if you think about it like that, what you should be able to do is have a lot more impact with your content. So prior to launch, couple of things to think about. The first thing you're trying to do is ask the right questions and make sure you can actually answer these. The first one is, why are they going to love this content? So that means you need to know who your target audience is and who the Personas are. Who are the particular people you're targeting this at, where it fits into their user journey? What action do I want them to take after this? Is it about changing their mind, their brand awareness? Do I want them to click on something, fill in a form, whatever it may be? How are they going to find it in the first place? Am I expecting to fall across it? Am I expecting to search for it? Am I expecting them to see it on my social channels? And then why Would they share it? What value does it provide if they share it? Does it make them look good? Does it make them look like a thought leader? Is it just really fascinating, whatever it is? And if I can't answer those questions effectively, I need to go back to the drawing board a little bit.
[02:28]
A
Really interesting process because I think by its very nature it slows things down and means you're not just trying to throw as much up there as you can and see what sticks. The other thing I think is really interesting about that approach, Daniel, I have to be honest, I've never thought about it quite like this before, but I'm very intrigued by what you're suggesting. There is that actually publishers have known since they started publishing, back when the invention of the printing press, that actually content is the product. So why wouldn't you apply products, launch and marketing skills to content completely?
[03:04]
B
I mean, what's happened is as it's become easier to publish content, the perceived value of content has potentially gone down. But also we've got more and more terrible content. So for a long time, if you wanted to write a book, you would have to go to a publisher, you'd have to put in a proposal, they would analyze it, they'd look at the marketplace, they would suggest tweaks to it, you'd write it, it would be copy edited, it would be changed and eventually have this kind of very polished product that comes out. Whereas suddenly, because you could self publish, there's no filters. So the quality, the volume's gone up phenomenally, the quality has gone down in many, many cases. Not that self published books can't be fantastic, they can be incredible, just as good as any other type of book. But there aren't the same filters, which is great, I actually think, because it means there's so much great stuff out there. But it means that the quality and the filtering processes are maybe missing to some extent. So you've got to ask those questions, but you also need to gather insights. If I'm going to write an article about a particular topic, I shouldn't just go, right, that's the title of the topic. I need to go off and work out what else people have done that's been popular. What are the keywords that people search for? So a couple of tools that we would always use, start with something like answerthepublic.com that will tell you the questions people are asking about a particular topic. And again, all these tools will be in the show notes targetinternet.com podcast so you go get some insights that you might use the keyword planner from Google, you might use Google Trends, you might use some social monitoring tools to work out what people are talking about. I would Also look@buzzsumo.com buzzsumo.com, you can put a website domain in and it will tell you what's the most shared content on that website. So I can just put my competitor's website in and it will tell me which bits of content the website have been the most popular in terms of getting shares. Because that's going to start to tell me what's the kind of stuff that I should probably be talking about, what are the words that I should be using. So I'm really maximizing the bang for buck that I get the actual impact on my content. Then what you want to do at this prior to launch stage is plan your promotions. So are there a series of tweets that you're going to send out? Could you display campaigns at this stage as well? And I would also create outreach lists which are essentially who are the people that I'm gonna send this out to upon launch? Who are the advocates? Those people always nice say stuff about us. Who are those people that always share our stuff? My advocates. And then who are the influencers? Who are the people that have got access to my audience? Now there might be some people that you give this too early. You might go through and say, right, sneak peek for someone, you've always been an advocate of ours or you're a great influencer. We're gonna give this piece of content a week before anyone else and we're gonna tell you we're gonna do it exclusively and you can do what you. So they kind of might let it leak it out before you even get it out there, but you've got them to share it for you. So you should have this process in place prior to launch. Then when you launch your content, you do a series of things. You are going to launch on social organically. So you're going to tweet and Facebook and LinkedIn all the different channels you use. But don't just do a single tweet. Write a series of tweets that come at from a different angle and do them at different times of day. Optimize the right time of day using a tool like tweriod.com also think about paid social. Where are the opportunities for paying for visibility for this content to increase your audience as well? Do a launch email. Don't be scared of doing single topic emails. And very often we'll send A newsletter that's got kind of six articles in it actually, why not do an email that's got the one thing in it? If it's a great piece of content, then do an email that does that. Promote it across all your online real estate. So basically, if you have got a website and you've got apps, wherever it may be, promote the content in different places, highlight it on the homepage, go through to other bits of your website, cross post between different bits of content as well. Look for guest blogging opportunities at this stage. So where else can you go and talk about this particular piece of topic and then point back to it? So not talking about we've got a great piece of content, but more actually talking about the topic, an excerpt and then going through and linking through to the whole thing. And then complete that outreach process, go out to all those people that you've listed as advocates and influencers and say, look, we've got this new piece of content, we thought you might be interested as well. The other thing you can do at the kind of prior stage is get comments and quotes from influencers and include them in the content and they are more likely to share it from that point of view then afterwards you shouldn't just publish and forget about it. What you then really want to do is go through the process of, of ongoing promotion. So one thing that we found that's really interesting is we always go back to our analytics and we try to work out what contents worked and what hasn't. And it's fascinating me recently because we do basically two forms of content. When we're doing written stuff, we do long form, kind of two and a half thousand words or more. And then we do these short form news stories about four or five hundred words. And I wasn't convinced necessarily the short form stuff was really working for from an SEO point of view anymore. I've been proved completely wrong. So what's happened is that we started writing news stories that answer questions very specifically when new technology platforms come out. So Google brought out their Google preferred platform for YouTube and if you search what is Google preferred, you can find out all about it. But that's exactly what we thought people would do because people won't understand it. So we did a blog post. What is Google preferred? How to Facebook live stream from a desktop, what is LinkedIn content search. So every time one of these kind of new changes would happen within a social platform, we would do a 400 word blog post that explained what it was. They're driving thousands and thousands of Visits to our website every month because we're very specifically matching what people are searching for to a blog post, but we're doing it before the traffic even existed. So we're basically monitoring the blogs of Google and all these different places pick up a news story, getting a blog post out really quickly. And there's a bit of a first lead advantage to kind of doing that. Google picks you up and if you've optimized it well and people are linking through to it, you end up coming up the top of the search engines. So you need to iterate, you need to go in and see what works in your analytics and do more of that stuff. We've seen that our tips and tools episodes of the podcast and on the blog posts are really popular. So we do more of those. But think about revamping content as well. We have a very, very popular SEO tools comparison report on the website that's been driving thousands of visitors every month for years. And we don't just rewrite it, we just update it twice a year. And actually that means it's built more links over the long term. So it's not about just doing new stuff, it's about revamping stuff. So optimize your kind of historical content. We saw another one that was a guide to YouTube templates, so a guide to YouTube channels, and it was very popular. So it's basically, how do you set up your own YouTube channel? So we then went and said, what about if we put some templates in? What if we add an infographic? Let's really expand this and make it a better piece of content. And that's gone up to the top of the search engines as well. So you're optimizing, you're iterating. I would also do a content leaderboard. So what are the 20 most popular bits of content that you've produced? And learn from that and keep updating that leaderboard as you go through as well. Now we've got a model for this process which we'll pop into the show notes as well, so you can find those. But think prior to launch, get your insights, ask the right questions and plan your outreach. Launch. Do your launch emails, do your organic social, do your paid for social and go through and complete that outreach process. Maybe think about promoting across your own real estate as well and look for any kind of blogging opportunities. And then on an ongoing basis, go back and revisit your content, revamp it, optimize it, have a leaderboard. The other thing I haven't mentioned with that Ongoing as well is think about repurposing for different industries. So if you've got a complete guide to Facebook, that's great. How about you then say a complete guide to Facebook for business. To business, A complete guide to Facebook for retail. And you could go through that process of just updating your content and get more from that content as well. Now, what's important with all of this as well is you build this process, but there are also some tools to make you more efficient. So think about things like your content calendar, how that really fits in with this as well. Build revisiting your content into your content calendar so you remember to go back to those things as well. Think about the process of when you do a blog post, who's going to go and create all the different social images? What size images do you need? Can you have templates? That makes it very easy to create images for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, wherever else it may be, so you can very quickly get that content out. So a tool like Canva, which is an online graphics package, will make life really easy to do that because they have standard templates and you can then edit those as you go through. So drive through that process, but make sure you're tracking against metrics so key metrics get goals set up in analytics. It's great if a piece of content drives over traffic to your website, but is it the right type of traffic? So you probably want to look at the connection between that traffic and how many people end up converting where that sits in your overall kind of path. So then you might look at attribution modeling. And we've talked about attribution modeling in a recent podcast episode as well. So take a look at that if you haven't. So treat your content as if it were a product, value it and actually think before launch and post launch. And you're just going to get a lot more value from the content you're doing. So slow the process down a little bit, really give it a bit more thought and you'll essentially end up with more bang per buck. You'll get more from what you're actually doing rather than just being desperate to get stuff out the door. So thanks for listening. Tell us how your process is going. As ever, if you come through to targetinternet.com podcast, you can see the show notes, previous episodes, but all the other ways of contacting us as well. So the LinkedIn group and so on as well. Hope you found this useful and we'll see you again on the digital marketing podcast.
[12:55]
A
Thanks for listening. To another episode of the Digital Marketing Podcast brought to you by Target Internet. If you'd like to get more information on the show, get hold of back issues of this podcast, or get details on any of the links we mentioned, please visit our website at www.targetinternet.com. if you've enjoyed the show, we would love to read your feedback. Please rate us in itunes or even better, write us a review. Or if you have any questions, please get in touch. We'd love to help.